Born to Be Brad (8 page)

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Pretty in Pink
(1986)

The Great Gatsby
(1974)

Flashdance
(1983)

Saturday Night Fever
(1977)

Funny Face
(1957)

Elizabeth
(1998)

A Single Man
(2009)

Boogie Nights
(1997)

Annie Hall
(1977)

I always thought of the fashion world as a fantasy, make-believe place. But thanks to
Unzipped,
I could see it, I could hear the paper dolls talk. But in a way, it made this world feel even farther away. How does anyone get there? How does anyone fit in?

My father and I weren’t talking about
Unzipped.
While he hadn’t taught me to shave, he
did
teach me to drive. These were the times that we laughed together. We got into the car one afternoon for a driving lesson and there was a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken sitting in the backseat, left over from the night before. As I was backing out of the driveway, my dad reached into the bucket to grab a snack, and my mom and sister were screaming at him from the porch, shouting, “Don’t eat that!”

In 1988, I played the title role in
Oliver!
with the Scugog Choral Society and immediately fell in love with acting.

In high school, I landed the lead role in
The King and I
. The director wanted me to shave my head for the role, but I refused. I didn’t want to look like Yul Brynner. I wanted to put my own spin on it, which I did, by dyeing my hair black and pulling it into a ponytail. The king was supposed to be hyper-masculine, but I basically dressed like Liza Minnelli.

While my dad and I never developed that shorthand that fathers and sons have, he showed his affection in his own way—not through words, but through plywood. In high school, I was heavily involved in the local community theater, and he helped build all of our often-complicated sets. This was nothing like
Waiting for Guffman
. We performed full-length adult shows in the town hall, next to the mayor’s house, and our shows ran for two weeks, with several hundred people at each performance. I played all the big roles. I was Billy Bigelow in
Carousel,
dressed in a yellow sweater and a newsboy cap. I was Nicely-Nicely Johnson in
Guys and Dolls
. I played the king of Siam in
The King and I
—with a full face of makeup, including contouring on my nose and eyes to give me an Asian profile.

“I broke down crying. I’m afraid I’m never going to fall in love.”

The theater became an unlikely rallying point for my family. At home, life might have been challenging sometimes. But at the theater we were like the Waltons. My mom made costumes for the theater—exquisite, beautiful costumes that were labors of love. My father worked on pyrotechnics. When I played the Cowardly Lion in
The Wizard of Oz,
sitting for hours in makeup, my mom built the costumes and my father built Oz. When my sister was home from university, she’d double as my personal assistant, running out to get me dinner and bringing me throat lozenges. (Why the lozenges? Because I saw Madonna in
Truth or Dare,
and I wanted the same manic vibe and desperate eleventh-hour emergencies backstage that she thrived on.)

The sound of applause was some much-needed validation of my self-worth. It always had been—since I first stepped onstage at age eleven, in a school play,
The Wild Kingdom,
and then in a local production of
Oliver!
I’ll never forget when the director called to say I was cast in the lead role, playing the orphan who dares to ask, “Please, sir, can I have some more?” The whole experience—singing “Where Is Love?,” being photographed for the town newspaper—was like me asking for more. It was me asking for more from life.

Working on these shows later provided the kind of quiet moments that I needed with my mom. Even when I was being a brat, we still had to sit together at the sewing machine building the costumes. One night she and I were working on the lion’s mane for
The Wizard of Oz
when I got up the nerve to talk to her. To really talk. I was eighteen years old and in my final year of high school. I was waiting for the right moment, but sometimes you have to make the right moment for yourself. For me, that moment was at seven thirty right after
Jeopardy!
ended. I was in the basement with my mom and the fireplace was going. Sewing was a calming influence on her, which I figured would help.

“I think I’m gay,” I said to her.

“I know,” she said, looking up but not for too long. “Is there anything you’re afraid of?”

I broke down crying. “I’m afraid I’m never going to fall in love.”

She asked that I not tell my father just yet. That I wait for a time just like this with him where I could connect with him. Unfortunately, that time never came. I never had the opportunity to tell my dad face-to-face that I was gay. Almost a year later, he found out from my cousin, whom I was living with at the time. This was definitely not the way I’d pictured coming out to my dad. I wish he could have heard it from me.

T
o say I was looking forward to graduation would be a classic understatement. I was tired of running. I wanted out so badly that I almost didn’t go to my graduation. And I chose a time-honored night of teenage angst to confront my school demons head-on. I chose the prom.

Believe it or not, my best friend, Tracy Doyle, and I somehow became the outspoken heads of the prom committee. I’d met Tracy on the first day of high school, standing outside of history class. I was wearing a color-blocked Polo rugby—red, blue, green, and yellow—and a white collar. I was still in my preppy phase. Tracy was tall and blond and dressed head-to-toe in an all-black look from Le Château, my favorite gay mall store. She had a wide black headband on her head and was dressed in a gypsy blouse, A-line with bell sleeves that hung over her hands. Everyone else in our class was wearing white T-shirts from the Gap. But there was Tracy, looking like Lady Miss Kier from Deee-Lite.

Tracy Doyle and Brad Goreski, unlikely prom chairpeople.

“You’re way too pretty to be in this town,” I said. What I meant was that I recognized something in this girl, something I saw in me, too: that our dreams were somehow bigger than this town. We both felt destined to escape. Everyone around us just wanted to make the hockey team and graduate from high school. But we wanted to be heard. We wanted to make our mark beyond the shores of Lake Scugog. We were fast friends, Tracy and I, and everything we did was theatrical, from the school drama club down to the presentations we did in class, which were always as much about the aesthetic as the subject matter. For an English class project, Tracy dressed up as a flapper and did the Charleston.

When it came time for prom committee elections, Tracy and I ran on a ticket of opulence. We figured all of the reasons that people hated us—our bold music taste, our outlandish clothing—were the same reasons we’d put on a good prom. Even our small-minded classmates had to recognize that. We thought it would be fun to plan a party with a real budget and to make something beautiful. We weren’t New York trust-fund kids. We were in Ontario on a budget, trying to make something magical happen. And we’d stay up late at Tracy’s house, baking pizzas at three in the morning in her kitchen with the marigold curtains that looked like a faded Polaroid, listening to Depeche Mode and Sarah McLachlan’s
Fumbling Towards Ecstasy
and dreaming up ways to make the night bigger. The theme was “A Night on the Orient Express,” and we imagined this amazing around-the-world tour. We’d dress the gym as Paris! We’d convert the hallways into a Turkish market! Forget the fact that the actual Orient Express didn’t travel to most of the places we came up with. This was our prom.

Prom night was my first styling job. Tracy asked me to dress her, and while there weren’t yet fashion publicists for me to call, I took it seriously. Tracy and I went to the mall to scout options, browsing the racks at Le Château. After considering many options we bought a knockoff Gianni Versace apron dress like the one Christy Turlington wore in the pages of
Vogue.
I was obsessed with Versace—everything seemed so new, and what he did was the definition of sexy and high fashion. It was so inspirational. And Tracy fit the criteria for a Versace girl—she was tall, thin, and blond, another Barbie in my life. I thought, If I was a girl going to the prom, I’d want to be in Versace and look like Christy Turlington, in a dress inspired by farmer’s overalls but with big medallion closures and a pocket on the front. It was a no-brainer. When we got to Tracy’s house, she tried the silver metallic dress on for her grandmother, who was horrified by the too-short length and promptly pulled out her sewing machine to add a two-inch lace border. Despite her addition, the dress was perfect. And we found just the right open-toed silver metallic shoes to match. They were a size too small, and so on the afternoon of the prom we soaked Tracy’s feet in water, shrinking them just enough to squeeze into the shoes. I had to warn her: Listen up, Cinderella, there will be no taking these shoes off at the prom, even for a minute. Because you’ll never get them back on.

My Super-Sweet Prom

HOW TO DRESS FOR HIGH SCHOOL’S BIG NIGHT OUT—IN SEVEN SIMPLE STEPS

1. Keep your options open.

I know the dream is to wear a gown. But consider wearing a cocktail-length dress. It’s a good way of standing out in the crowd.

2. Be resourceful.

Don’t go where everyone else is going. Check out the vintage stores, or even the Goodwill. You never know what you’ll find.

3. Pick a decade.

Choose a time period that resonates with you.

4. Be age appropriate.

Girls tend to dress a little risqué for the prom. But you’re going to be looking at this photo for the rest of your life. Make sure you don’t look “inexpensive.” And I’m not talking about how much money you’re spending.

5. Do your homework.

What red carpet looks resonate with you? What actress does it well? Who do you want to emulate? Go from that point, instead of wandering around the store being frustrated.

6. Don’t be competitive.

That’s not what the prom is about. Go shopping with your girlfriends. Make it something fun. Do fittings with each other.