Connect with us

Arts & Entertainment

From Broadway to Hollywood

‘Double Life’ memoir recounts 50-year love story of artist and TV mogul

Published

14 years ago

on

From left, Alan Shayne and Norman Sunshine with Christine Baranski and Charles Busch at a launch party for their book in November. They’ll be in Washington this week for a similar event. (Photo courtesy Scott Manning & Associates)

Careers in the arts are never easy, but for every Sinatra, Hepburn or Garland there are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of actors, singers and behind-the-scenes moguls and designers who manage long, successful careers in New York or Hollywood without becoming household names.

Alan Shayne and Norman Sunshine are two such figures. Shayne is a former actor-turned-casting agent-turned TV mogul who nurtured hit ‘70s shows like “Dukes of Hazzard” and “Alice” to the airwaves during his 10 years as president of Warner Brothers Television. Sunshine, his partner of 50 years, is a painter and sculptor who made ads for Blackglama Minks (“What becomes a legend most?”) and Danskins (“Danskins are not just for dancing”) famous between stints of having his own exhibitions and commercial projects. After decades of navigating the thick jungles and uphill battles of the art world and entertainment industry, one wonders their thoughts on the ways of those worlds: with tenacity, does the cream inevitably rise or have we missed geniuses along the way?

They say it’s gotten tougher to “make it” over time.

“I think the thing I’ve observed in the fine arts is the phenomenon of money coming into play more and more in which careers are measured by the amount of money that can be made off of it,” Sunshine says. “All these art fairs are really about money, the dealers and collectors being able to make money off of it. It’s different. I don’t know how one quite survives that … there’s a horrendous fickleness now on a scale we’ve not seen before.”

Shayne, who gave up acting because casting seemed more stable and practical, agrees.

“It’s a really tough road to hoe,” he says. “In my day, I could go to New York and live and rent a room for $5 a week and make it work. Now you can’t possibly do that. I don’t know how the young actors and young artists do it today. Yes, the Meryl Streeps and the Dustin Hoffmans and the Robert De Niros are going to succeed but I worry about some of the little people who are also very talented.”

In November, the two had their joint autobiography published by Magnus Books — “Double Life: a Love Story from Broadway to Hollywood.” They’ll be in Washington Monday for a private reception for the book.

A self portrait of the couple by Sunshine. (Image courtesy the couple)

And even though the book is drawing raves — Joan Rivers called it “beautifully written” and “filled with humor” and legendary critic Rex Reed called it a “riveting” book by “two extraordinary men” — Shayne and Sunshine, who worked on it for about three years, say getting it published was not easy.

“We got the most glowing rejection letters you could imagine from the leading publishing houses,” Shayne says.

He says it was worth the effort to get the book in print to show that long-term gay relationships are possible.

“We’d been terribly disturbed by the suicides,” Shayne says. “Time magazine did a story where they talked to young gays in their 20s who didn’t believe any [gay] relationship could last past 10 years. People have told us we’re a rather inspirational couple so we decided to tell our story.”

“There had always been this thinking that, ‘Oh God, it’s a terrible life,’” Sunshine says. “We wanted to kind of deal with that issue and let people know we’re not always in feathers or this and that. We’re like you. We have the same loves, desires and careers. We felt we had a responsibility to tell that story.”

And it is quite a story. With fun anecdotes of the famous paths with whom they’ve crossed — Lena Horne, Laurence Olivier, Marlon Brando, David Susskind, Helen Hayes, George Cukor, Katharine Hepburn, Norman Lear, Bette Davis, Rock Hudson and more make memorable appearances — the book is delightfully shameless in its name dropping.

Just as vivid, though, are lengthy passages where the two write evocatively of what it was like to be gay in the ‘50s and ‘60s, to what degree they were able to be out (if at all) and how their relationship evolved over the decades. Shorn of any Jackson-Paris-type false idealism — they make it clear it wasn’t always a bed of roses — their experiences come vividly to life.

“We felt we had to be totally honest for the book to work,” Shayne says. “We found out things about each other we didn’t know but we felt if we weren’t totally honest about it, what would be the point? Otherwise it would be so goody-goody you couldn’t stand it. But we got through it and that’s really the story of our relationship. We ended up supporting each other.”

“A lot of people have identified very strongly with the book,” Sunshine says. “It gives them insight into the time period and the history of the gay situation vis-à-vis us.”

During a lengthy phone chat from their home in Palm Beach, Fla., the two — on a joint call — happily elaborate on topics touched on in the book.

Though they still drink, it’s mostly just wine these days —they’ve traded in the Rob Roys they drank copiously for years for California chardonnay.

Norman, left, and Alan on their wedding day. (Photo courtesy the couple)

They attribute their long careers to their mutual abilities to adapt. Some opportunities came out of nowhere — like the Tiffany display that helped launch Sunshine’s impressive art career — while others were built piece by piece through painstaking work like the cards Shayne kept on each actor he saw so he’d have a bounty of suggestions to directors casting various projects.

Their various country houses — in Pennsylvania, Connecticut and more — have helped them grow together, they say.

“In the ‘50s, when you couldn’t really be openly gay, our homes became terribly important to us and we were happiest when we were there by ourselves,” Shayne says.

He also says the popular notion that CBS didn’t care about “Alice” spin-off “Flo,” an eponymous sitcom for Polly Holliday’s sassy character, isn’t true. It was not a victim, he says, of the network carelessly changing the show’s time slot repeatedly in those pre-VCR or TiVo days. Shayne says he worked hard to make “Flo” fly just as he’d done with “Alice” in its rocky first season but ultimately the audience wasn’t buying the character in a world outside Mel’s Diner.

But how did “Alice” succeed another five seasons without its most popular character while “Flo” failed?

“I love Polly and at the time, it seemed like a good idea to bring Diane (Ladd — who’d played Flo in the film) back (to ‘Alice’),” Shayne says. “We really had hoped ‘Flo’ would be a big success and believe me, we did everything. We changed writers, changed producers, nothing seemed to work, but God knows we tried. … the public kind of wanted her there saying, ‘Kiss my grits’ in the diner and she became really a different character when she had her own show. She wanted to be different … CBS was actually very cooperative.”

Ironically perhaps, Shayne and Sunshine say though they socialized several times with Cukor, the legendary “old Hollywood” director who was gay and famous for his parties, they never discussed their relationship or homosexuality with him.

“He knew we were a couple, he would invite us both to dinner, but it was always a mixed group. Sometimes Kate (Hepburn, who lived in Cukor’s guest house when she was on the West Coast) would stop by and say hello, but it was all very proper … I don’t think he ever mentioned the word gay to us,” Shayne says.

As for the changing times, they say it’s only in the last eight or 10 years that they’ve felt comfortable being fully out in all aspects of their lives. They wed in Massachusetts eight years ago initially for practical reasons. They were pleasantly shocked at how welcomed they were by the hotel staff where they stayed.

“AIDS really exploded the conversation on gay issues,” Sunshine says. “It was the instrument by which the whole gay thing came out as a national discussion.”

And what about the irony of Sunshine being the Emmy winner in the family despite Shayne’s long career in television (Sunshine won for titles he designed for a special in the mid-‘70s)?

“Can you hear me gnashing my teeth,” Shayne says.

 

Related Topics:
Advertisement
FUND LGBTQ JOURNALISM
SIGN UP FOR E-BLAST

Theater

Rorschach stages ‘Dragon Play’ in unlikely, raw space

Out sound designer Madeline ‘Mo’ Oslejsek notes ‘sound is my bag’

Published

1 hour ago

on

April 18, 2026

By

Madeline 'Mo' Oslejsek (Photo courtesy of Oslejsek)

‘Dragon Play’
Through May 17
Rorschach Theatre
The Stacks @ Buzzard Point
101 V St., S.W.
$50 ($35 for students and seniors)
Rorschachtheatre.org

Celebrated for its site-specific, immersive productions, Rorschach Theatre puts on plays all over town. The unlikely spots have included greenhouses, church vestibules, closed retail spaces (including a vacant downtown big and tall men’s store) and historic locales like Rock Creek Cemetery’s Adams Memorial. 

For its current offering “Dragon Play” (through May 17), a tale of love and longing, Rorschach is using a raw space in The Stacks at Buzzard Point, a new mixed-use neighborhood situated where the Anacostia and Potomac rivers meet. 

Out sound designer Madeline ‘Mo’ Oslejsek considers all sites – whether traditional theatrical spaces or not – specific, particularly in terms of sound. She says, “Part of my practice is if you’re creating a soundscape for a theatrical production you’re also working with sound that already exists with the space.”

For instance, The Stacks space comes with its own unique qualities. It’s a large cement room that has a different reverberation, an echo.

“Some sounds (a car, dog bark) are planted or they might just happen. What starts as a live sound might be heard again as something recorded.”

Whip smart with a ready laugh, Oslejsek never set out to be a sound designer. She was going to direct. And now, the 2025 Helen Hayes Award nominee for Outstanding Sound Design (“Astro Boy and the God of Comics” at Flying V,) says, “Sound is my bag. Sometimes it seems that I’m the only one in the room thinking about it.” 

As an undergrad studying theater at Ohio Wesleyan University, she was first exposed to sound design, but it didn’t make a big impression. 

In grad school at Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, University of London, she was interested in direction. But when students were offered a choice of three more specific tracks to choose from (performance, composition, and scenography, which includes sound design), Oslejsek was swayed. 

“An introduction to scenography by the department head radically changed the course of my life,” she says.  

What struck her most about sound was the subjectivity: “The core of my practice is that sound has no meaning until it’s experienced. All sound is noise. It’s just a pitch, active, or vocalization. It becomes real when you hear it and apply meaning to it. That’s very exciting to me.”

Today, Oslejsek and partner Caitlin Hooper, an actor and intimacy choreographer, are based in Baltimore but work primarily in D.C.

“It feels good to be in a place where art and queerness in art are celebrated. It’s not like that everywhere, and making that kind of work down the street from this White House where that’s not the vibe, is real resistance. That feels really meaningful.”

Also important to Oslejsek (who identifies alternately as queer and lesbian) is “queer as a practice,” a concept suggesting that a queer identity or practice does not seek to replace other identities but to encompass and bridge them.

“I’m queer because I like women, but the work is more about making room for what everyone in the room hears,” she says. “Never do I want to come into a space thinking I have all the answers. That’s no fun.”

As its title might suggest, Jenny Connell Davis’ play directed by Rorschach’s Randy Baker is filled with magic. “Dragon Play,” blurs the past and present; one world bleeds into the next; and, of course, there are dragons. At 80 minutes with no intermission, the play moves in and out of different timelines; increasingly things start to overlap. 

And it’s also about the magic of relationships – all kinds. There’s a line where the dragon girl asks a Texas boy what he dreams about and he replies “you, always you.” 

Oslejsek, 30, is touched by those words: “In my little gay heart, I cried. It makes me think of my partner. This play is about the idea of people who strike a match in your heart that never really goes away.”

In creating a layered soundscape, she brings her own brand of magic to the production. Her big goal was “not to play with how we think a dragon might sound, but rather with how does the world sound to a dragon.” 

Sometimes sound design takes the lead, but in some productions, sound is purposely subtle or secondary, she says. Either way, sound can be monumental in shaping theater.

Continue Reading

Calendar

Calendar: April 17-23

LGBTQ events in the days to come

Published

1 day ago

on

April 17, 2026

By

Friday, April 17

Center Aging Monthly Luncheon With Yoga will be at 12 p.m. at the DC Center for the LGBT Community. Email Mac at [email protected] if you require ASL interpreter assistance, have any dietary restrictions, or questions about this event.

Go Gay DC will host “LGBTQ+ Social in the City” at 7 p.m. at Hotel Zena. This is a chance to relax, make new friends, and enjoy happy hour specials at this classic retro venue. Attendance is free and more details are available on Eventbrite. 

Trans and Genderqueer Game Night will be at 7:00p.m. at the DC Center for the LGBT Community. This is a relaxing, laid-back evening of games and fun. All are welcome and there’ll be card and board games on hand. Feel free to bring your own games to share. For more details, visit the DC Center’s website. 

Saturday, April 18

Go Gay DC will host “LGBTQ+ Community Brunch” at 11 a.m. at Freddie’s Beach Bar & Restaurant. This fun weekly event brings the DMV area LGBTQ+ community, including allies, together for delicious food and conversation.  Attendance is free and more details are available on Eventbrite.

The DC Center for the LGBT Community will host “Sunday Supper on Saturday” at 2 p.m. It’s more than just an event; it’s an opportunity to step away from the busyness of life and invest in something meaningful, and enjoy delicious food, genuine laughter, and conversations that spark connection and inspiration. For more details, visit the Center’s website.

Sunday, April 19

Go Gay DC will host “LGBTQ+ Community Lunch” at 11 a.m. at Federico Ristorante Italiano. This fun weekly event brings the DMV area LGBTQ+ community, including allies, together for delicious food and conversation.  Attendance is free and more details are available on Eventbrite.

Monday, April 20

“Center Aging: Monday Coffee Klatch” will be at 10 a.m. on Zoom. This is a social hour for older LGBTQ+ adults. Guests are encouraged to bring a beverage of choice. For more information, contact Adam ([email protected]).

Tuesday, April 21

Center Bi+ Roundtable will be at 7 p.m. on Zoom. This is an opportunity for people to gather in order to discuss issues related to bisexuality or as Bi individuals in a private setting.Visit Facebook or Meetup for more information.

Senior Self Defense Class with Avi Rome will be at 12:30 p.m. This inclusive and beginner-friendly class, led by Instructor Avi Rome, offers a light warm-up, stretching, and instruction in basic techniques, patterns, and striking padded targets. Each session is designed to be adaptable for all ability and mobility levels, creating a welcoming space for everyone to build strength, confidence, and community through martial arts. For more details, visit the DC Center’s website. 

Wednesday, April 22

Job Club will be at 6 p.m. on Zoom upon request. This is a weekly job support program to help job entrants and seekers, including the long-term unemployed, improve self-confidence, motivation, resilience and productivity for effective job searches and networking — allowing participants to move away from being merely “applicants” toward being “candidates.” For more information, email [email protected] or visit thedccenter.org/careers.

Asexual and Aromantic Group will meet at 7 p.m. on Zoom. This is a space where people who are questioning this aspect of their identity or those who identify as asexual and/or aromantic can come together, share stories and experiences, and discuss various topics. For more details, email [email protected]. 

Thursday, April 23

The DC Center’s Fresh Produce Program will be held all day at the DC Center for the LGBT Community. People will be informed on Wednesday at 5:00 pm if they are picked to receive a produce box. No proof of residency or income is required. For more information, email [email protected] or call 202-682-2245. 

Virtual Yoga Class will be at 7 p.m. on Zoom. This free weekly class is a combination of yoga, breath work and meditation that allows LGBTQ+ community members to continue their healing journey with somatic and mindfulness practices. For more details, visit the DC Center’s website.  

Continue Reading

Out & About

Team DC’s annual gala set for this weekend

LGBTQ sports organization to hold annual ‘Night of Champions’

Published

1 day ago

on

April 17, 2026

By

(Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

Team DC will host “Night of Champions Gala” on Saturday, April 18 at 6 p.m. at the Georgetown Marriott.

This will be an evening of celebration and inspiration as Team DC honors remarkable individuals and supports the next generation of LGBTQ student-athletes.

There will be opportunities to support Team DC through auctions. The Silent Auction items will offer an array of unique goods and experiences. Additionally, Team DC will feature an exclusive selection of live auction items for those looking to make a significant impact.

This year, Team DC will recognize six outstanding awardees who have made significant contributions to the LGBTQ community and sports:

  • Trailblazer Award – Adam Peck, District Wrestling
  • Most Valuable Person Award – Sean Bartel (posthumously)
  • Champion Award – Dan Martin
  • Clark Ray Horizon Award – Manuel Montelongo, aka Mari Con Carne
  • Bernard Jude Delia Award – Dr. Sara Varghai
  • Platinum All Star Award – Centaur Motorcycle Club

To purchase tickets, visit Team DC’s website. 

Continue Reading

Popular