Three days after his high school graduation in 1981, Mark Patton, a country boy from Kansas City, Missouri, was immersed in the gay mecca of Greenwich Village, Manhattan. Ten day after, he landed a role as a gay country boy in the Broadway play Come Back to the 5 and Dime, Jimmy Dean, co-starring with the legendary Sandy Dennis. Has any star ever risen so fast? he wondered.
When he moved to Hollywood to work on the film version of Jimmy Dean (1982), he thought "This is fate. I am destined to become the first open, out actor in Hollywood!"
He went on some auditions, and got some jobs: a country boy bonding with his estranged father (Chuck Connors!) in Kelsey's Son (1983); the brother of a cloned girl in Anna to the Infinite Power (1983); and Jesse Walsh, a gay boy harassed by Freddy Krueger in Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge (1985).
He assumed that the character was written as gay, but his costar, Robert Rusler, said "Hell, no! And if you know what's good for you, you won't mentions gays to David [writer David Chaskin], ever! He have you fired and on the first bus back to Missouri!"
Mark had never been closeted, but he now found himself constrained by Hollywood homophobia. His agent went through his closet and told him what "normal boys" wear, and refused to allow him to be interviewed by a gay magazine, not even about his gay character in Jimmy Dean.
Jack Sholder, the director of Nightmare, peppered his speech with anti-gay slurs.
One of the producers, gay but closeted, told Mark that he absolutely could not set foot in West Hollywood. If there was even a hint that he was gay, his career would be over, plus the box office for Nightmare 2 would plummet.
After the homophobic nightmare of Nightmare, Mark had had it; he was going to be out! But his agent said that she'd drop him instantly if he told anyone in the Hollywood community, and no other agent would touch him, either. So he dutifully closeted himself on auditions, and got a couple of parts: a CBS Schoolbreak Special and an episode of Hotel.
And he got to know other closeted actors, like Wesley Eure and Dean Paul Martin. They had no problem with making up girlfriends, introducing their boyfriends as "buddies," escorting girls to events while their boyfriends stayed home in the darkness!
Living a lie your whole life. How could they stand it?
Mark knew that he'd never be able to stand it. He started auditioning as an open gay man, and was cast in a tv series where he'd play a gay character, "but you have to tell everyone you're straight in real life." He ran.
He started taking classes in interior design at L.A. City College.
The kicker came in the spring of 1988, when Robert Rusler set him up on a date with Ricky Schroder, who had played "poor little rich boy" Ricky Stratton on the Reagan-era glorification of excess, Silver Spoons (1982-87).
"He's just a kid!" Mark complained. "I like older guys. And he's a blond-haired, blue-eyed Ken Doll. I like my men tall, dark, and handsome, swarthy Mediterraneans, Latinos, black guys. Now, set me up with Alfonso Ribeiro [his costar on Silver Spoons], and we'll talk."
"A kid, maybe," Robert said, "But the star of a top-rated tv show, with connections all over Hollywood. Let him top you, and the offers will start pouring in.""He's a top?" Somehow Mark always assumed that Ricky was a bottom.
The full story, with nude photos and explicit sexual situations, is on Tales of West Hollywood.