The Rachel Maddow Show first aired on television in 2008.  She was first seen as a guest political analyst on MSNBC and CNN, and first heard on her syndicated radio show, The Rachel Maddow Show, in 2005.

Rachel Maddow was born in California and came out as a lesbian when she was a teenager. When in college at Stanford University, she was one of only two openly gay freshmen, according to her university paper.

At Stanford, Maddow majored in public policy and she was an AIDS activist.

In 1995, she received a Rhodes Scholarship to travel to Oxford for graduate studies at Lincoln College. She earned her doctorate degree in political science with a concentration in prison reform and AIDS.

Logo is inviting 365gay readers to chime in.

Here’s the request from Logo:

During the Equality March, Logo will be ‘dark’ as a symbol of solidarity …but this is also an opportunity to let viewers know why the march is so important.  In a ticker, we may highlight issues of inequality across the country (eg. Florida adoption laws),  but we also want to make the event feel human, personal & real.  

This is where you come in.  Tell us, in a sentence, why you think the march is important and we may include your message on-air as well.  

Serious examples:
I’m marching so my partner and I can adopt our foster children.  
I’m marching because marriage is a civil right.

Fun examples:
I’m marching so I can hold hands when I go shopping with my girlfriend.
I’m marching because socially aware guys are hot!

Looking forward to your response!

What do you think, readers? Post your response below, or email it to me at jennifer.vanasco [at] mtvstaff ][dot] com

The star of Lifetime’s “Drop Dead Diva” got her big break in the 2004 Broadway show “Taboo,” produced by Rosie O’Donnell.

Elliott wanted to make a good impression on the TV personality so she put together an ensemble that cost $117, which can be costly for a struggling actress.

“Rosie asked, `How much did that outfit cost you?’ and I said, `Oh, you know.’ And she said, `No, really. How much did it cost you?’ and I said, `$117,’ and she said, `Well, if you get the job I’m going to reimburse you.’ The first day of rehearsal I got a check for $117, which was really cool.”

The $10 million production of “Taboo” – a musical about Boy George and his relationship with fashion designer Leigh Bowery – closed after just 100 performances.

Even though the show didn’t do well, Elliott says O’Donnell’s passion for the show meant a lot to the cast and crew.

“It was immeasurable. Her heart was so into that show and I think it meant a lot to her and it meant a lot to us too.”

Elliott has now gone from Broadway to starring in her own TV show. She plays a shallow, aspiring model reincarnated as a plus-size lawyer. It co-stars Margaret Cho.

The premiere set a record for Lifetime with its best ratings yet.

Elliott and O’Donnell were recently reunited when O’Donnell guest-starred on “Drop Dead Diva, ” which airs 9 p.m. EDT Sundays. She will appear in another episode in September and has blogged about the experience on her Web site saying, “I love this show.”

 LGBT representations will account for 2.6 percent of all scripted series regular characters on the 2008-2009 broadcast television schedule, up from 1.4 percent in 2005, 1.3 percent in 2006, and 1.1 percent in 2007, The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation study found.

 In contrast, the number of LGBT series regular characters found on scripted programming on mainstream cable networks has decreased since last year’s analysis, from 40 to 32.

For 13 years, GLAAD’s report has analyzed the characters on the networks’ primetime scripted programming.

GLAAD examined 88 scripted comedies and dramas announced to air this upcoming season by the five broadcast networks – ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC and The CW – and counted a total of 616 characters, 16 of which are LGBT – more than twice the number of characters, seven, announced at the launch of the 2007-2008 season.

“This dramatic increase shows how far many networks have come in developing complex, multi-layered lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender characters,” said GLAAD President Neil G. Giuliano in a statement.

“Our analysis also shows where there’s still work to be done. This past year, we’ve seen some real progress from Fox towards making their scripted programming more inclusive, which is something we’re hoping to see from other networks like CBS.”

Fox, which featured zero series regular LGBT characters at the launch of last season, has announced five LGBT characters out of 97 total series regular characters for 2008-2009.

The network now has the highest percentage of LGBT characters on any network – 5 percent. ABC continues to lead with the highest number of LGBT characters of any network – seven LGBT characters out of 166 total series regular characters, or 4 percent of the total. NBC has three series regular LGBT characters (2 percent) out of a total of 147.

On the negative side, CBS has the most disappointing showing, with not a single LGBT series regular character out of 126, and only one recurring character in the entire series lineup. Additionally, The CW’s lack of scripted representation is now a close second to CBS, as the network has only one scripted series regular LGBT character.

The number of non-contract recurring LGBT characters has also risen – from 13 last season to 19 this year, said GLAAD.

“The growing number of recurring characters is another example of the networks’ progress towards being more inclusive,” Giuliano noted.

“As the networks gradually add characters from all backgrounds and walks of life to primetime programming, more and more Americans are seeing their LGBT friends and neighbors reflected on the small screen.”

On the mainstream cable networks, the number of announced LGBT series regular characters dropped to 32 from last year’s high of 40. The presence of LGBT-focused cable networks here! and Logo, which program specifically for LGBT viewers, add an additional 39 series regular LGBT characters. Logo owns 365gay.com.

This marks the fourth year that GLAAD has analyzed the breakdown of the race, gender and ethnicity of all the 616 series regular characters expected to appear on the broadcast networks in the upcoming season.

Male characters continue to outweigh female characters 57 percent to 43 percent in overall numbers, while 79 percent of all series regular characters are white, up 2 percent from last year the GLAAD study found. Latino representation remains at 6 percent while black representation has dropped from 12 percent to 11 percent. Analysts counted 19 Asian-Pacific Islander characters – 3 percent – one more than last season.

Newlywed Portia de Rossi, 35, will be returning to prime time television early next year in Better Off Ted, one of five pilots picked up by ABC for its midseason lineup.

The satirical office comedy revolves around a successful but morally conscious man, Ted (played by Jay Harrington), who runs a research and development department at a morally questionable corporation, Veridian Technologies. Here’s how the press release describes it:

No achievement is too far fetched and no invention too unorthodox for Veridian. Need a suicidal turkey? Done. Need a metal that is hard as steel but bounces — and is edible? Done and done. Ted loves his seemingly perfect job; he loves his superhuman boss, Veronica, and colleagues Lem, Phil and Linda, but he’s starting to take a closer look at the company’s extremely questionable practices … especially when they try to cryogenically freeze one of Ted’s scientists for testing purposes.

De Rossi plays "superhuman boss" Veronica.

The comedy also stars Andrea Anders, Jonathan Slavin, and Malcolm Barrett. ABC has yet to announce when the series will debut on its 2008-2009 schedule.

De Rossi, who married Ellen DeGeneres last week, made her first cinematic appearance in the movie Sirens (1994). But it was her role as icy lawyer Nelle Porter on Ally McBeal from 1998-2002 that catapulted her to fame. She went on to co-star in the low-rated but critically acclaimed Fox comedy Arrested Development from 2003-2006, and she most recently guest-starred as a lesbian on the FX drama Nip/Tuck.

The Yankees versus the Dodgers. Subways versus suburban sprawl. Hot dogs versus hummus. New York and Los Angeles are opposites in many ways.

Including, it is said, the way two of these town’s most famous entertainment industries — theater in New York, and TV and movies in Los Angeles — treat their openly gay and bisexual actors.

In the anything-goes world of theater, they say, it’s all about the work. But while the creative folks in the Hollywood movie and TV industry may be just as open-minded as their New York counter-parts, the financial stakes are higher — and they’re producing entertainment for more than just a liberal New York audience.

According to the conventional wisdom, this has made them far less accepting of actors who are out to the general public.

But is the conventional wisdom true? And even if it is, how have things changed in recent years?

In looking for answers, AfterElton.com turned to insiders in both New York and Los Angeles, as well as out TV and theater actors including Chad Allen, Mad Men’s Bryan Batt, Cheyenne Jackson, and Christopher Sieber.

City of Illusions

For decades after its founding as the movie capital of the world, there were no openly gay actors in Los Angeles.

“We live in such a different world today when everyone knows [about gay people],” says David Ehrenstein, author of Open Secret: Gay Hollywood, 1928-1998.

“In the 30s, 40s, and 50s, “’gay’ was not talked about anywhere, ever, publicly. But if you were gay in show business, you were a hell of a lot better off than if you were a clerk back in Sheboygan. People worked at the studios all day, then they went home and lived their lives and no one bothered them.”

There were definitely arranged marriages and fake opposite-sex “dates” for gay actors, Ehrenstein says, but these were for the public’s benefit, not the Hollywood community, which practiced an early form of “don’t ask, don’t tell.”

In the 1960s and 70s, flamboyant comedians such as Rip Taylor, Paul Lynde, Alan Sues, and Charles Nelson Reilly camped it up on television, displaying what seems, in retrospect, to be obviously stereotypically “gay” characteristics. But none of these actors were openly gay — Nelson Reilly finally came out a few years before his death in 2007 — and most of Middle America perceived them to be colorful eccentrics, not “gay” per se.

“Paul felt stigmatized by the industry about being gay,” Steve Wilson, one of the authors of Center Square: The Paul Lynde Story, told Salon.com. “He got very fed up with [Hollywood Squares] and after a while, through a combination of the writers getting more risqué as the ’70s wore on and Paul not caring one way or the other, he gradually let his guard down. Eventually, his gayness became incredibly obvious. His jokes came straight from gay culture, but mainstream America back then had practically nil exposure to that world.”

Everything changed in 1985, when Rock Hudson, formerly one of the biggest movie stars in the world and a strapping, supposedly heterosexual heartthrob, died of AIDS and was subsequently revealed to have been gay — something widely known in Hollywood circles.

“A big beloved star has his secret come out,” Ehrenstein says. “Everyone suddenly was given leave to discuss the idea of being closeted in Hollywood. That was the start of it, when the dam burst. You could no longer talk of ‘gay’ as this secret, shameful thing.”

Few Hollywood celebrities voluntarily came out in the years that followed — though British actors Ian McKellen and Rupert Everett were exceptions to that rule, coming out in 1988 and 1989, respectively.

Meanwhile, other gay actors were outed. Thorn Birds hunk Richard Chamberlain was revealed to be gay in a French magazine in 1989, though he didn’t actually come out until his 2003 autobiography, Shattered Love, in which he writes that he felt it necessary to stay closeted to protect his career. (Chamberlain declined to speak with AfterElton.com.)

Next Page! Those tabloid rumors about Kevin Spacey!

During the annual Television Critics Association press tour last week, Grey’s Anatomy creator Shonda Rhimes was questioned by reporters about various aspects of the show and its upcoming season, including the potential romantic relationship between Dr. Callie Torres (Sara Ramirez) and Dr. Erica Hahn (Brooke Smith).

Her answers, while vague on plot details, nonetheless confirm that there will be a romantic relationship of some sort between Callie and Erica.

“We have a really interesting, wonderful, funny way of laying out the story of Callie and Erica that I’m pretty excited about, that I feel like is not necessarily your typical — if there can be a typical— your typical way of dealing with the storyline,” Rhimes told reporters.

While developing the story, Rhimes consulted GLAAD, who brought in openly gay writer-producers Nikki Weiss and Trish Doolan to answer questions about how they identified themselves (as lebian or bi), when were they first aware of their attraction to another woman, and whether they ever slept with a man to prove to themselves that they weren’t gay.

“What I love is we sat down with GLAAD and talked about women who figure out that they’re lesbians later in life and what that means,” Rhimes said, “and we really were able to find some really great, humorous and serious emotional stuff to play that’s going to feel really interesting and also affect their lives in the hospital.”

According to Rhimes, the new season will pick up with Callie pondering “what does it mean that she’s kissed a girl? Is she excited it about it?”

We’ll also finally get to see the experience from Erica’s point of view, as well. “We don’t really know Erica’s side of the story yet, in terms of what’s going on with the two of them,” Rhimes explained.

“We’re going to watch that play out and then we’re going to watch the larger world of what happens when the two of them come out in the hospital, and what happens when Callie’s dad finds out and that sort of thing, which I think is going to be really, really interesting.”

Two years ago, a 4 foot 11 inch actor named Leslie Jordan took home an Emmy for his razor-sharp turn as Karen Walker’s sparring partner Beverly Leslie on NBC’s Will and Grace – besting the likes of Alec Baldwin, Martin Sheen and Patrick Stewart.

Many wondered who the heck this little guy was, and where he had come from. He had been a gypsy actor, taking any role that came with a paycheck, including turns in Sabrina The Teenage Witch and Ugly Betty. Then a starring role in a new series, 12 Miles of Bad Road, co-starring Lily Tomlin and produced by the team behind Designing Women, promised full-on television stardom.

He was sure the show was going to be huge – until HBO pulled the plug.

Instead of looking back, Jordan just kept moving forward. He hit the road to promote his best-selling memoir, My Trip Down the Pink Carpet. He toured the country with the hilarious one-man show based on the book.

And now he is glamming it up once again as Earl “Brother Boy” Ingram in Sordid Lives: The Series, co-starring Olivia Newton-John and Rue McClanahan, premiering July 23 on Logo [Logo is the parent company of 365Gay.].

Yesterday at the Television Critics Association summer press tour in Los Angeles, producers of NBC’s remake of the 1980s series Knight Rider were nonplussed when reporters asked them whether Sydney Tamiia Poitier’s character, FBI Agent Carrie Rivai, would still be lesbian, as was strongly implied in the two-hour television movie that aired in February. “We haven’t explored her sexuality at this point,” executive producer Gary Scott Thompson said at first.

Given the fact that Poitier’s character was introduced with a scene in which she says goodbye to an unnamed blond woman sleeping in her bed — which clearly suggests that Rivai had a sexual relationship with the woman — Thompson’s response indicated that Rivai’s sexual orientation may be revised in the prime-time series, which debuts Sept. 24 on NBC.

If she remains bisexual, Carrie Rivai will be one of only two lesbian/bisexual women of color on all of prime-time scripted television this fall. The other character is Dr. Callie Torres (Sara Ramirez) on ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy.

Gary Scott Thompson, who wrote the screenplays for The Fast and the Furious and 2 Fast 2 Furious, and has been an executive producer on Las Vegas, was brought on board after the two-hour movie version of Knight Rider was made in order to turn it into a television series. “I had nothing to do with the two-hour” movie, he explained, including the establishment of Agent Rivai’s apparent attraction to women.

“Gary really was given sort of carte blanche when we brought him on board, to not be limited by what had been done in the two-hour movie,” said executive producer Doug Liman (The Bourne Identity, Mr. & Mrs. Smith). “And having sat in the writers’ room with them, the stuff that he’s managed to come up with for … the first eight episodes are so imaginative. A question like that almost feels small,” he said, referring to the question about whether or not Rivai is still queer.

On the other hand, Poitier, who played Rivai in the two-hour TV movie and reprises the role in the prime-time series, did not seem confused about Rivai’s sexual orientation. “I like the fact that she had that in the movie,” she told reporters. “I thought it was interesting. That’s something that we don’t see that often on television.”

When asked how she felt about Rivai’s sexual orientation in the movie, Poitier said: “For somebody that grew up in my generation, it’s sort of like a non-issue. I kind of read it and went, ‘Oh, cool,’ whatever, and done, onto the next scene and how to prepare for that.”

Currently they are shooting the third episode of the series, and Rivai’s personal life has not yet been addressed. “It isn’t an issue because it hasn’t been related to any of the story lines that we’re doing,” said executive producer Dave Bartis, who spoke to AfterEllen.com after the press conference. Bartis also worked on the TV movie.

“I think eventually as the show unfolds you’ll start to see some of her personal life,” Poitier said to AfterEllen.com in an interview. In the early episodes of the series, which have not yet been made available for screening, producers say the emphasis has been on creating a team of characters that go on missions using KITT, the artificially intelligent car, and not on any of the characters’ personal lives.

“Hopefully it’s something that they will keep,” Poitier said of Rivai’s sexual orientation, but “I don’t know what their plans or their intentions are.”

Getty, who suffered from advanced dementia, died at about 5:30 a.m. Tuesday at her Hollywood Boulevard home, said her son, Carl Gettleman of Santa Monica.

“She was loved throughout the world in six continents, and if they loved sitcoms in Antarctica she would have been loved on seven continents,” her son said. “She was one of the most talented comedic actresses who ever lived.”

“The Golden Girls,” featuring four female retirees sharing a house in Miami, grew out of NBC programming chief Brandon Tartikoff’s belief that television was ignoring its older viewers.

Three of its stars had already appeared in previous series: Bea Arthur in “Maude,” Betty White in “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and Rue McClanahan in “Mama’s Family.” The last character to be cast was Sophia Petrillo, the feisty 80-something mother of Arthur’s character.

“Our mother-daughter relationship was one of the greatest comic duos ever, and I will miss her,” Arthur said in a statement.

When she auditioned, Getty was appearing on stage in Hollywood as the carping Jewish mother in Harvey Fierstein’s play “Torch Song Trilogy.” In her early 60s, she flunked her “Golden Girls” test twice because it was believed she didn’t look old enough to play 80.

“I could understand that,” she told an interviewer a year after the show debuted. “I walk fast, I move fast, I talk fast.”

She came prepared for the third audition, however, wearing dowdy clothes and telling an NBC makeup artist, “To you this is just a job. To me it’s my entire career down the toilet unless you make me look 80.” The artist did, Getty got the job and won two Emmys.

“The only comfort at this moment is that although Estelle has moved on, Sophia will always be with us,” White said in an e-mail to The Associated Press after Getty’s death was announced.

“The Golden Girls” culminated a long struggle for success during which Getty worked low-paying office jobs to help support her family while she tried to make it as a stage actress.

“I knew I could be seduced by success in another field, so I’d say, ‘Don’t promote me, please,’” she recalled.

She also appeared in small parts in a handful of films and TV movies during that time, including “Tootsie,” “Deadly Force” and “Victims for Victims: The Theresa Saldana Story.”

After her success in “The Golden Girls,” other roles came her way. She played Cher’s mother in “Mask,” Sylvester Stallone’s in “Stop or My Mom Will Shoot” and Barry Manilow’s in the TV film “Copacabana.” Other credits included “Mannequin” and “Stuart Little” (as the voice of Grandma Estelle).

“The Golden Girls,” which ran from 1985 to 1992, was an immediate hit, and Sophia, who began as a minor character, soon evolved into a major one.

Audiences particularly loved the verbal zingers Getty would hurl at the other three. When McClanahan’s libidinous character Blanche once complained that her life was an open book, Sophia shot back, “Your life’s an open blouse.”

Getty had gained a knack for one-liners in her late teens when she did standup comedy at a Catskills hotel. Female comedians were rare in those days, however, and she bombed.

Undeterred, she continued to pursue a career in entertainment, and while her parents were encouraging, her father also insisted that she learn office skills so she would have something to fall back on.

Born Estelle Scher to Polish immigrants in New York, Getty fell in love with theater when she saw a vaudeville show at age 4.

She married New York businessman Arthur Gettleman (the source of her stage name) in 1947, and they had two sons, Carl and Barry. The marriage prevailed despite her long absences on the road and in “The Golden Girls.”

Getty was evasive about her height, acknowledging only that she was “under 5 feet and under 100 pounds.”

In addition to her son Carl, Getty is survived by son Barry Gettleman, of Miami; a brother, David Scher of London; and a sister, Rosilyn Howard of Las Vegas.