WATCH: A father & corporate exec comes out in his 50s—here’s what happens next
After decades in the closet, Glen Evelyn quit his corporate job & came out. Now he's turning that experience into a TV series.
Mark
For nearly 30 years, Glen Evelyn spent his life working toward the American Dream he thought he was supposed to want for himself. He had married his college sweetheart, and successfully climbed the corporate latter in the healthcare industry.
But there was something inside him that was only becoming more difficult to deny.
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After his marriage fell apart, he finally took steps to accept a truth he’d known since childhood: he was gay. It was only through embracing his identity that led Evelyn to the man who’d become his husband, and he was finally on the path to living the life he’d always wanted.
Unfortunately, there was still pain and heartbreak ahead. His husband struggled with addiction, and though the couple tried everything they could to overcome it, he eventually passed away. Meanwhile, Evelyn had his own health issues, miraculously surviving a series of heart failures.
Now having come face-to-face with mortality on multiple occasions, he knew he didn’t want to waste another day. So, at 56, he walked away from his cushy corporate job and committed himself to his true American Dream: becoming a storyteller.
They say “write what you know,” and for Glen Evelyn, that meant turning his own journey into a project about coming out later in life and trying to find your place in the world. In that sense, his indie series Our Family Pride—which he co-directed with Dominic Giannetti—is all about how you’re never too old to have your own coming-of-age story.
Drawing loosely from his own experiences, the story is centered on Evelyn’s Jaimie Scott, an All-American father of three with a high-paying office job who suddenly realized he’s done hiding and came out.
The series, then, follows the aftermath of that brave decision: How Jaimie navigates gay life for the first time in his 50s, how he maintains healthy co-parenting habits with his ex-wife Max (Rachel Alig), and the ripple-effect on the lives of their three children.
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His eldest, Mike (Garrett Clayton), is proudly out & gay, though he has a drinking problem that may or may not stem from not having had positive gay role models growing up. Middle child Kaitlin (Gianna Angela) can’t escape the feeling that she’s been lied to her entire life, and is finding her own ways to act out. And the youngest, Sydney (Jaelyn Buffkin) is suddenly claiming to be nonbinary.
In short, everybody’s still figuring it out.
“I wrote this story to help LGBTQ+ people coming out late in life to tell their stories to help their friends and families better understand and accept them,” Evelyn previously shared with Deadline. “While there is greater acceptance than ever of people loving who they want to, these stories still need to be told.”
The pilot for Our Family Pride first premiered at the New York City Film & Television Festival earlier this year, and next heads to the Indiewood Film Festival in Hollywood on September 17 (tickets & more information here). Ahead of that screening, you can check out the series trailer below:
But you could say Glen Evelyn’s making up for lost time because he’s also already ready to share his next project, making the move into features with the tech world rom-com StartUp Love, co-written with Dominic Gianetti and co-directed by René Lavan.
Set within the walls of a startup house in Silicon Valley, investor Christian (Evelyn) has assembled a talent incubator with six of the brightest minds in the biz, coders working on the next big breakthrough in their field.
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Of course, when you stick a bunch of young, talented (and hot!) people together in close quarters, sparks are bound to fly, particularly with intriguing newcomer Quin (Gabriell Salgado) who comes between couple Spencer (Coby Oram) and Sasha (Gaby Borges). And by the way, we thought you might like to know this happens to be a queer love triangle, where everyone’s got the hots for everyone else.
Also starring Imran Hylton, Brian Drolet & Sofia Lauren Giannetti, the story of StartUp Love might not be explicitly inspired by Evelyn’s life in the same way Our Family Pride is, though it notably feels like a way for him to channel his feelings about his former life in corporate America where money talks, for better or for worse.
The film is set to world premiere at Palm Springs’ Cinema Diverse on September 25, the day before Our Family Pride screens at the festival. SO if you’re in the area, you can treat yourself to a Glen Evelyn two-fer (tickets & more information here).
Watch the trailer for StartUp Love below:
Stay tuned for more information about what’s next for Our Family Pride, StartUp Love and all that Glen Evelyn has in the works.
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