In Memoriam: Jim Nabors, 1930 - 2017

Jim Nabors in 2008

Jim Nabors, a good-hearted Alabama boy with an amazing baritone voice, who made it big in Hollywood playing aw-shucks Marine private Gomer Pyle, has died at age 87 at home in Honolulu.

I well recall hearing - with great disbelief - that rumor back in my high school days that he and Rock Hudson had gotten married.  It was just too silly to take seriously:  I mean, really -- those two, obviously straight as a board?  They didn't fit the gay stereotype at all.  It was to laugh.

But little did I know that both Nabors and Hudson really were gay.  Sadly, Hudson died of AIDS in 1985, but Nabors lived a long, full, happy life with his partner of 40-plus years, Stan Cadwallader, happily running a macadamia nut farm on Maui and doing the occasional singing or acting gig.  The couple were married by a judge in Seattle in 2013, shortly after same-sex marriage was legalized in Washington state.

Nabors kept his private life private, and there's nothing wrong with that.  I suppose his modest, gentle style of humor is quite incomprehensible to the frenzied children of this harsh and vulgar age, but I remember his character fondly.  May he rest in peace.




In this clip from Gomer Pyle, USMC, Nabors displays his big, beautiful singing voice:

Gomer Got Married

Surprise, surprise, surprise!

And now we know: Jim Nabors married his longtime companion Stan Cadwallader during a visit to Seattle this month.

Hawaii News Now - KGMB and KHNL

The guys have been a couple for 38 years, though Nabors has never been officially out until now. All good wishes to them, and more happy years together.

I know some of you fellas around my age will remember that in the winter of 1971-72, when the new meaning of gay had just barely begun to trickle into people's minds down here in the Southland, there was a funny story going around that Rock Hudson and Jim Nabors had gotten married. Which everybody laughed at because of course the idea of two men getting married was completely ludicrous in that day and time; and also, nobody could picture those two very opposite types making any kind of couple.

But there was a grain or two of truth buried in that garbled story, wasn't there.


Update: Snopes.com has the origins of the story.