In an a new interview broadcast
Tuesday, actor Joel Grey discussed coming out gay at 82.
Grey is best known for playing the
Master of Ceremonies in the stage and film versions of Cabaret.
Last year, he told PEOPLE that he's “a
gay man.”
Grey married actress Jo Wilder in 1958.
Together they have 2 children. The marriage ended 24 years later,
in 1982.
Appearing on NPR's Fresh Air to
promote his new memoir, Master of Ceremonies, Grey said that
he “had already been out for about 10, 15 years to his close
friends and his coworkers.”
He said that he believed that being gay
was a “career breaker.”
“What changed for you that enabled
you to come out publicly?” host Terry Gross asked.
“The law,” Grey answered, referring
to gay couples marrying and starting families.
“I was grateful for all of that
happening. And it was just one day that I was walking around
thinking, life is not what it was. It's changed, and you've changed.
You'd better say it out loud. And I stood there in the sunshine and
said, I'm a gay man,” Grey
said.
“Can I ask if you have a partner?”
“I do not.”
“Would you like to?”
“I don't know why – I have great,
great friends, very intimate relationships, but I've found a peace
living, making photographs, acting in great shows like Chicago
and Wicked and Anything Goes, and loving the cohorts in
those shows,” Grey answered.
“It seems my life is pretty full,”
he added.