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Actor Jim Nabors Marries Male Partner


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You, go girl! Gomer! ;)

 

Actor Jim Nabors marries male partner in Seattle

 

HONOLULU (AP) — The actor best known for playing the TV character Gomer Pyle in the 1960s has married his male partner of 38 years.

 

Hawaii News Now (http://bit.ly/14tFM3U) reports Jim Nabors and his partner, Stan Cadwallader, traveled from their Honolulu home to Seattle to be married Jan. 15.

 

Gay marriage became legal in Washington state last month.

 

The 82-year-old Nabors says you've got to solidify something when you've been together as long as they have. They couple met in 1975 when Cadwallader was a Honolulu firefighter. Cadwallader is 64.

 

Nabors says he's been open about his homosexuality to co-workers and friends but never acknowledged it to the media before.

 

Nabors played Gomer Pyle in "The Andy Griffith Show" and "Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C." television shows.

 

* * * * *

Information from: KGMB-TV, http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/

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Congrats to Jim and Stan! Jim always seemed like such a nice man even though I wasn't crazy about his Gomer Pyle character or show although I watched the reruns like all kids did in the early 1970's. He's like Carol Burnett's closest friend and has been for decades so obviously he's a great person. He has a very conservative fan base thanks to The Andy Griffith Show so it was pretty brave of him to announce this, I hope he's treated well by all.

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This is a surprise but it isn't. There have been rumors over the years speculating that Mr. Nabors was gay. Of course, nobody could tell if it was true or not given that it was such a personal matter. So now it is laid down to rest for once and for all and fans don't have to keep wondering.

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This is a surprise but it isn't. There have been rumors over the years speculating that Mr. Nabors was gay. Of course, nobody could tell if it was true or not given that it was such a personal matter. So now it is laid down to rest for once and for all and fans don't have to keep wondering.

Wasn't there a rumor in the olden days that he had married Rock Hudson in secret?
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You, go girl! Gomer! ;)

 

Actor Jim Nabors marries male partner in Seattle

 

HONOLULU (AP) — The actor best known for playing the TV character Gomer Pyle in the 1960s has married his male partner of 38 years.

 

Hawaii News Now (http://bit.ly/14tFM3U) reports Jim Nabors and his partner, Stan Cadwallader, traveled from their Honolulu home to Seattle to be married Jan. 15.

 

Gay marriage became legal in Washington state last month.

 

The 82-year-old Nabors says you've got to solidify something when you've been together as long as they have. They couple met in 1975 when Cadwallader was a Honolulu firefighter. Cadwallader is 64.

 

Nabors says he's been open about his homosexuality to co-workers and friends but never acknowledged it to the media before.

 

Nabors played Gomer Pyle in "The Andy Griffith Show" and "Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C." television shows.

 

* * * * *

Information from: KGMB-TV, http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/

Funny, came on here to write about it, just read it a few minutes ago on a blog. But thought Shel had beaten me to it when i read HER thread called SURPRISE, SURPRISE, SURPRISE, which was his catch phrase on his show, LOL!
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That's so awesome! I hadn't realized he was even still alive.

 

LOL, I have this image of Barney Fife coming to terms with this. "ANDY, GOMER'S GAY!"

 

I dunno about that. Barney wasn't the brightest bulb in Mayberry. And the fact that homosexuality was a hush-hush issue back in the day. He probably didn't know what the word "gay" meant. I can see Andy having to explain it all to him. And afterwards Barney being dazzled and confused.

 

 

 

 

Wasn't there a rumor in the olden days that he had married Rock Hudson in secret?

 

I wouldn't doubt it. There were all kinds of rumors back in the day regarding people who were perceived to be gay.

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Well now Lou Ann Poovie's suspicions can be laid to rest once and for all.

 

Wasn't there a rumor in the olden days that he had married Rock Hudson in secret?

 

This was a different time. Some venomous fishwife sent out wedding invitations for the two of them as a 'joke' Rock and Jim were good friends, but avoided contact after this. Unfortunate that this was enough of a career ruining threat that they had to resort to this. You cannot blame these people for staying in the closet, especially those from that era. Coming out was out of the question, but the mere rumor could spark panic. The lying, the duplicity they had to go through: it must have been very wearing on the soul. Worse for 'romantic lead' Rock, I suppose since he was a higher profile star. Rock, unfairly, is remembered now more for his death than his career

 

Does anyone know if Nabors still performs? Or if not, the last time he did?

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Well now Lou Ann Poovie's suspicions can be laid to rest once and for all.

 

 

 

This was a different time. Some venomous fishwife sent out wedding invitations for the two of them as a 'joke' Rock and Jim were good friends, but avoided contact after this. Unfortunate that this was enough of a career ruining threat that they had to resort to this. You cannot blame these people for staying in the closet, especially those from that era. Coming out was out of the question, but the mere rumor could spark panic. The lying, the duplicity they had to go through: it must have been very wearing on the soul. Worse for 'romantic lead' Rock, I suppose since he was a higher profile star. Rock, unfairly, is remembered now more for his death than his career

 

Does anyone know if Nabors still performs? Or if not, the last time he did?

Nope i dun't but he looks great for his age. Read up on him today and after he quit PYLE he tried a variety series to showcase his singing talents. Neil, look up the new Sal Mineo bio, just fascinating on this subject.
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Nope i dun't but he looks great for his age. Read up on him today and after he quit PYLE he tried a variety series to showcase his singing talents. Neil, look up the new Sal Mineo bio, just fascinating on this subject.

 

Gomer Pyle was one of CBS's most successful shows of the 60s. . It placed in the top 2 or 3, including its last season--- every year except one when they moved it from its Friday slot. It's 5 year run cut short only because Nabors wanted to do a variety series. They most certainly had run out of plots for a bumbling marine, who at the height of the Vietnam War was still stationed in California. The variety series did well its first year 69-70 (#12, I think). The 2nd year it was opposite the first season of NBC's break-out hit Flip Wilson (which was in turn done in a couple seasons later by CBS's Waltons). Nabors's show still did well enough in its 2nd season to place in the top 30, but fell victim to the 1971 prime time cut back when CBS got rid of shows that appealed mainly to older viewers. (Rumor has it that CBS's highest rated show of the 70-71 season: one "Here's Lucy" was on the list too, but spared). Nabors , though not 'rural' per se, was lumped in the "rural purge" as it was called which included Mayberry, Green Acres, hillbillies, Hee Haw, Andy Griffith's new one-season series. Of those, only Mayberry, Hee Haw and Nabors placed in the top 30. Andy's comeback series was actually 2: "Headmaster" set in some private school which failed to be replaced by "The NEW Andy Griffith Show"---putting NEW in the title always spelled early death--a desperate return to more familiar territory--Andy as the mayor, this time of a small North Carolina town. I saw neither. Did anyone else?

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Gomer Pyle was one of CBS's most successful shows of the 60s. . It placed in the top 2 or 3, including its last season--- every year except one when they moved it from its Friday slot. It's 5 year run cut short only because Nabors wanted to do a variety series. They most certainly had run out of plots for a bumbling marine, who at the height of the Vietnam War was still stationed in California. The variety series did well its first year 69-70 (#12, I think). The 2nd year it was opposite the first season of NBC's break-out hit Flip Wilson (which was in turn done in a couple seasons later by CBS's Waltons). Nabors's show still did well enough in its 2nd season to place in the top 30, but fell victim to the 1971 prime time cut back when CBS got rid of shows that appealed mainly to older viewers. (Rumor has it that CBS's highest rated show of the 70-71 season: one "Here's Lucy" was on the list too, but spared). Nabors , though not 'rural' per se, was lumped in the "rural purge" as it was called which included Mayberry, Green Acres, hillbillies, Hee Haw, Andy Griffith's new one-season series. Of those, only Mayberry, Hee Haw and Nabors placed in the top 30. Andy's comeback series was actually 2: "Headmaster" set in some private school which failed to be replaced by "The NEW Andy Griffith Show"---putting NEW in the title always spelled early death--a desperate return to more familiar territory--Andy as the mayor, this time of a small North Carolina town. I saw neither. Did anyone else?

I watched anything with the terrific Andy Griffith, but remember absolutely nothing about it. Does anyone else remember that every comedian made fun of Jim Nabors for talking like a hick with a crooked mouth but then singing perfectly as an opera type singer?
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Wasn't there a rumor in the olden days that he had married Rock Hudson in secret?

 

I have heard this rumor in the early 1980's. Was the rumor going around because Rock and Jim lived in Hawaii or was it because they were frequent guests on "The Carol Burnett Show". I guess the sources way back then weren't too far from the mark.

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I have heard this rumor in the early 1980's. Was the rumor going around because Rock and Jim lived in Hawaii or was it because they were frequent guests on "The Carol Burnett Show". I guess the sources way back then weren't too far from the mark.

I read something yesterday that said they even avoided being seen together so as not to expand the rumor.
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You, go girl! Gomer! ;)

 

Actor Jim Nabors marries male partner in Seattle

 

HONOLULU (AP) — The actor best known for playing the TV character Gomer Pyle in the 1960s has married his male partner of 38 years.

 

Hawaii News Now (http://bit.ly/14tFM3U) reports Jim Nabors and his partner, Stan Cadwallader, traveled from their Honolulu home to Seattle to be married Jan. 15.

 

Gay marriage became legal in Washington state last month.

 

The 82-year-old Nabors says you've got to solidify something when you've been together as long as they have. They couple met in 1975 when Cadwallader was a Honolulu firefighter. Cadwallader is 64.

 

Nabors says he's been open about his homosexuality to co-workers and friends but never acknowledged it to the media before.

 

Nabors played Gomer Pyle in "The Andy Griffith Show" and "Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C." television shows.

 

* * * * *

Information from: KGMB-TV, http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/

 

". . . SUPRAS, SUPRAS!!!! . . ." Gomer

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I have heard this rumor in the early 1980's. Was the rumor going around because Rock and Jim lived in Hawaii or was it because they were frequent guests on "The Carol Burnett Show". I guess the sources way back then weren't too far from the mark.

I think everybody in the United States heard this rumor in the early 1970's. Even though I was too sheltered as a child to have understood Paul Lynde was gay, I heard about "Rock and Jim" in my small southern town, a place where nobody would have dared to live together outside of marriage, and I heard kids mentioning it a year or so later when I attended a private Christian school where any talk of sexuality period was taboo. Those bitchy queens who had it in for Rock and Jim really did their job spreading that story around to the point where practically everyone in the country believed it, including apparently one writer of some People magazine type celebrity book in the early 1980's who made cryptic comments suggesting they were a couple in their profiles in the book.

 

I think people believed it because they were just waking up to the fact that the super handsome Rock Hudson had not really had a major relationship with a woman since his divorce in the late 50's and Jim's magazine "romances" with this and that actress probably seemed just too chaste for a Hollywood star and of course any "scandalous" story is going to have people want to believe it and spread it further.

 

Jim didn't move to Hawaii until the mid 70's and Rock never lived there I don't think. They apparently were little more than social friends at industry functions and occasional parties, not even particularly close according to one Hudson biography I read. Jim strikes me as a very gentle soul and I think he wanted to get away from all that Tinseltown malice so he moved to Hawaii. Didn't Carol follow him over there at least for a few years? (And yes Claude, I remember the Hudson book did say they sadly had to avoid being seen together because you know the paparazzi would have plastered the photos all over the place.)

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I

Jim didn't move to Hawaii until the mid 70's and Rock never lived there I don't think. They apparently were little more than social friends at industry functions and occasional parties, not even particularly close according to one Hudson biography I read. Jim strikes me as a very gentle soul and I think he wanted to get away from all that Tinseltown malice so he moved to Hawaii. Didn't Carol follow him over there at least for a few years? (And yes Claude, I remember the Hudson book did say they sadly had to avoid being seen together because you know the paparazzi would have plastered the photos all over the place.)

I thought of that even recently when i saw Bradley Cooper photgraphed with Victor Garber and his hubby. Ok, now debunk the one about Music mogul David Geffen marrying Keanu Reeves.
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Me too! That is part of the reason why I have no problem with homosexual couples getting married. It's all about commitment and love.

Yup, we've come a long way through the years, it's been a long hard struggle and it's far from over but we've made a lot of progress. If only people would stop caring about what other people do and just mind their own damned business. In the meantime, the struggle goes on in places like Jamaica and in Africa and you can get killed if people find out you're gay, in Uganda, the haters from the US are there to get that KILL THE GAYS bill passed, maybe they figure they've lost in the US so they'll take their hate to foreign countries instead.
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Yup, we've come a long way through the years, it's been a long hard struggle and it's far from over but we've made a lot of progress. If only people would stop caring about what other people do and just mind their own damned business. In the meantime, the struggle goes on in places like Jamaica and in Africa and you can get killed if people find out you're gay, in Uganda, the haters from the US are there to get that KILL THE GAYS bill passed, maybe they figure they've lost in the US so they'll take their hate to foreign countries instead.

 

It is one step at a time process. Change can't happen overnight. I am just glad that change is slowly but surely coming to America, the most powerful nation in the world, concerning the gay rights issue. Don't worry ... once gays get fully accepted and their rights are respected here in the great U.S. of A. it's going to have a huge ripple effect on the other countries in the world afterward.

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