Blind Item #10 - The Naughty Dancing Boy

This story is about yet another dancing boy (which as Enty said really was a go to thing back in the day). Many of you, at least those born before that most notorious of decades, will know him. Unsurprisingly, he was and is an actor/comic, and once appeared on the original version of a recently rebooted series (that's been in the news this past week), but he is still known today for his leading (or near/co-leading) part on a successful earlier series.

He got that part while still in grade school, and the episode of interest here is from the first season. (Our actor was ten years old at the time.)

After the taping of the previous episode, a production assistant came backstage and handed the cast their next scripts. And since our actor had finished his homework already, he began reading through it. The episode was about one of these family or high school events you may have gone to, or will. But in lieu of the "firm hand" of the show's co-star, the kids start to get "out of hand." For reasons unclear to our actor even today, his "acting up" includes performing a similar dance in a similar state of undress to the (barely clinging to A list status?) actor/church member.

Our actor immediately felt uncomfortable about performing this scene, and told one of the producers - who was usually sympathetic to his concerns. In this case though he was told he had to perform the part as written. He shot back that he wouldn't do it unless he got to keep his pants on, and the producer said, "young man, you're out of line." It was then that the actor threw the script in a nearby garbage can, and stomped on it, ensuring it was covered in coffee and food scraps. "Big mistake," the producer said, and walked off.

Soon after, a cast member took him aside - apparently it was the sister (why is it always the sister or in this case "sister?") - and told him he was going to be flogged on his bare backside (by the co-star) for being proud and willful, but that if he went through with it (the scene, I mean) the punishment would be less. She even showed him the paddle. It was exactly the kind they used in boarding schools of the co-star's home country. It had his character name burned into it.

A couple years later, while appearing on air with the permanent A+ or A++ list celebrity - it was a episode about young actors - he was asked if there was ever a scene he didn't want to do. You can imagine what he said. You may even remember it. What, of course, he couldn't say was the rest. The threat of corporal punishment was still there, and the network saw to it - in part by way of his character - that he had a mischievous reputation. As in: if he ever talked you shouldn't always believe what he says (you should; also: he's actually one of the sweetest people you'll ever meet). But because Hollywood liked to live dangerously back then, they even teased viewers with an episode about the actor getting spanked by the co-star (who by the way was never married).

As I begin to hear from other former dancing boys, it's becoming clear to me that not only must there have been (and maybe still is) some kind of systemic aspect to it - a network or networks, a ring or rings - but also that physical and verbal abuse often seem to have been used in conjunction with the other kind.
. . .

(Do you remember that church mentioned in the one about the forthcoming feature, "the Little Drummer Boy?" This is that church.)

The church had a retreat/compound in the far north of this one state. The geography is important, not because the state is in the western half of the country's interior (although it is), but because this part has long been associated with a certain type of politics and beliefs that's been basically back in the news under a new name. Some members of one of those groups were also members of the church. Who else was a visitor to the compound? Apparently this now "retired" politician from the same state. He had one near-scandal involving a minor, which blew over, but the more recent allegations were the ones that sunk him. In this case though the VIP guest was a doctor, there not in case anyone got sick or injured, but to give a presentation. It was about the dancing boys of Afghanistan.

The former church member claims that the man, of Afghan origin himself, and a supporter of restoring the country's monarchy, had come to America after the fall of the royal family, and ensuing chaos. His goal? To establish the dancing boy culture in Hollywood. He'd I guess been so successful over the previous decade he'd moved on in part to other circles - Washington, Wall Street, and various well off churches, to name a few - where he'd give seminars about the dancing boys. These were the pre-internet times, of course, so this kind of knowledge was limited to mostly academics, but his fees were often in the seven figures - something no college professor could charge. The reason was his talent. Over the years, Svengali like, he'd apparently groomed dozens and maybe hundreds of boys. And he had connections to the networks he'd trained. In other words, you didn't necessarily need to risk grooming them yourselves. For the right price, you could simply buy them.