“Ghost” screenwriter Bruce Joel Rubin is “happily gay” after coming out at 81
This profile is part of Queerty’s 2024 Out For Good series, recognizing public figures who’ve had the courage to come out and make a difference in the past year, in celebration of National Coming Out Day on October 11.Name: Bruce Joel Rubin, 81Bio: If you asked Rubin, the Oscar-winning screenwriter behind the 1990 classic Ghost, where to begin, he’d tell you in the sandbox when he was five.
According to the Michigan native, a “spiritual experience” allowed him to see “infinite galaxies” and sense “the entire universe,” realizing instantly that “he was one with all there was.” Subscribe to our newsletter for your front-row seat to all things entertainment with a sprinkle of everything else queer.This moment set the tone for a life preoccupied with metaphysical existence, life, and science. (And of course, art, thanks to an inspiring childhood production of Mary Poppins.) As a young man, Rubin spent two years at a Detroit college before transferring to New York University’s film school in 1962, where he studied alongside Martin Scorsese.
Still, it wasn’t until the ’80s—decades after an accidentally massive psychedelic trip led him on a lifelong spiritual quest—that his screenwriting career began.
While teaching meditation, he penned the script for what would become 1983’s Brainstorm before his family, including wife Blanche and two sons Joshua and Ari, relocated to Hollywood, and things began to fall into place.Rubin is credited as a screenwriter for 10 produced projects, including Jacob’s Ladder, The Last Mimzy, Stuart Little 2, and his directorial debut, My Life.
