Gay Best Friend: Sebastian Venable in "Suddenly Last Summer" (1959)
Tuesday, March 2, 2021 at 4:40PM a series by Christopher James looking at the 'Gay Best Friend' trope
Alas, this is most we see of our dearly departed subject of Gay Best Friend this week, Sebastian Venable.Not all gay best friends get a lot of screen time, but they always know how to make an impression. Admittedly, I’m broadening the definition of the trope a bit with this latest entry. Sebastian Venable’s face is never seen. However, he is the coded mystery and the spectre that looms over the entirety of Suddenly Last Summer. The word “coded” is used both strongly and loosely. Gore Vidal’s adaptation of the Tennesse Williams play does everything but say the word “gay” to communicate that Sebastian prefers the company of other men. You’d be hard pressed to find a gayer movie from 1959 (though the Best Picture winner, Ben-Hur, could give it a run for its money).
What makes Sebastian Venable, a man who is talked about and not seen, a candidate for Gay Best Friend?
So many of our past columns have been about how women use their gay best friends as sounding boards (see Bend It Like Beckham), misguided love interests (see The Object of My Affection) and for sperm (see The Next Best Thing). Here, the tables are flipped. Sebastian is the one who uses the women in his life - first his mother, Violet (Katharine Hepburn), then his cousin, Catherine (Elizabeth Taylor). Since he can’t openly pursue other men or live his life openly, Sebastian uses his female family members as shields for his behavior. Yes, this plays into the “devious homosexual” trope that was commonly used when gay characters were alluded to in the pre and post-code Hollywood eras. However, the way Sebastian relates to Catherine in particular represents a warped, dark template for the gay best friend trope.
Few entrances are as grand as Katharine Hepburn's in "Suddenly Last Summer."
Violet Venable: My son, Sebastian and I constructed our days. We would carve each day like a piece of sculpture, leaving behind us a trail of days like a gallery of sculpture until suddenly, last summer.
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Violet Venable: Strictly speaking, his life was his occupation. Yes, yes, Sebastian was a poet. That's what I meant when I said his life was his work because the work of a poet is the life of a poet, and vice versa, the life of a poet is the work of a poet. I mean, you can't separate them. I mean, a poet's life is his work, and his work is his life in a special sense.
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Violet Venable: Oh, Sebastian, what a lovely summer it's been. Just the two of us. Sebastian and Violet. Violet and Sebastian. Just the way it's always going to be. Oh, we are lucky, my darling, to have one another and need no one else ever.
Like all good stories, we begin in a mental hospital in 1937 New Orleans. Dr. John Cukrowicz (Montgomery Clift) is summoned to meet with a wealthy widow, Violet Venable (Katharine Hepburn). She greets him from an elevator of her own making, the behavior of a woman who was guaranteed to raise a gay son (Anne Marie wrote about this elevator entrance during her “A Year With Kate” series). Violet takes Dr. Cukrowicz through the primordial garden that her dead son, Sebastian, used to tend to as she lays out her grand ask. Her niece, Catherine (Elizabeth Taylor) was with Sebastian in Europe last summer when suddenly he died (the amount of times “suddenly last summer” is said is plentiful). Now, she resides at St. Mary’s hospital and has been “babbling” certain “lies” about her and Sebastian. Violet wants Dr. Cukrowicz to lobotomize Catherine.
It’s hard to keep track of all the veiled mentions to Sebastian’s homosexuality in this long conversation with Violet. It ticks so many boxes (bachelor who lives with his mother, plant gay, never dated, 5 PM daqueries) that everyone playing along at home would surely win gay bingo. Still, it's a tribute to how much fun Vidal had adapting Williams’ work that the ghost of Sebastian could feel even more dimensional than all these cheap shots. Much of this is due to Katharine Hepburn’s incredible performance. Her all consuming love of Sebastian shines through all of her line deliveries. While this is something that can be mocked, Hepburn also makes sure to make us believe this bond they had. It may have been a strange, warped version of a mother’s love, but Sebastian was loved by Violet, who still mourns for him. Also, judging by his bachelor pad in the back of the house, complete with very suggestive decorations, she let him lead some shade of his authentic life. There was a real “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy in the Venable household.
You couldn't pick better bait than Elizabeth Taylor, could you?
Dr. Cukrowicz: Bait? For what? What were the better fish?
Catherine Holly: We procured for him.
In an incredible actress face off, Violet visits the asylum to confront Catherine. Upon her visit, Catherine confronts Violet with their shared truth about Sebastian. He would serve as their companion on European vacations. While there, he would have them use their feminine wiles to attract other men, only for him to swoop in and have his way with the men. Once Violet aged out of being an effective net for men, Sebastian moved on to his more gorgeous cousin, Catherine.
Taylor’s performance conjures up a different vision of Sebastian that is not blinded by a mother’s love. Sure, she loved him as a friend and family member. However, she remains scarred by the way he used their friendship for his pleasure and how that played out with his death. Catherine is still answering for the sins of Sebastian. Not only that, she’s working through how she felt used and violated by a man who wasn’t even interested in her sexually. As she describes being forced to wear a revealing white bathing suit and swim so it would be see-through, her voice shakes. Sebastian used friendship as a tool to manipulate Catherine. In turn, he used Catherine to manipulate the men on Cabeza de Lobo. This jenga tower was bound to fall at some point. Eventually, it ends with a graphic and traumatic killing in the streets.
Gay icons, everywhere you look.
Catherine Holly: Cut the truth out of my brain... is that what you want Aunt Vi ? Well you can't. Not even God can change the truth that we were nothing but a pair of-"
Violet Venable: Doctor!
Catherine Holly: It's the truth!
Violet Venable: See how she destroys us with her tongue for a hatchet? You've got to cut this hideous story out of her brain.
Catherine Holly: How much are you willing to pay for that Aunt Vi?
The truth about Sebastian is so haunting for Violet to contend with that she’s willing to rip it out of Catherine’s brain. This is part of the burden of being gay during the 30s, when the film is set, as well as the 50s, when the film was released. It’s not just the gay person that had to be entrusted with keeping their identity a secret. Their “best friends” and anyone they confided in would also be sworn to secrecy. Catherine’s only crime was knowing the truth about Sebastian. Okay, her other crime was procuring (possibly underage) men for Sebastian to have sex with. Still, Suddenly Last Summer expertly dramatizes the lengths people will go to in order to keep quiet an open secret. Surely everyone who saw that “celibate” man drink daqueries with his mother every day at 5pm had some questions about his sexuality.
So how can Suddenly Last Summer be so gay when its only gay character dies off screen before it even begins? The queer energy is everywhere. The way Katharine Hepburn pronounces every word, especially “the Encantadas,” is queer. It can’t get gayer than Tennessee Williams and Gore Vidal. Finally, the real “gay best friend” example is the rich friendship of the closeted Montgomery Clift and Elizabeth Taylor, who went from gay icon to AIDS advocate. Their friendship as it relates to this film (and his accident) was expertly covered by Mark Brinkerhoff as part of the Monty Centennial here at the Film Experience. To audiences, Suddenly Last Summer reads as a peril of living a gay life. However, the heightened references to Sebastian (as covered by Robert during the Tennessee Williams centennial) clue queer audiences to another reading, it’s pure over-the-top camp at its finest. Digging deeper, both Vidal and Williams provided an interesting template for straight-female, gay-male relationships that can simultaneously be based on love and on using one another for personal (and sexual) gain.
Previously in Gay Best Friend
- Plato (Sal Mineo) in Rebel Without a Cause (1955)
- Calla Mackie (Estelle Parsons) in Rachel Rachel (1968)
- Toddy (Robert Preston) & Squash (Alex Karras) in Victor/Victoria (1982)
- Sammy Gray (Steve Zahn) in Reality Bites (1994)
- Gareth (Simon Callow) and Matthew (John Hannah) in Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994)
- George Downs (Rupert Everett) in My Best Friend’s Wedding (1997)
- George Hanson (Paul Rudd) in The Object of My Affection (1998)
- Bill Truitt (Martin Donovan) in The Opposite of Sex (1998)
- Robert (Rupert Everett) in The Next Best Thing (2000)
- Patti (Sandra Oh) in Under the Tuscan Sun (2003)
- Nigel (Stanley Tucci) in The Devil Wears Prada (2006)
- Wallace Wells (Kieran Culkin) in Scott Pilgrim vs the World (2010)
- Abby Gerhard (Sarah Paulson) in Carol (2015)
- Duncan (Pete Davidson) in Set It Up (2018)
- Jack Hock (Richard E. Grant) in Can You Ever Forgive Me (2018)
Reader Comments (6)
You could say that Dr. C (Clift) is the actual gay (best) friend in this movie, since he functions as a kind of confidant for the two female leads, who are both the type of larger-than-life diva figures that gay men "traditionally" gravitate towards. Not only that, the good doctor is a Sebastian surrogate: we never see Mr. Venable's face, but from behind he certainly looks a lot like Montgomery Clift...
Vivien Leigh was set to play Violet Venable. Katharine Hepburn stepped into the role at the last minute when Leigh was too ill to fulfill the task. If nothing else, it would have been a much different film.
Terrific overview of the film and the twisted relationships it contains. It's one crazy, lunatic joyride.
Vivien Leigh is the original choice?! that wld be soooo interesting!!
However, K Hepburn's performance set such a great height for the character tt I tink none other version could ever surpass it, not even Dame Maggie's in the TV version, w Natasha Richardson & Rob Lowe.
Tennessee Williams was so impressed w K Hepburn's Violet tt he wrote The Night of the Iguana w her in mind. Hepburn, however turns it down & Margaret Leighton originated the role on Broadway & won her 2nd Tony for it.
Probably Katharine Hepburn’s only interesting performance. She goes to more interesting places here, and seems to be having fun being grotesque, instead of her typical self serious boring caricatures.
After Gone With the Wind Vivien Leigh led a list of 10 actresses for whom all major roles were offered, until the day of her passing. Thanks mainly to the constant successful re-releases of GWTW that took the studio out of the usual financial troubles. She had declined great roles in great films. MGM tried in vain to reunite her with Clark Gable a few times. More and more she preferred the stage to the movie sets and only would say yes when she really liked the role and/or the financial proposal.
The magestous Katharine Hepburn, for her part, had always avoided playing villains / negative characters because she always thought, since her "box office poison" days at RKO, that the general public did not like her. Insecure, she always wanted to undo the image of petulant and distant that persists today. Like Tracy Lord, her character in the play and in the flick The Philadelphia Story, based on her own personality, she just needed to be understood.But Violet Venable was irresistible and a big role for her age and the moment she was going through.
It is difficult for me to say who is better. Kate and Liz promote a big duel on the screens. I think, if the film wasn’t written by an openly gay man based on a play by another openly gay man, It would perhaps be called homophobic. Suddenly Last Summer shocked Hollywood at the time, conservatives and liberals.