Love, Sidney

The fact that this show the first to feature a gay character as the lead character has been beaten to death that I won't mention it again. Instead, this show was very unusual. It was one of those where the writers didn't know if it was going to be a cute little family drama with a very unusual family group or if it wanted to be a situation comedy. Tony Randall was pretty good in this show, especially since he played a similar character for many years on the Odd Couple. Swoosie Kurtz also did a good job in her role as Laurie. I loved the fact that she was constantly trying to convince people that she was nothing like the nymphomaniac that she played on television and that she was just an ordinary mother trying to raise her daughter. However, as I said earlier, the thing that hurt this show was the fact that the producers never could decide whether it was going to be a situation comedy or a drama. That definitely hurt it in the end.

This series popped into my head this evening, and I checked out IMDb. I have read the other comments, and would like to add my two-cents worth.

One fact that I have not seen mentioned is this: Sidney is miserable and friendless because he is bitter over the loss of his lover, which he seems incapable of getting over. If I remember correctly, his boyfriend had died, and - with the great reluctance to explore that relationship on the show - it is easy to assume in retrospect that the boyfriend was a victim of one of the big issues - gay bashing? AIDS? ...Anyway....

The whole message of the show, as sugary sweet as it was, is that everyone needs someone to share his life with, and, while the ideal is to have a lover (whatever your sexual persuasion), good platonic friends can be a pretty good substitute. Families are made, not born.

The great achievement of the show was that it shattered stereotypes - that was the whole point of Sidney being neither a disco-dwelling, toy-boy hunting sugar daddy, nor a camp, shrieking queen. The show also captured an ennui that was soon to swamp the gay community, and those who saw it as a pop-culture touchstone, as AIDS took a greater and greater toll.

Love, Sidney was soulful and complex, and is owed much by all involved with, and fans of, such shows as Will and Grace.

That honor belongs to Jodie Dallas, played by Billy Crystal, on Susan Harris's sitcom "Soap." Tony Randall's Sidney Shorr was a simple follow-up, based on a sentimental TV-movie called "Sidney Shorr: A Girl's Best Friend." The person who posted such a hateful message about the show seems to forget that Randall wasn't a young gay man dancing disco every night. He was a mature man, not romantically involved, and not involved with the bar scene. There are all types of gays, just like there are all kinds of straights, and Randall shouldn't be condemned for not living up to someone's cliched stereotype. Admittedly, the show wasn't stellar, and Randall wasn't doing his best work. But undoubtedly it helped change the perceptions about homosexuality among some older people.

OK, let's clear the air. No, this was NOT the first openly-gay character on television. But this WAS the first openly-gay LEAD character on television.

Billy Crystal was a supporting actor on 'Soap' and so was not a Lead. And while the writing was not all that great and the concept was paper-thin, this show did break new and important ground on television. Shows like 'Will & Grace' and 'Queer Eye for the Straight Guy' owe a lot to this program. Was the show any good? Yeah, it was decent. Was it important? Yes, unbelievably so. As Tony Randall passes away from our sight on this day, we should remember that we all owe him a debt of thanks.

Thanks, Tony; We will miss you.

One of the earlier comments about this film is a rant about how it marred the life of a young gay. It wasn't intended to. In the day in which this show was made, you couldn't be as open about being queer as you can now and the producers were always trying to find a way to place Sidney's humanity ahead of his sexuality so that viewer's would see him first as a person and second as a gay person.

His loneliness was not the result of his being gay, it was the result of his not having made lasting relationships. Remember, Sidney wasn't all gay men, he was just A gay man. He was living outside of the stereotype the way we all do.

It wasn't a great show, but it surely was a well-intentioned one and it was very well acted by the two leads.

It's hard to appreciate now, but Tony Randall was taking a huge chance when he took this role. Playing gay used to cost actors work in other projects and if you look closely at Randall's resume, you will see that his career did take a few hits from having taken on this role.

Kudos to Randall and Swurtz and the producers and writers who were trying to tell a story about some humans and the ways that humans create connections and family. Big kudos to all of them for having the guts to make one of those characters a gay man.