Mad Men star: Playing a gay man ended my film career
Harry Hamlin has admitted that he was frozen out of the film industry after playing a gay man in a 1982 film.
Hamlin – who appears as Jim Cutler in Mad Men – starred in the 1982 gay drama Making Love, in which he appeared opposite Michael Ontkean.
The actor admitted on Watch What Happens Live this week: “[The film] was way ahead of its time.
“It was before the AIDS issue had risen yet, so we could tell a love story without that being a part of it.
“We didn’t have to address that at all in this film so it was very innocent.
“I didn’t work in feature films ever again. That was the last feature I did.
“It is something that I would repeat and do again today, even though there was a ruffle in my career after that.
“What it did was [it] created a transition for me between feature film to television.”
Prior to his role in Making Love, Hamlin had starred in blockbuster hit Clash of the Titans.
Despite the lack of film roles, he went on to feature in long-running TV legal drama L.A. Law, before again finding breakthrough success in his Emmy-nominated Mad Men role.
