Lisa -
If you're interested in an international focus, the no.1 Australian TV soap
drama in the '70s was "Number 96", which followed the lives of a group of
flat dwellers in inner-city Sydney. Among the over-the-top characters the
series featured a homosexual lawyer ('Don Finlayson' played by Joe Hasham)
in a sympathetic role that portrayed him as the most 'normal' occupant of
the flats. He just happened to be gay! In the permissive age of the early
seventies, this was probably the first image of a gay male to screen in
prime-time television on a continuing basis.
cheers
Rob Pemberton
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Screen-L is sponsored by the Telecommunication & Film Dept., the
University of Alabama.