Here Find Eleven Openly Gay Oscar Winners
1. Dustin Lance Black
In case you missed it, Tom Daley's fiancé was quick to point out Smith's mistake (though he swears it was all just a light-hearted jibe). Black won the Best Original Screenplay Oscar in 2009 for tear-jerking biopic Milk.
2. Elton John
It turns out that Elton and David Furnish aren't just good friends. He took the Best Original Song Oscar in1995 for The Lion King’s 'Can You Feel the Love Tonight' - and in a category where his 'Circle of Life' and 'Hakuna Matata' had also been nominated.
3. Melissa Etheridge
Melissa Etheridge, LGBT activist and poster girl for the lesbian singer-songwriter set, won Best Original Song for An Inconvenient Truth’s 'I Need to Wake Up' in 2007.
4. Pedro AlmodĂ³var
PenĂ©lope Cruz and Antonio Banderas’s filmmaking pal has two Academy Awards decorating his mantelpiece - the 1999 Best Foreign Language Film prize for All About My Mother and 2002 Best Original Screenplay for Talk to Her.
5. Stephen Sondheim
You probably won't be able to guess what theatre legend Stephen Sondheim won an Oscar for. Give up? He won the 1990 Best Original Song award for Dick Tracy’s Madonna-performed 'Sooner or Later (I Always Get My Man)'.
6. John Gielgud
Arguably, even McKellen's original 'no openly gay male actor has ever won an Oscar' is up for debate. While far from a flag-waving LGBT advocate, John Gielgud was widely known to be gay and never pretended otherwise. The EGOT winner was named Best Supporting Actor in 1981 for Arthur.
7. Howard Ashman
Openly gay lyricist Howard Ashman shared the Best Original Song Oscar in 1989 for The Little Mermaid's 'Under the Sea' with composer Alan Menken. After his death from AIDS-related illness in 1991, he was posthumously honored alongside Menken for the title track from Beauty and the Beast at the next Academy Awards.
- 8. Alan Ball
You can thank screenwriter Alan Ball for all the queer content in Six Feet Under and True Blood. He took home the 2000 Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for American Beauty.
9. Bill Condon
Writer/director Bill Condon won Best Adapted Screenplay in 1998 for Gods and Monsters. McKellen was nominated for Best Actor in the same film, but you will have already guessed that he lost out on that one.
10. John Schlesinger
Known for portraying gay people like real human beings in movies like Sunday Bloody Sunday, John Schlesinger was named Best Director in 1969 for turning Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight into hustlers in Midnight Cowboy.
11. John Corigliano
Best known for his work outside of film, classical composer John Corigliano received the Best Original Score award in 1999 for The Red Violin. His 1988 composition ‘Symphony No 1' was dedicated to the friends he had lost to AIDS.
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