120: Gloria Vane Is a Part of Frasier’s Queer History

“PIlot” (1993)

This unsold pilot, featuring JoBeth Williams as an aging actress in 1930s Hollywood, represents writer Joe Keenan’s attempt at selling NBC a TV series with a gay sensibility back in 1993. And while Gloria Vane never made it to air, its legacy lives on in Frasier, as Keenan joined the Frasier writers’ room and ended up penning some of the series queerest and most farcical episodes. Even without that Frasier connection, however, Gloria Vane would still merit its own very special episode, because it’s very funny and very queer.

Watch the Gloria Vane pilot on YouTube.

Watch Dear Diary, the unsold Bebe Neuwirth pilot that won an Oscar.

Buy the first issue of Drew and Glen’s new comic anthology, Beyond Sunset.

Episode artwork designed by Ian O’Phelan.