Jenny Anderson/WireImageLegendary Oscar and Tony-winning actor Joel Grey, father of Dirty Dancing actress Jennifer Grey, has come out publicly as a gay man.
The 82-year-old actor, best known for his role as the Emcee in the film and original Broadway production of the musical Cabaret, made his comments in an interview with People magazine that was posted on Wednesday, ahead of the release of a planned memoir.
"I don't like labels," says Joel, "but if you have to put a label on it, I'm a gay man."
The actor was married to Jennifer's mother, former actress Jo Wilder, for 24 years. The two, who divorced in 1982, are also parents to a son, James.
"All the people close to me have known for years who I am," Joel told People, adding, "It took time to embrace that other part of who I always was."
"I feel very happy for my dad that he has come to a point in his life where he feels safe and comfortable enough to declare himself in a public way as a gay man," Jennifer, 54, told the magazine. "Mostly because the more people are free to own their true nature and can hopefully come closer to love and accept themselves as they really are, no matter what age, no matter how long it takes, to finally be free of the lies or half truths, it is freedom."
Joel was born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1932. He told People that he remembers "hearing the grownups talk in the next room, my mother included, talking derisively about 'fairies' and men being dragged off to jail and even worse for being who they were."
"I came to realize, along with being attracted to girls, I had similar feelings for boys," he added.
Joel's comments come more than a year after The New York Times reported that Joel plans to publish a memoir, tentatively titled Master of Ceremonies, in 2015. He told the newspaper that the book would have "the arc and details of both my work and my personal journey." In November, he told Broadwayworld.com that he was currently writing his book.
Grey starred in the original Broadway production of Cabaret for two and a half years in the '60s. His role, an androgynous emcee of a seedy cabaret club in pre-Nazi Germany in 1931, earned him a Tony Award.
He reprised his role in a 1972 movie musical, alongside Liza Minnelli. He earned an Oscar for his supporting role (in which he beat The Heartbreak Kid's Eddie Albert and James Caan, Robert Duvall and Al Pacino for The Godfather. Joel also played the Emcee again in a Broadway revival of Cabaret in the '80s.
Joel is also known for roles in Broadway musicals such as Wicked, Chicago and Anything Goes and directed a 2011 production of the play The Normal Heart , which starred Ellen Barkin, Jim Parsons and Lee Pace. Joel has appeared on TV shows such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Star Trek: Voyager, Alias and Oz and is also a photographer.