Grandma Had A Female Lover
We bet this little tidbit would have shocked the whole Walton family if they knew about it. Grandma Esther Walton actually had a girlfriend! Three-time Emmy Award winner Ellen Corby was in a relationship with a woman. She married a man named Francis but got a divorce in 1944. Despite this, her obituary had a telling line that said something about how she was survived by her female partner of 45 years. The actress never had children of her own. We do not doubt that the Southern Baptist family would not have approved of her sexual orientation, but the cast had another actor who was actually in the same boat. Can you guess who it was?
Grandma Had A Female Lover
Grandpa Had A Male Lover
Will Geer, the actor who portrayed the elderly family member Grandpa Zebulon, was gay as well. He was in a relationship with Harry Hay, a prominent communist and activist for labor, gay, and Native American civil rights. Hay was also credited as the founder of the first gay rights group in the country, the Mattachine Society. He considered Will Geer his political mentor, and the pair went to a couple of strikes together. Geer was actually a passionate activist his entire life, organizing benefits for migrant farm workers and visiting government work camps with Burl Ives and Woody Guthrie. We were all sad to hear that he died of respiratory failure at the age of 76. His family sang “This Land Is Your Land” by Woody Guthrie at his deathbed.
Grandpa Had A Male Lover
