They say behind every great man you'll find a woman,
never is that more true than with gay men.

You never have to look too far to find the woman behind the gay, but sometimes thanks to the Hollywood media machine it's a little more difficult when it comes to finding celeb Jacks and Jills couples. This was especially true during the Golden Age of Hollywood when press agents covered up more star scandals and antics than there is Max Factor foundation to cover blemishes.

One of the first recorded celebrity Jacks and Jills couples
would have to be Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift.

She starred in movies as a child actress starting in the 1930s and became the epitome of Movie Star (and gay icon). Clift was a handsome leading man who came to movie fame in the 1950s and by all accounts these two were as close as close can be. Why never a hint of romance between them? Because as we would find out later, Montgomery Clift was gay (in other words, a Jack) and Elizabeth Taylor was his Jill. In fact, Elizabeth Taylor was such a good Jill that her list of Jacks is longer than her list of former husbands. One of her other Jacks was Roddy McDowall who starred with her in Hollywood and was her Jack until his death did them part. And lest we forget that Elizabeth Taylor rushed to the side of her Jack, Rock Hudson when he was ill in the 80s and few Hollywoodans would be associated with him.

So once you begin to think about celeb Jacks and Jills your mind can't help but wonder why we don't see more "out and proud" celebrity J+J couples especially in today's more accepting culture?

Or do we?

Remember when people cared about Grey's Anatomy (I was never one of those people) and Isaiah Washington supposedly called T.R. Knight the "F" word on set and Katherine Heigl went ballistic in the press about it? Supporting, loving and protecting her pal, Knight? Well, we all know how that ended up – Washington was fired eventually (supposedly not for that incident <insert eye roll here>), T.R. Knight came out and Heigl went on to rock chick flicks. So while some may say that the Knight + Heigl, Jack + Jill couple didn't have the same star power as Taylor + Clift or +McDowall or + Hudson, they're definitely a more contemporary Jacks and Jills couple.

Staying in the television genre, there was that reality show that Jessica Simpson produced scouring the world with her stylist/Jack, Ken Paves looking for beauty but perhaps the most successful television J+J couple in recent years would have to be Fran Drescher and ex-husband, Peter Marc Jacobson. They were high school sweethearts who married and eventually produced the wildly successful show, The Nanny. After the show ended, Drescher had what she called a mid-life crisis and decided to divorce Jacobson. (I'm not making this up, they were on Oprah and she told the story this way!) After the divorce, he moved to New York where he discovered he was really gay all along and they didn't speak for a year until their common law manager called Jacobson to tell him Drescher had cancer. Jacobson called Drescher and now they're not only a J+J couple reunited but they've produced a show (starring Drescher, of course – and not very good in my opinion) about their adventures/sort of in the new sitcom Happily Divorced about a woman whose husband comes out to her. In real life Drescher and Jacobson are just "best friends" and business partners according to them, even fixing one another up on dates.

So where are the other J+J celebrity couples?

Does GaGa have a Jack? Does Ricky Martin have a Jill? I'm sure they do but we don't really hear about them...yet. Maybe that's because there was never a "home" for them like Jacks and Jills.com?

About the author: Scott Rosenzweig A self-styled Gaytriarch that gives fabulous advice (both solicited and unsolicited) suitable for any occasion, this actor, singer, dancer, choreographer, director, writer, corporate survivor, perfect party guest is a Jack of many trades. React, interact and more with Scott on Facebook, twitter and his website, www.somelikeitscott.com. Voted one of The Advocate Readers' Top Ten Blogs!