Ellen Steps Out

FADE IN TO A CROWDED GATE IN THE LOS Angeles airport. Ellen DeGeneres, or Ellen Morgan, as she's known on her ABC sitcom, "Ellen," shows up at LAX in hot pursuit of Susan, a lesbian she met and flirted awkwardly with the previous night. Ellen has come to tell Susan something she's never told anyone before. In the script for the show's April 30 episode, her long-awaited confession goes like this:

"Okay. You were right. Susan, I'm... I can't. I can't even say the word. What's wrong with me? There's nothing to be ashamed of. Why am I so afraid to tell people... I'm 85 years old. Why can't I just come out and say... I'm gay. You hear that? I'm gay. And, it sounds pretty darn good. And it sounds pretty darn loud. Oh my God."

The gag is that Ellen has accidentally tripped a microphone that broadcast her announcement over the PA system. People are staring. Susan (played by Laura Dern) offers a hug and says, "I'm so proud of you. I remember how hard it was when I told my first airport full of people."

Finally. The closet door opens and out comes the gayest heterosexual character on television. After a season of coy double entendres, this is hardly a news flash. But there's bigger news in store. It isn't just the sitcom Ellen who's coming out. On April 28, the real-life Ellen will appear on "PrimeTime Live" and is expected to announce that she, too, is gay.

The timing is no accident. Like the fictional sitcom confession, DeGeneres's own announcement has been carefully orchestrated. Her PR firm has been shopping interviews with DeGeneres, promising she'll talk about being a lesbian. In addition to "PrimeTime," the g0-year-old comedian will also do "Oprah," a predictable tradeoff for Oprah Winfrey's cameo as Ellen's therapist on the coming-out episode. Like her character in the airport, DeGeneres is advertising her sexuality over the PA system of national TV, only not by accident, proving that even the most intimate revelations can be transformed into a media event.

As revelations go, this one isn't a huge surprise. At an awards ceremony last month sponsored by the gay group GLAAD, DeGeneres got a standing ovation, then joked about having to do "research" for her character. "There were so many people to consult," she told her enthusiastic audience. At another gay event in March, she kissed lesbian singer k. d. lang. Vigorously.