Michael Greer (born James Robert Malley; April 20, 1938 Although some sources list Greer's birth date as April 20, 1942, no support for a 1943 birth date has yet been found in publicly available birth records."Michael Greer" (interview). Gay Scene: Intellectual Homophile Monthly, December 1974, archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20120402175710/http://www.queermusicheritage.com/jun2003b.html, accessed May 3, 2015. — September 14, 2002"Michael Greer" (obituary), Los Angeles Times, September 29, 2002, archived at LATimes.com; accessed April 30, 2015.) was an American actor, comedian and cabaret performer. He is known for his appearances in the films The Gay Deceivers and Fortune and Men's Eyes, and for being one of the first openly gay actors to appear in major Hollywood films.
Early life Greer was born James Robert Malley in Galesburg, Illinois, to parents Charles and Elizabeth (née Koetter) Malley."Former Area Man Appearing on TV Show", Galesburg (Illinois) Register-Mail, June 20, 1974, p. 16.Batdorff, Emerson. "Michael Greer as 'Queenie': Role Great, but Image Disastrous." Cleveland Plain Dealer, December 18, 1970, Friday magazine section, p. 5. Although his birth date has been given as April 20, 1943,Barrios, Richard. Screened Out: Playing Gay in Hollywood from Edison to Stonewall. Routledge, 2003, p. 354. .Beaux Arts Society, Inc., "In Memoriam - Beaux Arts Society Members Who Have Died Remain In Our Memory - Michael Greer." Beauxartssociety.org, accessed April 30, 2015. his birth year was probably 1938, based on 1940 U.S. census records listing a 2-year-old "Jimmie Malley" and obituaries stating Greer's age as 64 when he died in 2002."Actor Michael Greer Dies at 64." Advocate.com, Oct. 1, 2002, accessed April 30, 2015. He grew up in Galesburg, residing first with his parents and later with his aunt and uncle, and had two sisters and two half-brothers. Greer later said that his parents had divorced and each had married three times, and described his childhood as unhappy.Kramer, Carol."Weird Events Are Routine For Mike Greer", Chicago Tribune, December 7, 1969, Section 5 p. 2, archived at archives.chicagotribune.com, accessed April 30, 2015.Browne, Nick. "Fortune's Queenie: If They Said I Did It... ." Village Voice, March 5, 1970, pp. 47, 50. He began performing at a young age, singing during intermissions at the local movie theater.Arnold, Gary. "A Well-Known Unknown", Washington Post and Times-Herald, June 22, 1971, p. B8.
Greer left Galesburg in the mid-1950s. Despite being underage at 16, he enlisted in the U.S. Air Force and served three years in Japan and Korea.Sconce, Jeffrey, ed. Sleaze Artists: Cinema at the Margins of Taste, Style and Politics. Duke Univ. Press, 2007, p. 87; . While in the service he formed a pop vocal group that performed in the style of The Four Aces.
After finishing his service, he moved to Boston and then to New York City in the early 1960s, where he worked as a furniture salesman while competing in "talent night" contests against other aspiring entertainers, including Tiny Tim and Barbra Streisand. Greer later worked as a floor captain at Arthur, the NYC discothèque opened by Sybil Burton, where he met celebrities such as Margot Fonteyn, Rudolf Nureyev, and Jacqueline Kennedy. He disliked his birth name, and in the mid-1960s he legally changed his name to "Michael Greer", choosing "Michael" because he liked the name and "Greer" after the actress Jane Greer.
Career Comedy and cabaret In the fall of 1965, Greer relocated to Los Angeles, where he formed a comedy troupe called "Jack and the Giants" with Roy Gaynor and then-unknown Jim Bailey.Banis, Victor J. Spine Intact, Some Creases. Wildside Press LLC, 2004, pp. 80-82. . .Kearns, Michael. "The Legendary Michael Greer", Gaytoday.com, October 21, 2002; accessed May 1, 2015. While playing the Redwood Room club in L.A., the act was discovered and popularized by Judy Garland, leading to a 16-month engagement, after which the group broke up. Greer, who was by that time openly gay,Del Valle, David. "Whatever Happened to Bette David? Don't Mess With Mona." WestHollywoodWives.com, uploaded Aug. 27, 2012, accessed April 30, 2015. continued to perform solo at San Francisco clubs such as The Fantasy and The Purple Onion.Calendar of Events, San Francisco Magazine, September 1967, p. 24.Montezuma, Magdalena. "Don't Be Deceived" (film review). Vector, January 1969, p. 65. Greer's act included music, comedy and female impersonations of actresses such as Bette Davis and Tallulah Bankhead. Greer also developed a signature routine that he performed, with variations, for the rest of his career, in which he appeared as the Mona Lisa, speaking through a large picture frame held on his lap and making art-related jokes.Baim, Tracy, & Owen Keehnen. Leatherman: The Legend of Chuck Renslow, Prairie Avenue Productions, 2011, p. 178.
Due to Greer's difficulties obtaining film roles after the early 1970s, he concentrated on his cabaret act for most of his career, touring and playing clubs nationwide. He was a frequent and popular performer on the gay nightclub circuit for three decades. Greer was a featured performer on the "All-Gay Cruise", an ocean cruise for 300 gay men and lesbians documented by Cliff Jahr in a highly controversial 1975 New York Times travel feature,Jahr, Cliff. "The All-Gay Cruise: Prejudice and Pride", New York Times, April 6, 1975, Section Travel and Resorts, pp. 2, 16.Kinsella, James. Covering the Plague: AIDS and the American Media. Rutgers Univ. Press, 1989, p. 76-77; .Heidenry, John. What Wild Ecstasy: The Rise and Fall of the Sexual Revolution, Simon & Schuster, 1997, p. 351; .Gross, Larry. Up From Invisibility: Lesbians, Gay Men and the Media in America, Columbia Univ. Press, 2001, pg. 116; . in which Jahr referred to Greer as "the gay world's Jonathan Winters" and likened him to "George Burns at a Friars' Roast."Jahr, p. 16. Greer's impersonation of Bette Davis was so perfect that, when she became unavailable, Greer was called upon to dub some of her lines in the TV miniseries The Dark Secret of Harvest Home (1978)Smith, Liz. "Comedian's Voice Subs For Bette Davis's in TV Film." Cleveland Plain Dealer, January 13, 1978, Friday magazine section, p. 10."Rock King Furious With Wife For Leaving Zowie", Lakeland Ledger, January 23, 1978, p. 2A. and again in Wicked Stepmother (1989), her last film.
Two recordings of Greer's comedy routines were released: Tallulah in Heaven (1972, RipRap Records), an LP featuring his Tallulah Bankhead impersonation, and Don't Mess With Mona (2005, Gatorlegs Records), a posthumously released recording of a 1979 performance of his Mona Lisa routine."Michael Greer Recordings", Queermusicheritage.com, uploaded June 2003; accessed April 30, 2015. In addition to writing his own material, Greer also wrote comedy material for several well-known performers, including Phyllis Diller, Debbie Reynolds, Rip Taylor, and Larry Storch.
Stage In 1968, Sal Mineo saw Greer's comic nightclub act in San Francisco and cast him as "Queenie", a gay prison inmate and drag queen, in Mineo's 1969 Los Angeles production of the John Herbert play Fortune and Men's Eyes.Michaud, Michael Gregg. Sal Mineo: A Biography, Three Rivers Press (Random House), 2010, p. 256. . Greer played "Queenie" in both the Los Angeles and subsequent New York stage productions,Michaud, p. 273. logging over 400 performances in the role.Olson, Jenni. The Queer Movie Poster Book, Chronicle Books LLC, 2004, p. 45; . Greer became close friends with both Mineo and Don Johnson, who was cast in the lead role of "Smitty".
Greer occasionally appeared in other stage plays over the years. In 1983 he appeared in New York City in an off-off-Broadway revival of Terrence McNally's The Ritz, a farce set in a gay Manhattan bathhouse, starring Warhol superstar Holly Woodlawn."Off-Off-Broadway" (calendar of events), New York Magazine, May 2, 1983, p. 103.Gussow, Mel. "Stage: 'The Ritz,' Farce" (theatre review), New York Times, May 3, 1983; accessed May 2, 2015. He played an old-guard activist professor in a 1998 Santa Monica production of Mark Savage's coming-out musical, The Ballad of Little Mikey.Winer, Laurie."A Coming-of-Age Story Where Few Dare to Go: Highways Revival of 'Ballad of Little Mikey' Travels the Musical Journey of Its Gay Hero", Los Angeles Times, January 8, 1998; accessed April 30, 2015.Jones, Wenzel. "The Ballad of Little Mikey, at Highways Performance Space" (review), Backstage.com, February 21, 2001; accessed April 30, 2015.
With composer Wayne Moore, Greer collaborated on the book for a 1992 musical, Freeway Dreams, about commuters stuck in traffic in Los Angeles. Greer also directed the Los Angeles production which ran for four months, and appeared on the original cast album (released in 1997 on Moore's Ducy Lee label) as the voice of "the car radio announcer on station KDUL in the Valley."Freeway Dreams by Ducy Lee Recordings, LMLMusic.com, accessed May 2, 2015.Wayne Moore Music - Freeway Dreams , Waynemooremusic.com, accessed May 2, 2015.December 2005 - Queer Xmas Music Special #2 - Freeway Dreams, queermusicheritage.com; accessed May 2, 2015.
Film Greer made his feature film debut in 1969 in the hit comedy The Gay Deceivers as "Malcolm", the flamboyant gay landlord of two heterosexual young men who pretend to be gay in an attempt to dodge the draft. In an effort to reduce the homophobia of the original script and present a more realistic and positive portrayal of the gay characters, Greer rewrote much of the dialogue and worked with the director. Upon release, the film was protested by gays for propagating stereotypes of gay men as "swishy", effeminate draft dodgers.Kinser, Jeremy. "Artful Dodgers: The '60s flick The Gay Deceivers Showed Inductees Mincing to Avoid a War — And Had 'Pansies' in an Uproar", The Advocate, October 12, 1999, p. 61. However, the film was progressive for its time in featuring an openly gay actor playing an openly gay character in a happy long-term gay relationship, rather than having gay characters suffer loneliness, anguish or tragedy.Lisanti, Tom. Sconce, p. 87-88."Tom Lisanti Interviews Christopher Riordan on The Gay Deceivers", Cinemaretro.com, uploaded July 30, 2008; accessed May 1, 2015. Greer's performance drew good reviews. He received star billing and was featured in advertising for the film.Barrios, pp. 353-55
The following year Greer co-starred (with Don Johnson) as an underground rock musician in MGM's 1970 box office flop The Magic Garden of Stanley Sweetheart, for which he also co-wrote and sang the song "Water". He appeared in two softcore pornography films, the erotic sci-fi film The Curious Female, in which he played the operator of a computer dating service in the year 2177,Munden, Kenneth White. The American Film Institute Catalog, Feature Films 1961-1970, Univ. of California Press, 1976, 1997, p. 218; . and Diamond Stud.Munden, p. 259"Pioneering Gay Actor Michael Greer Dies at 64", zap2it.com; accessed April 30, 2015.