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Gay culture is in a coming-out process of its own. From out of the closets in the '60s, the culture moved onto the disco floors of the '70s and through the hospital wards of the '80s and onwards to the streets.

Gay nightclubs offer better dance music.

Gay life in 1970 was very bleak, compartmentalized. You didn't take it to work. You had to really lead a double life. There were bars, but you sort of snuck in and snuck out. Activism and gay pride simply didn't exist. I don't even think the word 'gay' was in existence.

What was interesting was talking to older gay men about what it was like being gay in the Eighties.

It was one of the most exciting, perfect evenings of my life, my solo debut at Carnegie Hall. And knowing we were all there to raise money for Gay Men's Health Crisis made the evening an extraordinary experience.

Seeing the road show of 'A Chorus Line' in 1977 at the Orpheum Theater in downtown Memphis was a life-changing event for me: there were gay people, on the stage, and they all lived in New York.

I got into theatre very early, so yes I was surrounded by gay people quite early and frequently.

West Hollywood blew my mind: gay men walking down the street, kissing and holding hands. I'd never imagined there was a place like that.

My own strong feeling was that the gay liberation movement really got national attraction in the truest sense of the word later in the '70s, in the '80s, and especially in the '90s.