Harry Hamlin talks about 1982′s “Making Love”

By Greg Hernandez 

Harry Hamlin and Lisa Rinna showed up at TV Critics Press Tour today to gab about their new TV Land series Harry Loves Lisa.

It’s a six-episode reality series debuting in October that follows the lives of his Hollywood couple as they navigate their hectic life as parents, business people and as stars.

Since there’s only so much you can ask about such a show, the questioning veered off into other directions including how Hamlin met Rinna three days after his former wife, Nicolette Sheridan, left him for Michael Bolton.

Harry, former star of LA Law and People Magazine’s “Sexiest Man Alive” in 1987,  was also asked about his most famous feature film: the 1982 drama Making Lovein which he played a gay writer who becomes involved with a married and closeted doctor (Michael Ontkean).

“It’s something I would do again if I were offered the same kind of opportunity,” Harry said of the film which also starred Kate Jackson and was directed by Arthur Hiller. “At the time I had 70 percent of the people in my career and life telling me not to do it and 30 percent kind of on the fence. No one was saying, you’ve got to run and do this.”

The plot focused on how a married couple struggled with a husband’s closeted gayness which comes to a head when he falls in love with Hamlin’s free-spirited character. The film was not a commercial success.

“I wanted to do it because I sat there with director Arthur Hiller and he talked about the issue of gays and the time in America,” Hamlin recalled. “This was, by the way, pre-AIDS and HIV when we made the film. The whole situation was somewhat different in those days. Hollywood wasnt really ready for that movie at that time, it was probably 10-15 years head of its time. I’d do it again but I’m not sure if was helpful to my future film career.”

At the time of the movie, Hamlin was coming off the success of the adventure flick Clash of the Titans which was recently remade.

That doesn’t mean he wouldn’t reunited with Ontkean for a sequel: “If they want to do something about a gay octogenarian, I may be up for it in a couple of years.”

His wife was asked what she thought of the film and her husband’s participation in it: “I think he was really brave to do it. I think it was an awesome move back then. I think it’s very cringe-provoking to watch for me. I married him!”

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