Wisecracker: The Life and Times of William Haines, Hollywood’s First Openly Gay Star,  by William J. Mann; Viking, 444 pages; $29.95.      William Haines is one of Hollywood's untold stories. Our number one box-office draw in 1930, Haines's career as a movie star ended by 1934. Today Haines is barely mentioned in studies of Tinsel Town or the cinema, and videos of his films are almost impossible to find.

Born on New Year's Day 1900, Staunton Virginia's second claim to fame (after President Woodrow Wilson) lived the gay life in New York's Greenwich Village before he was "discovered" by Goldwyn studios in 1923and sent to Hollywood. There he became part of a thriving film colony where an easy bisexuality was the norm - even the super straight Clark Gable had a fling with our hero.

William Haines (l) & Lon Chaney (r)  In MGM 1927 classic "Tell It To the Marines"

This idyll ended with the Great Depression, talking pictures and the rise of pressure groups like the Legion of Decency. Stars on the rise like Grant and Gary Cooper gave up their male lovers and took up wives, in order to present an image more pleasing to Middle America. Though Haines's homosexuality might have been tolerated under ordinary circumstances, his open marriage (in both senses of the word) with Jimmie Shields upset MGM boss Louis B. Mayer's puritan sensibilities. By 1934,Haines was out of a job, replaced by straight arrow types like Robert Montgomery (Elizabeth's dad) and the by-now convincingly straight Mr. Gable.  

Happily Billy Haines's life did not sink into a pit of alcoholism and self-hatred, as did the hapless Novarro. Using his native good taste and Hollywood contacts, Haines rebuilt his life as Tinsel Town's most distinguished interior designer.  
 

William Haines and Joan Crawford  in MGM's 1927 classic "West Point"

Here, again, Haines was at the top of his profession; movie stars, after all, come and go while a good decorator is hard to find. Not even a 1936 incident in Manhattan Beach, in which a mob attacked Haines and Shields after they allegedly molested a local boy, was able to faze our hero, or cramp his style. Haines continued to be part of Hollywood's gay crowd and lead a life of devotion and domesticity (if not monogamy) with his spouse Jimmie Shields. "Uncle Willie and Uncle Jimmie have the happiest marriage in Hollywood," Crawford told her daughter, Christina.

Billy and Jimmie lived together from 1926 until Haines died from cancer in 1973. Distraught by his lover's death, Shields took his own life two months later. For Wisecracker Mann interviewed Haines's surviving relatives, colleagues, friends and acquaintances; from silent film star Anita Page - the only woman Haines ever proposed to - to Nancy Reagan (a client), veteran gay activist Harry Hay and the now-aged Jimmy Walker, the boy at the center of the Manhattan Beach incident.  

Mann tells us too little about the inner workings of the Haines-Shields marriage - Shields apparently kept house while Haines apparently kept Shields - a near-impossible task since both principals are now dead. Mann is more successful in his depictions of gay life in Hollywood, dropping names of movie stars who were gay, bisexual or dubious. Contrary to Mann's firm belief, Cary Grant's strict homosexuality is still in doubt, and his speculations about the likes of Jack Benny and Vincent Price are just that.  
 

Still, it is fun to read tales about the 1929 opening of Jimmy's Backyard, Hollywood's first "exclusively gay" bar; the gay parties thrown by George Cukor and Cole Porter in the thirties; or the recollections of Haines's protege Ted Graber, whose long-term relationship with Arch Case is one that's as long as the one between Haines and Shields.

l-r Gwen Lee, William Haines and Joan Crawford 1929 - MGM: " The Duke Steps Out"

I am a sucker for movie star books, even when they try to hide or explain away their subjects' sexuality. Wisecracker plays no such games, for it is as honest as its hero. If we are lucky, Mann's book will move the powers-that-be to make Billy Haines's old movies available once again in video form. At least it has people talking, as they did on National Public Radio, about "Hollywood's first openly gay star."