The Secret Gay Life of Actor Richard Deacon ('Dick Van Dyke Show'): 30 Years After His Tragic Death

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Actor Richard Deacon found fame on classic TV sitcoms such as The Dick Van Dyke Show (CBS, 1961-1966), on which he played Mel Cooley, and Leave it to Beaver (CBS, 1957-1963), in which which he portrayed neihbor Fred Rutherford. Both characters were married to women, while Fred had a son.

In real life, such was not the case with Deacon, who died tragically in 1984 at only 62 from hypertensive heart disease. Off-camera, Deacon was gay. This is his story.

A Closer Look

Richard Deacon, nicknmaed "Fly" and "Deac," was born on May 14, 1922, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

In the early days of his career, stage legend Helen Hayes told the aspiring actor that he did not have leading man appeal and suggested he focus on becoming a character actor.

Due to his hairless head, strong voice, Deacon was typically hired to portray humorless or anger-geared authority figures. As such, he cut out quite a niche for himself in several movies for the big screen, giving supporting to stars like Jack Benny and Gary Grant.

Then Came Television

Richard Deacon's knack for playing non-affable, stern characters, such as Mel Cooley on The Dick Van Dyke Show, and Fred Rutherford on Leave it to Beaver, served him well.

As Deacon explained in one interview, “As a straight man [theatrically-speaking], I’m hired for my buttoned-down quality. I’m nearly always an executive of some sort, in suit and tie, and somebody always pricks my bubble of dignity. I’ve been called every adjective — smug, lugubrious, unctuous, bland, you name it. My character always represents the Establishment. I’m never an individualist. Not at all flamboyant.”

Straight, He Wasn't

Behin-the-scenes, however, Richard Deacon was anything but straight. As entertainment journalists Burt Kearns and Jeff Abraham once observed: "Off camera, offstage, he was not a straight man. He was a gay man. It wasn’t something he talked about. He kept his personal life private. No one asked. He didn’t tell."

As Kearns and Abraham continued to relay, "In Hollywood in the 1960s, life was played out in the shadows for Deacon and other gay actors who often played heterosexual husbands and fathers on television and movies. That was the case with buttoned-down types like Hayden Rorke (Dr. Bellows on I Dream of Jeannie) and Dick Sargent (the 'second Darrin' on Bewitched), but also flamboyantly camp performers like Charles Nelson Reilly and Paul Lynde (Jim Nabors of Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. was in a class of his own). To the public, they were simply 'confirmed bachelors.'

In the Big Picture

Whether Richard Deacon played straight, and was gay in real life never mattered to his countless fans, many of whom continue to herald his beloved performances as Mel Cooley, Fred Rutherford, among his many others of the small and big screens.