http://cptv.vo.llnwd.net/o2/ypmwebcontent/Chion/CMS%2011-16-2011%20A+B.mp3
Reality is composed of the public and the private. Paul Marcarelli was the Test Man, the "Can You Hear Me Now" guy for nine years of iconic commercials. During that time, he believed he could not identify himself as a gay man without affecting his income stream. The Test Man had to be Everyman, not part of a sub-group.
Marcarelli is now one of the forces behind a movie called "The Green", the story of a gay Connecticut teacher who doesn't conceal his private life and pays a price when he's accused of improper contact with a student. Marcarelli's on our show today.
So is Alexandra Styron, whose memoir "Reading My Father," slices the public-private apple in a different way. Styron grew up in a state of tension between her father's revered status as an American giant of letters and his private world of drinking, depression, indifference and hostility. Poring through his archives, she assembles a third portrait of him.
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