COMING OF AGE
JOAN RIVERS TOLD ALAN SHAYNE TO ‘WRITE IT DOWN,’ AND SO HE DID
Alan Shayne has never forgotten his first love despite the many decades that have passed since the brief relationship occurred.
“I’ve gone over and over in my head this episode in my life and somehow remember every single word of it, every second,” said Shayne, 94.
He tried to write about it through the years and finally began composing a novel based on the experience. “Then I realized it’s all true, so that’s ridiculous,” said Shayne, former Warner Bros. Television president and longtime seasonal resident of Connecticut.
So he wrote a non-fiction memoir instead. “The Rain May Pass” is a 187-page book focusing on when Shayne fell for an older man as a 15-year-old spending the summer on Cape Cod.
“I wanted to go back and relive it in a way and look back at the boy who went on to do other things,” he said of the full life he’s had since.
Shayne’s been successful and happy as an adult despite growing up in an era when being gay was extremely difficult. He’s been an actor on Broadway and television, casting director of films such as “All the President’s Men” and “Catch-22,” and helped Warner Bros. create TV hits like “Alice,” “Night Court,” “Growing Pains” and “Wonder Woman.”
He is now in the 62nd year of a romantic relationship with husband Norman Sunshine, an accomplished artist and design director in his own right. The two have owned a home in the Litchfield County town of Washington for more than 50 years and also spend time in Florida.
The coming-of-age story details how Shayne, while staying with his aloof grandmother in 1941, meets an older man named Roger who embraces him when he feels misunderstood by his parents and overwhelmed by his evolving sexuality.
“It’s a story about finding oneself and becoming a man, which I did, and the influence another person can have on you when you’re young,” Shayne said.
He credits Roger for taking him to art museums and inspiring him to read more. He told Roger he wanted to be an actor, something he was afraid to tell his mom and dad because he feared their reaction.
“It’s the first time anyone encouraged and took any interest in me — and saw me,” he said. “I wanted somehow to be recognized — not to be thought as wonderful, but to have someone say, ‘This is who you are.’ ”
Despite the age difference, which made sexual activity between the two illegal, Shayne insisted Roger didn’t use or take advantage of him. “I don’t blame him at all,” he said. “It’s not an abuse story by any means. Obviously it was in my DNA I was gay.”
He believes Roger, who was 30, thought he was 18 when the relationship began. “I was very big for my age,” said Shayne, noting he worked as a full-time radio station announcer at 16.
Shayne pointed out relations between
“EVERYTHING ABOUT BEING GAY AT THAT TIME WAS RIDICULED, PUT DOWN AND THOUGHT TO BE A CRIME. ... THERE WERE NO BOOKS, MOVIES, INTERNET OR ANYTHING TO FIND OUT.”
any two males was against the law regardless of age back then. “Everything about being gay at that time was ridiculed, put down and thought to be a crime,” he said.
As a teenager, he said, he didn’t understand homosexuality and had no way of becoming educated about it. “There were no books, movies, Internet or anything to find out,” he said.
While the relationship only lasted a few months, Shayne was infatuated with Roger, telling him he wanted them to spend their lives together.
“Going back, writing the book, I realized he wasn’t being awful to me,” Shayne said of when communication ended. “He recognized it was an impossible situation. I was young and wasn’t able to do that.”
The story is told in a matter-of-fact style, with incredible detail despite the passage of time. Shayne has an excellent memory and was helped by a diary he kept.
Shayne’s Broadway acting credits date back to the 1940s. He performed on stage with Lena Horne. He switched to being a casting director — initially working for famed theater producer David Merrick — to have more time with Sunshine and for longtime job security.
Eventually he was offered the head role at Warner Bros. Television, where he remained for 10 years until 1986. “One day I woke up and said, ‘I have to get out of here. If I watch one more sit-com episode, I’ll go out of my mind,’ ” he said.
He also created and produced many TV movie specials, including “The House Without a Christmas Tree” and the original “Bourne Identity” with Richard Chamberlain.
“Everything I’ve done I’ve enjoyed,” Shayne said.
He’s written three other books, including “Double Life: A Love Story from Broadway to Hollywood” in 2011 with Sunshine about maintaining a longtime gay relationship.
The late Joan Rivers, a friend, suggested they write the book after always enjoying their stories at parties. “She’d always say, ‘Write it down, write it down,” and finally Norman and I decided we would do that,” Shayne said.
“The Rain May Pass” (Rand-Smith Publishing) is available in hardcover and as an e-book. Shayne will participate in a virtual book-signing and talk Oct. 7 at 7 p.m on Zoom through the Kent Memorial Library; go to Events at KentMemorialLibrary.org.