Copyright ©2008 PopEntertainment.com. All rights reserved.
Posted:
April 28, 2008.
Emmy-award-winning actor Leslie Jordan is perhaps best known as
Karen's arch nemesis, Beverley Leslie, on Will and Grace. However,
his association with that groundbreaking series only fortified his own true
Hollywood story.
He had been "in" as an out actor since he got off the bus in
Hollywood from the Tennessee hills in 1982. These days, it's difficult to
imagine how brave a career move that was, but Jordan always insisted on
being himself. In fact, he worked it into a career that expanded beyond a
quarter century.
"I've been a gay actor since I fell out of the womb and landed in
my mother's high heels," he says from his home in LA. "When [casting
directors] wanted a gay character, they used to say 'nebbish. Or they would
say 'a little fey' or 'effete.' They would never say they want a
'homosexual.' So I would play a mama's boy a lot."
In fact, he became the go-to effete mama's boy, with that
distinctive Tennessee twang, on almost every show in need of one, from
Murphy Brown to Lois and Clark to Ugly Betty. It's not
that Jordan can't play beyond that. His comic mind and timing are brilliant.
But his "mama's boy" character is what butters his bread.
In fact, in real life, he is very close to his mama. A church-going
Southern woman, she has had quite a time of dealing not only with her son's
fame and acclaim, but his sexual orientation as well.
He says, "I made this realization that if I'm going to ask my mom
to accept me exactly as I am, I am going to have to allow her the same. My
mother is of another generation. She will never be Betty DeGeneres. You will
never find my mother marching in a gay pride parade. She will probably go to
her grave probably a little ashamed that she had a son who is a homosexual.
But she's learning. She is doing the best she can with the life she has to
see with. She's a very private woman. She goes to church every Sunday.
Somebody in her Sunday school class got a hold of Sordid Lives
[Jordan's cult-fave film], where I am in full drag. My mother said, 'I can't
go to Sunday school. You being fifty-years old in that getup.'"
It's all in his out-and-about memoir (to be released on June 3rd
), called My Trip Down The Pink Carpet (Simon and Schuster). In it,
Jordan looks back at a life and career that was – and still is – both
courageous and outrageous.
He's also currently touring the country with his popular one-man
show of the same name. As well, he will also star in a prequel to Sordid
Lives (premiering in July on Logo).
"I mean, she works hard for the money," he says of his upcoming
location-packed tour. "I am getting on that bus on May 17th
and ending in P-Town [Provincetown, Rhode Island] on August
11th."
Though most familiar to television audiences, Jordan is acclaimed
on stage, winning the Ovation Award, The Garland Award and The Los Angeles
Drama Critics Circle Award for his portrayal of "Preston Leroy," the chatty
barfly in Del Shores' hit play, Southern Baptist Sissies.
He says, "I've learned a long time ago that film is a director's
medium, television is a writer's medium and stage is an actor's medium. I am
so spoiled now by having this one-man show. I got a standing ovation in New
York. I was told, 'you are to the gays what Jackie Mason is to the Jews.'
And these were theater-savvy people."
As familiar he is to the theater-savvy, he is also all-too-familiar
with the club-hopping lifestyle, but has been clean and sober for a decade
(including free of his crystal-meth addiction).
"I took my last drink October 20, 1997," he says of his decade-plus
of sobriety. "I spent so much time thinking, I want to be Madonna. I want to
be rich and famous and then it's gonna be good and my life is gonna work.
Then things happen and you get a tiny bit of fame and you wonder, why isn't
it like that?"
You would think that Jordan's life would be exactly like
that, considering the long résumé he honed and polished due to the
admiration of Hollywood's A list. This includes a memorable stint on the
'90s CBS series Hearts Afire, with John Ritter and Billy Bob Thorton.
"I was hired just to do a guest part," he says, "and they loved the
character so much that [producer Linda Bloodsworth Thomason] offered me a
series regular deal the next week. Of course, it was with Billy Bob Thorton
before Sling Blade. And adorable John Ritter. I always judge famous
people by how they treat my family. My mother and my sisters would come to
the set and John would just fall all over himself and make them feel at
home. He is a national treasure.
"At his big memorial service at the El Capitan theater down in
Hollywood, he was a big USC fan, and the entire USC marching band came
marching down the aisles, to bring him onto greener pastures. And I'm
telling you, there was not a dry eye in the house. And then everybody went
to the bowling alley across the street, and we had a big wake. Everybody in
Hollywood was there. You just can't say enough about him. The nicest guy."
His one-time guest stint on Hearts Afire stretched into a
three-year gig, but not every project was all that.
"I once did a series with George Clooney a hundred million years
ago, called Bodies of Evidence," he says. "And we sat down and
compared the number of failed pilots we each had. He had twelve over the
years. And he goes all the way back to The Facts of Life. And I have
about fifteen. So I'm sort of used to it."
Still, things are moving gaily forward for the actor and writer,
and this year proves to be a major milestone.
"I am at a point in my career where I am along for the ride," he
says. "I'm just part of the journey now. I'm so content within. I am so
close to my authentic self. I am in my prime right now."
Hopefully for us, that prime will continue to translate into
prime-time.
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Copyright ©2008 PopEntertainment.com. All rights reserved.
Posted:
April 28, 2008.
