By Sukie de la Croix

I wasn’t surprised when Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling announced at Carnegie Hall that Albus Dumbledore, master wizard and Headmaster of Hogwarts, was gay, as there’s a long list of closeted gay fictional characters in British literature, e.g., A.A. Milne’s lisping, sissified butt-bear Winnie-the-Pooh.

One controversial scene the publisher cut from Milne’s original manuscript of “The House at Pooh Corner” involved a ménage à trois with Pooh, Tigger, and Roo—“I don’t have a very big brain,” sighed Pooh. “So I find it difficult to think about things. But I think that now someone is burgling the turds in my honeypot.”

There was also another censored scene in the book where Pooh is watching the bees make honey and Eeyore walks by.

“Hello Pooh,” said Eeyore, drearily, “I’m having a gray day today.”

“Oh that’s very sad,” said Pooh. “Does that mean you don’t want to burgle the turds in my honeypot today?”

“I’m too gray to burgle the turds in your honeypot today, Pooh,” said Eeyore. “Maybe Tigger could do it. Tigger is a real turd burglar.”

It’s also common knowledge among the literati that Alice of Wonderland fame was a lipstick lesbian and that Beatrix Potter’s “Peter Rabbit” was a disco-bunny, but it’s not just British novels that have lost their gay characters to the censor’s pen—it also happens in Hollywood movies.

Using sexologist Alfred Kinsey’s statistics, 10.1 of the “101 Dalmatians” were gay, 1.2 of the “Twelve Monkeys” and also one of the “10 Commandments” were all friends of Dorothy.

Over the years Hollywood has butchered original scripts that contained gay characters, e.g., William Wyler’s “Ben Hur” starring Charlton Heston was originally called “Get Hur” and was to have starred Liberace, who was also axed from another starring role in “High Noon”—originally called “High Heels”—a role later given to Grace Kelly.

In fact, cowboy films are the most censored of all the Hollywood movie genres. It took “Brokeback Mountain” to finally show that homo, homo, on the range was the modus operandi of cowboys. Before that, gay content was cut from the scripts. One scene censored from “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” is when Butch (Paul Newman) says: “My, we seem to be a little short on brotherly love round here,” and Sundance (Robert Redford) answers: “What’s say I burgle your turds down in Bolivia.” Butch replies:  “Well that’s a plan and there was me thinking we didn’t have a plan. Hey, you can burgle my turds south of the border anyplace you want.”

Of course, the most famous closet case in Hollywood was the transvestite actor John Wayne—born Marion Morrison in Winterset, Iowa. Wayne was the little girl with dolls and a pink bow in her hair that later became America’s ideal of masculinity. Cross-dressing as a man, Wayne carved a career for herself in movies by playing the same character in every role—that of a bulldyke in a flannel shirt who couldn’t act for shit. She was also notorious for strapping one on and burgling some of the most famous turds in Hollywood. Natalie Wood, Jayne Mansfield, Ernest Borgnine, Lucille Ball, Frank Sinatra, Nancy Sinatra, Lambchop the butt-puppet, Lee Marvin and Doris Day all had their turds burgled by Wayne’s 12-inch black rubber strap-on beaver splitter.

Next week I’ll tell you about the upcoming movie starring Tom Cruise and Mel Gibson called “Brokeback Mountain II,” and why Denzel Washington can come around and burgle my turds anytime he wants.

Email Sukie de la Croix at delacroix@chicagofreepress.com.