What was the first franchise to prominently feature LGBT characters?

Question

In Hollywood, LGBT characters still seem slightly taboo'd. Unless the movie's specific theme is sexuality or LGBT related, it seems as if nearly all characters are heterosexual. In stand-alone movies, it seems more common to feature LGBT characters, usually in a discrete manner. However, the problem is worsened in large franchises and series spanning several movies.

To be frank, from all the famous franchises that are currently popular (Transformers, Fast & Furious, Star Wars, Star Trek, MCU, Planet of the Apes, etc), the only LGBT character I can recall is Sulu, from Star Trek Beyond.

So, to properly phrase my question, when was the earliest time that a LGBT character was prominently featured in a franchise whose main focus is not sexuality?

Some definitions:

• To be prominently featured, characters must not be a random side-character, but instead one of the main characters, with actual influence on the plot, lines, and whose appearance exists in more than half the movies of the franchise.
• A franchise is a series of movies on the same universe. Lets say that at least 3 movies is necessary to be a franchise.
• The main focus of the franchise must not be sexuality itself, or LGBT themed topics around it. While the movie/franchise may feature sexuality, it should be somewhat of an afterthought, one who is not the main point of the movie and plot.
• The specific date is the date in which the LGBT character was shown to be gay. If a franchise began 50 years ago, but the characters only showed up 20 years ago, and was only shown to be LGBT 10 years ago, then the comparison date is "10 years ago"

Answer 1

OK, if you're going to discount Pussy Galore and accept Frau (an answer I considered, myself), then you have to go back to 1984's Revenge Of The Nerds (which pre-dates the Austin Powers series by 15 years) and look at Lamar. He was in 4 of the franchise's films, and was clearly homosexual.

He was a main member of the group, he was in almost every film in the franchise, and the films were not primarily about sexuality, although coming from an era where sexual content was high (think Porky's, Hollywood Knights and other movies where nudity was crammed into every empty space they could fit it).

Here's his bio from the Nerds wiki:

http://revengeofthenerds.wikia.com/wiki/Lamar_Latrell

A brief excerpt:

Lamar is a homosexual nerd who speaks and acts very effeminately. He often dresses in colorful clothes. He isn't so much a nerd, but like the nerds, he is an outcast and can't confront people who put him down.

EDIT:

As requested, here's a little "collage" of Lamar. Note in one scene the President of the college is mentioning discrimination and Lamar offers up "And sexual orientation!". In another scene, Lewis is asking about dates for a party, Lamar says he has one, and Booger says, "Yeah, but that's with a guy".

Answer 2

Pussy Galore in 1964's Goldfinger (James Bond franchise) was a lesbian.

In the book:

In Fleming's 1959 novel Goldfinger, Pussy Galore is the only woman in the United States known to be running an organised crime gang. Initially trapeze artists, her group of performing catwomen, "Pussy Galore and her Abrocats", is unsuccessful, and so the women train as cat burglars instead.

Her group evolves into an all-lesbian organisation, based in Harlem, known as the Cement Mixers.

In the film:

In the film, Pussy is first seen when Bond wakes up in Goldfinger's private jet, having been knocked out with a tranquiliser gun by a Goldfinger henchman. He is lying on a couch when he regains consciousness, and since the first thing he sees when he opens his eyes is her stunning blonde-framed visage leaning over him, the dialog runs as follows:

James Bond: Who are you?

Pussy Galore: My name is Pussy Galore.

James Bond: I must be dreaming.[6]

She then asserts that the nature of her employment for Goldfinger is that she's "a damn good pilot", clearly intending to suggest that there is no relationship of a more intimate nature between them, and tells Bond, "You can turn off the charm. I'm immune." She is the leader of Pussy Galore's Flying Circus, a group of women aviators connected with Goldfinger's "Operation Grand Slam" (played in certain scenes by stuntmen in blonde wigs).

Her assertion that "I'm immune" is an indicator that she favors women.

While not prominent in the entire series, she did make a comeback in the 2015 Bond continuation novel Trigger Mortis by Anthony Horowitz, set in the 1950s two weeks after the events of Goldfinger.

Answer 3

This is a ridiculous answer... but it does meet the criteria in a way which the Bond example doesn't.

Frau Farbissina, from the spy parody Austin Powers film series, who in 1999's "Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me" was shown as being in a romantic relationship with another woman. There are also some plotlines where she is involved with a male character, but (unlike Ms Galore) she is shown as having at least one unambiguous same-sex romantic relationship, shown on screen and directly referred to in dialogue:

It's not likely to be recorded as a great moment in LGBT cinema history... I don't think her girlfriend even has any lines and I believe she disappears completely in the next film. But it is an example of a mainstream film franchise with a major character who happens to be LGBT, and it fits the criteria:

• Prominently featured: She's one of the top people in the villain's organisation, features in every film, has plenty of dialogue and involvement in major plotlines, even has her own Wikipedia page.
• In a franchise of at least three films (currently exactly three, but there have been off-and-on rumours of a fourth)
• Not primarily about sexuality - it's mostly a spoof spy comedy, which does feature sex and sexuality as a theme, but "not the main point of the movie and plot".

And it's not that bad a representation... Despite being in a film series where everything is an over-the-top parody, the relationship itself seems relatively normal, and most of the jokes it sets up aren't about sexuality (e.g. the unibrowed girlfriend's name: "Una Brau").

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I tried to find something better than this... but even after browsing some of the LGBT Cinema list articles on Wikipedia the closest I could see Dracula's Daughter (1936) - but this Dracula franchise never got a third film and any same sex attraction was only implied.

One other possibility is the Police Academy franchise (from 1984) which includes a (very stereotypical) gay bar as a recurring location, but I'm not aware of any actual characters being gay at all - from the very little I've seen of these films the only gay characters were extras.

Answer 4

The Bond case mentioned seems like more of an implication than an outright statement (at least in the movie version), and I don't recall the movie making any other references to it than that, though I haven't seen it in ages. I doubt the average intended audience member would have picked up on that, though I wasn't alive then, so maybe I'm wrong.

There are at least 2 earlier ones that I remember where it is explicit and not played (entirely) for laughs. The first is Billy Crystal's character Jodie Dallas on Soap from 1977. (The show was a comedy, but they tackled some very serious issues and got serious when required.)

But even earlier than that, Ed Wood made Glen or Glenda, a terrible (but serious) film about a transvestite (transgendered?) man and a person who gets a sex change operation in 1953. IMDB gives this synopsis:

"Glen or Glenda" tells two stories. One is about Glen, who secretly dresses as a woman but is afraid to tell his fiancée, Barbara. The other is about Alan, a pseudohermaphrodite who undergoes a painful operation to become a woman. Both stories are told by Dr. Alton, who also delivers an earnest lecture on tolerance and understanding.

Though, I guess in the case of Glen or Glenda, it wasn't a franchise, so perhaps it doesn't fit.

Answer 5

I suggest the slasher film Sleepaway Camp (1983), though understanding why requires spoilers of the entire plot, such as in this description by Collider:

The film opens on a father and two children—a boy and a girl—tragically getting run down by a speedboat one summer afternoon, with a sudden eight-year time jump obscuring just who exactly survived the case of water skiing gone horribly wrong. After the flashforward, young teen Ricky (Jonathan Tierstan) and his mostly silent, cripplingly shy cousin Angela (Felissa Rose) are packed off to sleepaway camp by the woman who raised them both
...
These events [campers who bully Angela mysteriously dying] don't so much build as they do tumble toward the final 30 seconds, in which it's revealed that "Angela" is actually Peter, the boy survivor of the opening speedboat accident

(... and she’s also the killer.)

It’s not clear to me what Angela’s sexual orientation is, but she meets the criteria of the question under the T in LGBT: transgender, even though it was the aunt who initially forced Peter to adopt the identity of his dead sister (the original Angela), and live as a girl.

In addition, though they don’t play a significant role, the movie depicts other LGBT characters: Angela’s father isn’t straight, as he had a male lover, Lenny.

See also The Transgender Defense of Angela Baker and ‘Sleepaway Camp’

Angela Baker (born Peter Baker) seems to be the main character (and antagonist) in the first movie and most of the sequels. In Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers (1988) she is apparently post-op and goes by Angela Johnson. The third movie (1989) has her kill someone named Maria Nicastro and adopt that identity. The sequel that was filmed in 1992, Sleepaway Camp IV: The Survivor (2012), involves amnesiac Allison Kramer going on a journey and discovering that she is Angela (born Peter). While Angela (born Peter) is also the killer in Return to Sleepaway Camp (2008), disguised as “Sheriff Jerry”, this seems to be more of a side character.

Answer 6

The Mannequin series from the late 80s and early 90s featured the character Hollywood. He plays a supporting role in both the original and in Mannequin 2:On the Move.