It’s no secret that the small screen is quickly catching up to the silver screen when it comes to quality entertainment. With projects like Big Little Lies bringing the likes of Nicole Kidman and Meryl Streep to our (let’s be honest) laptop screens, we’re really living in a golden age of television. Having had audiences lapping up the story of Gianni Versace, director Dan Minahan is back with another limited series. This time he’s taking on the story of 70’s icon and Liza Minelli bestie HALSTON.
American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace garnered great critical and popular success sharing the story of the iconic queer designer, but was mostly centred around his death at the hands of the obsessive, gold-digging twink Andrew Cunanan. This time he’s back with Simply Halston which will follow the story of the designer, from his legal woes to Studio 54, to the AIDS crisis and his eventual death from an AIDS-related illness in 1990. According to Deadline Scottish actor Ewen McGregor, best known for his roles in Moulin Rouge and Trainspotting, is set to play Halston.
Shock! Another straight actor taking a gay role, but that’s too big of a conversation to have here. Instead here’s what we need to see featured as part of the Limited Series:
Liza Minelli
Us queers love a bit of Liza. Following on from her mother’s legacy, she was a real voice for queer people when they were social outcasts. With a bisexual father, how could she not be? She really brought the conversation over leaps and bounds, and to this day is still fighting the good fight. Her mother is soon to get the big screen treatment with Renee Zellweger taking on Judy Garland in a biopic titled Judy. We’re already on the edge of our seats to hear who’ll be nabbing the role, but we’re damned sure we won’t stand for some cheesy impersonation. Liza’s been fodder for many a bad drag queen impression, having so many iconic gestures and looks, but she’s a complex character and should be portrayed as such. Halston was such an integral part of her image, designing some of her most recognizable looks and being such a close friend. Throughout the 70’s the two were photographed together on several occaions, with Halston being a fairy gay mother to the young starlet.
The AIDS Crisis
Being a gay man in New York City in the ’80s, the AIDS Crisis is something that had an unavoidable impact on Halston’s life. From the mid-eighties through to the mid-nineties, HIV/AIDS-related diseases took the lives of thousands of people, hitting the gay community in Manhattan the hardest with a number of gay men attending several funerals a week. Halston himself died from Kaposi’s sarcoma, an AIDS-defining illness in 1990 after testing positive for HIV just two years earlier. Though the designer wasn’t defined by the disease which ultimately took his life, along with other notable figures such as Rock Hudson and Freddie Mercury, Halston formed an understanding of the disease which the public could recognise.
Gay Sex.
With Ewan McGregor as Halston, you best believe we want some naked action. When it comes to queer representation, there’s always a tension between being reduced to just sexual activity, and being able to openly present our sexuality. If it’s too sex-heavy then us queers are portrayed as sexual deviants, if there’s no sex at all and all we get is a slow camera pan (looking at you Call Me By Your Name) then it’s a sanitised version of the queer experience. Halston enjoyed many sexual relationships, from meaningful relationships to phoning call boys. Him and his on-again off-again partner Victor Hugo (not the one who wore Les Miserables, before you start googling) enjoyed a decade of romance following a sex-filled first three months together. Hugo was a professional name which game derived from his ‘huge-o’ endowment. Please give us at least one scene of McGregor trying to conquer Huge-o.
Andy Warhol
Legend. Artist. Queer Icon. Cultural Phenomenon. The two were close friends during a time when both enjoyed great artistic success. These two were the masters of every important social ceremony to go down in the 70’s. Do these two queens justice on screen and we’ll be happy.
The Designs
If we’re tuning in to a TV Show about Halston, you better believe we’re expecting some FASHION honey. We want to see Jackie Kennedy’s inaugural pillbox hat, reams of billowing sequined fabric and all those fabulous fittings with everyone from Elizabeth Taylor to Bianca Jagger. OH! And we need to see some uniform wear that we’d die to wear, most notably his trolly dolly chic for Braniff International Airways. If all goes well this resurrection of ’70s fasion will leave Gucci rotting.
by Ifan Llewelyn
