The film J. Edgar (opening nationwide November 9) has roused speculation as to how J. Edgar Hoover (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Clyde Tolson's (Armie Hammer) rumored homosexuality will be portrayed on-screen. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, director Clint Eastwood was asked if the script "addresses reports by former FBI employees that Hoover was a cross-dresser and perhaps a closeted homosexual". Eastwood seemed to indicate not, responding that he was drawn to the script because it "didn't quite go down that road".
In response, screenwriter Dustin Lance Black (Oscar winner for Milk) assured the gay-interest website AfterElton.com that there was no truth to the notion that his script had been "de-gayed".
"To think that somehow you’re going to make a movie about somebody like J. Edgar and you’re not going to learn what’s in his heart, that’s just not going to happen in a script that I write."
Black suggested that the WSJ interviewer conflated homosexuality and transvestism and that Eastwood was only indicating that the film would not include cross-dressing.
The website Libertas Film Magazine published a script review of J. Edgar on July 8, 2011. The reviewer reports that Hoover's relationship with Clyde Tolson, who has long been rumored to have been Hoover's lover, is depicted in the screenplay as "chaste".
Hmmm. Looks as if we’ll have to go see for ourselves on Wednesday.
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