The victimized spouse

Recently La Presse -- and a quintillion other papers -- have featured long, painful riffs on women who've unknowingly married gay men.

Included in the list is Phyllis Gates, who died in January (at 80) and spent her later years as the ex wife of the very gay Rock Hudson. After the divorce and Hudson's outing, she loudly and longly proclaimed ignorance of hubby's proclivities. It all seemed so awful. And oh, how I have ranted about the lying that is an integral part of gay identity. About how we have used straight spouses.

The Advocate has a piece on sad, sad Phyllis Gates. "To read [her L.A. Times obit] and other newspaper whitewashes of her memory, you would have to believe that Gates was a loving Brokeback Mountain wife who had been duped into marriage by Rock's equally gay agent, Henry Willson," writes Variety senior editor Robert Hofler.

Er? Hofler sez the endless angsty Gates obits were "valentine(s) to misguided hetero devotion. Strange, isn't it, how memories differ? ... Every person I met who knew Gates called her a lesbian."

Seems Gates was quite the gal about town, dating up a storm with other chickies, but very concerned that her hubbie not date, as "she feared that Hudson's homosexuality would be exposed and, in effect, derail her gravy train as Mrs. Star." Gates hired a P.I. to tape Hudson's conversations on the eve of their divorce in order to up the alimony. At one point, Hudson's agent hired mobsters to rough up some would-be blackmailers (the gangsters popped by Gates's home next). "Not that she was cowed for long. Hudson then had to acquire incriminating photos of Gates in order to shut her up a second time. The episode is recorded as a blind item in Liz Smith's biography, 'Natural Blonde.'

"Having developed a taste for extortion, Gates turned to other women, but was no more successful with her own sex. One wealthy wife she banged and tried to blackmail didn't care if her husband ever found out about the extramarital affair. He too was gay."

Oof. Turns out I picked the wrong victim.