12. Lenny Bruce’s ruse worked, and made its way to M*A*S*H
Naval shrinks noted that Lenny Bruce was the kind of homosexual who could adjust to heterosexual relations, and concluded that if he remained aboard a ship filled with men, he would “eventually give way to the performance of homosexual acts“. The Brooklyn’s captain concurred, and wrote that Lenny might give in at any moment to an explosion of homosexuality, that was “potentially dangerous socially” to his ship. He urged prompt action, before Bruce engaged in “scandalous action [causing] discredit to the ship in particular and to the naval service in general“. Bruce got his discharge. His ruse became the inspiration for Corporal Klinger, the cross-dressing M*A*S*H character desperate to get kicked out of the Army for being gay.
