In this powerful and emotional interview, voice actor Cam Clarke (known for iconic roles in animation and video games) shares his deeply personal journey growing up in a famous Mormon-Hollywood family. From his early years navigating faith, family expectations, and same-sex attraction, to starring in Saturday’s Warrior and undergoing electroshock therapy at BYU, Cam opens up about the emotional toll of trying to reconcile his identity with his religion.
He discusses coming out, surviving the AIDS crisis, finding healing through art, and ultimately resigning from the LDS Church. Cam’s story is raw, heartfelt, and inspiring—a testament to resilience, authenticity, and the power of self-love.
Topics include:
- Growing up Mormon in a showbiz family
- Struggles with sexuality and faith
- Saturday’s Warrior and mission life
- Conversion therapy and coming out
- Voice acting career and ComicCon life
- Reflections on love, loss, and legacy
Episode Transcript
Host: John Dehlin · Guests: Cam Clarke, Julie de Azevedo Hanks
This transcript is machine-generated and lightly edited for readability. The audio is authoritative. Please excuse occasional errors in names and spelling.
Welcome and Guest Introductions
John Dehlin [00:00:00] Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. I'm your host, Sean Deland. It's April 24, 2025, and today I'm so excited to have as co host the Julie d' Azevedo Hanks. Hey, Julie.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [00:00:13] Hello.
John Dehlin [00:00:14] Thanks for joining us. What a treat to have you in the co host chair.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [00:00:18] I'm so happy, so happy to be here.
John Dehlin [00:00:20] Yeah. Y' all will know Julie from the many episodes she's appeared on Mormon Stories podcast. She's also a therapist and a friend and. And so much more singer. Y' all know her. So anyway, super excited to have Julie here. And we're having Julie here because she's co hosting today because we're interviewing her uncle. Her uncle is Cam Clarke. Hey, Cam.
Cam Clarke [00:00:47] Wait, you got Cam Clarke on your show? How did you get that? That's probably pretty hard.
John Dehlin [00:00:51] I know. I had to. It took me years.
Cam Clarke [00:00:54] I've heard.
John Dehlin [00:00:54] It took me years to get Cam Clarke on.
Cam Clarke [00:00:57] I am shocked because he doesn't do that a lot. He's not cheap. Not cheap? Well, easy, but not cheap.
John Dehlin [00:01:03] Now, Cam Clarke, a couple things. He's the author of this book that we're going to be showcasing in our next episode, the King Family. So he comes from a long sort of a royal Mormon family of Hollywood entertainment. And we'll get to that. But he, in his own right, is a big deal. He was Jimmy in the original Saturday's Warrior. He's the brother of Lex D. Azevedo, which is Julie's dad. Cam is the brother of Lex de Azevedo. He was Jimmy in the original cast of the Saturday's Warrior musical. He sang on the album. Is that right?
Cam Clarke [00:01:45] Indeed.
John Dehlin [00:01:46] And it's your photo on the album.
Cam Clarke [00:01:48] Yes.
John Dehlin [00:01:49] You sing Brace Me up and Sailing on. Yeah.
Cam Clarke [00:01:54] Didn't we love him? Line upon line why can't they love me?
John Dehlin [00:01:58] Yes, why can't they understand?
Cam Clarke [00:02:00] Some really great, great music.
John Dehlin [00:02:02] Oh, I love it. I'm getting the chills right now. Anyway, but that's just the beginning of your. I mean, that wasn't the beginning of your illustrious career because you grew up in Hollywood.
Cam Clarke [00:02:11] You were starting in 1963.
John Dehlin [00:02:13] Yeah. So we'll talk about that. But you were on TV multiple times in multiple different roles. And then after Saturday's Warrior, you became most known as a voice actor.
Cam Clarke [00:02:26] Yes. A lot of animation and anime and
John Dehlin [00:02:28] games where you've appeared in, you know, one of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Not one of voice actors.
Cam Clarke [00:02:34] The OG Okay.
John Dehlin [00:02:36] Michelangelo, was it?
Cam Clarke [00:02:38] Leonardo.
John Dehlin [00:02:38] Leonardo, that's right. Okay. But Also, like, there's a photo in here, like, hundreds of voice acting roles. Like.
Cam Clarke [00:02:47] Yeah, pretty much.
John Dehlin [00:02:48] Yeah. Yeah. So I've been doing this. What would be some of the roles that people might.
Cam Clarke [00:02:55] Well, Leonardo is probably the most successful cartoon program of mine. I have a game that's very. I mean, it's from a thousand years ago, but it's like a granddaddy called Metal Gear Solid. And I played the evil Vin, the evil twin, Liquid Snake. I am Simba. I am Simba. And Snoopy. So I got a lot of he, man. So I've got a lot of iconic characters.
John Dehlin [00:03:27] Was it Matthew Broderick's voice that you had to sort of transform into?
Cam Clarke [00:03:33] I'm not what you'd call an impersonator, but when I would audition, I had four prototypes that I put in my head for how I want to deliver the copy. Matthew Broderick, Robbie Benson, John Travolta, and Sylvester Stallone. But the only one that I did, like, a spooky imitation of was Broderick. And everybody knew that I had this voice. Chiara, how can you not want to be queen? Well, that's like saying you don't want to be a lion. We are all part of the circle of life.
John Dehlin [00:04:12] I love it. I love it. Well, that gives you all a sense for who we're interviewing today. Cam Clarke. He also has his own Mormon journey. He was gay.
Cam Clarke [00:04:26] And we didn't have GPS when I started my Mormon journey.
John Dehlin [00:04:31] No, you were discovering your sexual orientation in the late 60s, early 70s, before any of this stuff had been talked
Cam Clarke [00:04:40] about, let's just say. I mean, I've. Yeah, I've known what was up.
John Dehlin [00:04:45] Yeah, yeah.
Cam Clarke [00:04:48] But of course, as a Mormon, I'd hoped it was a phase.
John Dehlin [00:04:51] Yeah, yeah, we'll get to that. So, so many important, powerful themes in today's Mormon Stories episode. And I should say, over the years, at least for the past 15 years, I've had many, many of you ask me specifically, why haven't you interviewed Cam Clarke?
Cam Clarke [00:05:04] Seriously?
John Dehlin [00:05:05] Oh, yeah. For sure. Yeah. Thank you, folks. Oh, yeah. So without any further ado, again, welcome, Julie, Cam Clarke. Welcome to Mormon Stories podcast.
Cam Clarke [00:05:15] Thanks for having me. Glad it worked out.
John Dehlin [00:05:17] Yeah. All right, so tell us just super briefly where your Mormon story begins. And, like, I was born that way. Yeah.
Cam's Mormon Pioneer Family Heritage
Cam Clarke [00:05:30] Come from a big fat Mormon family. My dad was not Mormon, but my mom's family was very, you know, from the pioneer days and related to this one and related to that one.
John Dehlin [00:05:45] Who are your parents? Tell us about just the brief.
Cam Clarke [00:05:48] Dad is Robert Clarke. Who was king of the B horror flick in the 1950s. So he had a great following, which he hated. More on that topic, are we talking,
John Dehlin [00:06:04] like, Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde, Wolfman, Dracula kind of stuff?
Cam Clarke [00:06:08] No, B horror flicks. So we're talking about films where the poster art is the best part of the movie. Insane, beautiful graphics. And the movie was made for about a buck 50, you know, in two and a half days.
John Dehlin [00:06:21] Give us a couple examples.
Cam Clarke [00:06:23] His most famous is the hideous sun demon.
John Dehlin [00:06:27] Okay.
Cam Clarke [00:06:27] It was like the reverse of Wolfman. It was this guy who got exposed to radiation, and instead of the moon in the sunlight, he turned into this lizard man. And it was really a homegrown product film because half my family plays half the characters. So that was pretty funny.
John Dehlin [00:06:50] So you're talking real B movies? Like legitimate B movies. Yeah.
Cam Clarke [00:06:55] The other one, the most famous would be the man from Planet X, which was the first film where the aliens came to us as opposed to us going to outer space.
John Dehlin [00:07:06] Okay.
Cam Clarke [00:07:07] He did a film called the Astounding She Monster. And it was so cheap. It was this Martian, beautiful Martian, scary lady. Her zipper broke. She only had one sparkly onesie, no safety pins. So they re choreographed her. She could never leave the room, like turning around and leaving because her zipper was broken. So she created this. I'm backing up out of the room, which is greater than turning around. But because her costume was broken.
John Dehlin [00:07:41] Julie's laughing. Jump in at any point, Julie. I will. I will.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [00:07:45] I'm just. Yeah. Reliving my childhood, too.
Cam Clarke [00:07:48] Were you scared of the sun demon when you were a kid?
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [00:07:51] Not that I remember. I do remember the mask on a shelf somewhere. And that was a little frightening.
Cam Clarke [00:07:57] The hideous sun demon mask that lived in my bedroom. Okay.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [00:08:00] That's what. Yes.
Cam Clarke [00:08:01] When he was sleeping. When he would spend the night. He hated sleeping in my room because he knew the sun demon was in
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [00:08:08] there, would come to life.
Cam Clarke [00:08:09] Yes.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [00:08:10] Yes.
John Dehlin [00:08:10] So was your. So your dad was never Mormon. What was his quick background? And why did he join the church?
Cam Clarke [00:08:18] He became Mormon to keep the peace.
John Dehlin [00:08:21] Yeah. What was his background, though? Was he Jewish?
Cam Clarke [00:08:25] Raised Presbyterian.
John Dehlin [00:08:26] Okay.
Cam Clarke [00:08:27] My dad was from Oklahoma. And he tells me that this was his voice when he first decided that kind of thing, that Oklahoma thing with the nasal. And he went to college and took speech to get rid of his accent. And it. One of the most beautiful narrator voices. He wanted to be a matinee idol.
John Dehlin [00:08:52] Wanted to be an actor.
Cam Clarke [00:08:53] Oh. Yep. From.
John Dehlin [00:08:54] Okay.
Cam Clarke [00:08:55] From day one.
John Dehlin [00:08:56] Okay.
Cam Clarke [00:08:57] And he didn't make it all the way there. He got this sci fi thing and he was never able to embrace and he had so many fans, but in his brain it was a reminder that he didn't get what he was after. My.
John Dehlin [00:09:19] But he stayed in Hollywood and became a what, director? Producer?
Cam Clarke [00:09:23] No, he was on the King Family show with us.
John Dehlin [00:09:27] Okay, so.
Cam Clarke [00:09:28] Okay, well, so that would be what he was doing. But he joined the church, like I said, to keep the peace. And my mom was not able to go to my brother Lex's wedding because she hadn't been through the temple. And I remember her saying, when my brother Rick, our other brother, was getting married in the temple, she goes, I'm not missing another one of my kids weddings. So it wasn't really. It was social. I don't mean social like, oh, what will people think? I don't want to miss my kid's wedding, so I'm going to go through the temple. And dad did too, but he was never into it. And it didn't matter that he didn't believe in it or, you know, whatever he goes to. This will make my wife happy.
The King Sisters: Fame and Family Legacy
John Dehlin [00:10:20] Some things never change. Yeah.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [00:10:23] Yeah. I always knew that he was never really converted. Right. It's just kind of like, oh, yeah, we go to church and sometimes wear garments and sometimes.
Cam Clarke [00:10:33] And I wish I had been able to listen to some of his counsel instead of the black and white. Black and white Mormon thing.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [00:10:42] Yeah.
Cam Clarke [00:10:43] And my mom, there's a quote. Everyone can quote the Bible, but nobody's ever read it. And mom was one of those people. She believed in this. She had a testimony of the pioneers that crossed the plains. Truly. That was her. That was her.
John Dehlin [00:11:01] Let's briefly about her background, like. Yeah, her family background.
Cam Clarke [00:11:05] She was raised very poor. What's her name? Alice.
John Dehlin [00:11:11] Alice.
Cam Clarke [00:11:12] Alice Drigg. The family name was Driggs. Didn't really roll off the tongue and not very pretty. And my mom and her sisters became a very successful singing group. And they were the Drigg sisters. And they're met. Literally, it's like some old Hollywood movie. They're about to go on stage and the announcer goes, you got anything else? Drake Sisters. Yeah, not feeling it. And they went, well, our daddy's middle name is King. King Sisters. Yeah, we're going with that. Okay, you're on. Go, go, go.
John Dehlin [00:11:46] Interesting. Where was she raised?
Cam Clarke [00:11:47] She was born in Payson, Utah. Yes.
John Dehlin [00:11:50] Okay.
Cam Clarke [00:11:51] But they traveled all. They lived all over the west, often because they couldn't afford things.
John Dehlin [00:11:58] How did some Payson Mormon, Utah sisters end up in Hollywood?
Cam Clarke [00:12:03] They didn't. Not at first they. They were living in Oakland and their idols were. And if you've not. If you guys haven't heard of this group, gotta listen to them. Early jazz from the twenties, the Boswell Sisters. I have a lot of their music and they're amazing. Anyway, one of their answers, somebody knew a guy who knows a guy and got them on ksl and then somebody.
John Dehlin [00:12:31] Her. Oakland.
Cam Clarke [00:12:34] Yes.
John Dehlin [00:12:34] Okay.
Cam Clarke [00:12:35] And so they. I'm sorry, they had. They had gone to Utah because mom was going to be in what you just called it, the Green and Gold Ball.
John Dehlin [00:12:46] The Green Ball, yeah.
Cam Clarke [00:12:47] Yeah. For, you know, the kids, everybody. It was a contest and everybody and the Mormons would come to this thing. And her aunt was there and she traveled. You know, her mother would not let her travel without her sisters. And the aunt, she'll sing for us. And the aunt really took to him. And I know a guy who knows a guy. Da, da, da. And then it just took off from there from ksl, a band leader named Horace Height heard them and that was then off to the Races.
John Dehlin [00:13:23] So the King Sisters were a really big deal. And we'll talk about that in the next episode.
Cam Clarke [00:13:27] But like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
John Dehlin [00:13:28] Just give like a 30 second how big they were kind of thing.
Cam Clarke [00:13:32] Well, they started in radio and they split off from Horace Height, Alvino Ray, who is a very famous guitar player. And he's in all. He's like guitarists that they bow down unto him. He invented the slide guitar and lots of other mechanical things to make the electric guitar what it is now. And so they broke off and started their own band and they started just playing the clubs and hotels and, you know, stuff like that. And my Aunt Devon says that when you're. And this is true even for me as a voiceover actor, if you're in Friends or Frasier or whatever, you can't walk down the street. But when you're in radio, like my moms were, and I say moms because it is plural. I have many moms and doesn't matter as long as one of them takes care of yet.
John Dehlin [00:14:32] Meaning your mom's sisters were kind of like moms to you.
Cam Clarke [00:14:35] Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:14:36] Okay.
Cam Clarke [00:14:36] It was kind of like a communal kind of thing with that. And so they. They were the big band thing and. Oh, yeah, that's what. That's what I was saying. So they get one of their first gigs at the Palladium in la and they had no idea how rabid their fans were because you're on radio. And the kids stormed the stage. Supposed to be a dance. They were Singing for some ballroom dance things. The 40s, you know, all of that. Kids didn't want to dance. They rushed the stage. Like every generation rushes.
John Dehlin [00:15:18] It's like this level.
Cam Clarke [00:15:21] Or Sinatra.
John Dehlin [00:15:22] Yeah, yeah.
Cam Clarke [00:15:23] Any of them. It was mosh pit before it was called that. And they went, wow, I guess. I guess we're happening. I guess we're on our way. And it just went from there.
John Dehlin [00:15:34] Okay, so your mom was one of
Cam Clarke [00:15:36] the King's sisters, and there were six sisters.
John Dehlin [00:15:39] Okay.
Cam Clarke [00:15:39] And they would trade out and there was always an extra sister.
John Dehlin [00:15:43] And your mom was. Which one? Her name again?
Cam Clarke [00:15:46] Alice.
John Dehlin [00:15:47] Okay, so she met your dad.
Cam Clarke [00:15:49] It was a blind date in Hollywood or. Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:15:54] Okay.
Cam Clarke [00:15:55] And she had previous. She had previously been married to my brother Lex's dad, Sid Diazovedo, who died of a heart attack at 36. And so she was a widow with two boys, Lex and. And Rick. Rick like 5 and Lex like 10.
John Dehlin [00:16:13] Okay, so Lex is from a different dad.
Cam Clarke [00:16:15] Yeah, Hence the.
John Dehlin [00:16:16] Got it. That's why you're clerk Mom.
Cam Clarke [00:16:20] As horrible as it was to lose a husband that you love, she hated living back east. He was in the shipping business. And her bright spot was, I can get out of here and go back home and be near my family, which is any place west of the Rocky Mountains.
John Dehlin [00:16:42] I remember your brother talking about this. So for those who are really geeking out on this and. Or who really like Saturday's Warrior, check out my interview with Lexi Azevedo, because he tells this story from his point of view.
Cam Clarke [00:16:54] There are so many of those. You know, we can trace so much of our lives back to that incident. And no, a death of a husband is not just an incident.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [00:17:06] But.
Cam Clarke [00:17:07] But it got her back there because the moms had kind of semi retired having kids and stuff, and mom moved home to la, and her sister Yvonne, who is kind of the brain of our career, said, you know, Alice is just. She's so sad that she's a widow and we got to do something to give her something to do to cheer her up. Why don't we get our act together again? Had mom not. Had Sid not died, mom would not have moved home. The sisters wouldn't have had their second career. In fact, they were already considered yesterday. Too old even then. You know, you're in your 40s. So they changed their sound, and a friend of theirs at Capital took their tape without their name because he knew he couldn't sell them with their name.
John Dehlin [00:17:59] It's like when Donny Osmond did Soldier of Love, but changed his name or like Mystery Donny O.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [00:18:04] Right, or something.
John Dehlin [00:18:05] Yeah.
Cam Clarke [00:18:06] And so the guy goes to the brass, to A and R, and says, hey, I discovered this girl group and they're really hot and I'd love you to hear them.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [00:18:17] Wow.
Cam Clarke [00:18:17] So they played their tape. Wow. This is insane. Let's get. Let's. Let's get them. He goes, okay, I have to confess one thing. It's the King Sisters. And they still kept them. In fact, they'd been singing since the early 30s. It's now mid-50s. Esquire names them the best up and coming new group. So things in Hollywood haven't changed. There's no memory. And ageism is a real thing.
John Dehlin [00:18:50] Yeah, always was. Okay. And so that she comes back to
Cam Clarke [00:18:54] Hollywood, they start singing again, and then
John Dehlin [00:18:58] she meets her dad.
Cam Clarke [00:18:59] Yeah. One of our neighbors, the house that mom built was a guy named Larry Cotton, who was a boy singer in the bands. And he said, alice, I have a friend I'd like you to meet. And I think you're going to spend the rest of your life with him.
John Dehlin [00:19:17] Whoa.
Cam Clarke [00:19:18] And it was a blind date. My real. My other dad might have been, you know who mom was dating?
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [00:19:26] Who?
Cam Clarke [00:19:26] Dick Martin. Who is Rowan and Martin. And he babysat Lex and Rick when mom and dad. My dad would go on a date, he was crazy for mom. But he stuck around to be the babysitter while she went out with another guy.
John Dehlin [00:19:47] Wow. The stories, man. That's crazy.
Cam Clarke [00:19:49] And Rick was like, well, Mom, I know you're marrying Bob can, but can Dick still hang out with us? Out of the mouths of babes.
John Dehlin [00:19:59] Oh, fascinating. Okay, so they went on blind date, ended up together. Why was your mom marrying a Gentile like a non Mormon?
Cam Clarke [00:20:07] None of the moms married Mormons.
John Dehlin [00:20:09] Yeah, like. Okay, so like in modern Mormonism, that's the biggest. No, no. Is to marry a non Mormon. What was it about their. Was Mormonism different back then or was
Cam Clarke [00:20:21] it just their interpretation of Mormonism?
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [00:20:24] Very loose interpretation.
Cam Clarke [00:20:25] Very loose. Well, again, my mom had a testimony to the pioneers. They were in show business and the men they met were that. And it was secondary to marrying someone you fell in love with. And all the husbands joined the church.
John Dehlin [00:20:48] So in theory, like sort of. No.
Cam Clarke [00:20:51] They got baptized and everything. No, some people were very. My Uncle Alvino, Ray, Jim Conkling. I don't know about Uncle Bill Burch, but no, they were into it.
John Dehlin [00:21:04] Okay.
Cam Clarke [00:21:05] I'd say my dad was the only one who is just like keeping the peace.
John Dehlin [00:21:09] Okay. Interesting. Wow. So is it. I mean, I guess there might be a long History of Mormon celebrities playing by different rules. Or maybe that was just the way your family was.
Cam Clarke [00:21:22] They had cocktails and stuff like that
John Dehlin [00:21:27] as Mormons, as believing Mormons.
Cam Clarke [00:21:29] And I would think, Julie, I don't know if you know this any better, but the word of wisdom was not like the truth of God.
John Dehlin [00:21:42] It was a recommendation.
Cam Clarke [00:21:43] I mean, it wasn't like the first thing. Yeah, it was a recommendation. And so many people became obsessed with coffee and Coca Cola and all that. I mean, I'm not into cigarettes and I every. No one should smoke. But it wasn't like up front with their lives. And I imagine if you're a Utah Mormon or somewhere that you're not going to adhere. I mean, you're not going to be that lazy with it. But it wasn't really considered such a
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [00:22:20] huge deal, at least not in LA at that time with their.
Cam Clarke [00:22:25] You've got your Hollywood Mormon. You know, when planets collide.
John Dehlin [00:22:33] Yeah, no, it makes sense. I have an Aunt Marilyn who lived in Palm Springs most of her life. She's passed now, but she smoked and we all kind of knew Aunt Marilyn smokes, you know what I mean? But when Joseph Smith got the word of wisdom, it literally says in the Doctrine and Covenants, a recommendation, a word of advice.
Cam Clarke [00:22:55] And then it's somewhere along the line it's got bumped up and we became more Coca Cola. Just end up. That was like an urban myth. Yeah, I mean, didn't we eventually go, that's not really part of this, but
John Dehlin [00:23:10] that, like just this year did byu, Idaho allow caffeinated Coca Cola on campus? Like, really? We're just now unwinding. We became more conservative in the past 20 to 30 years. Like, I look at all the, I look at like all the bathing suits and the costumes and the evening gowns and I'm like, those women can't be Mormon. They're showing cleavage in their shoulders.
Cam Clarke [00:23:36] And we got slack for it. The Mormons gave us slack. We got mail about those cleavages and
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [00:23:43] off the shoulder and off the shoulder
Cam Clarke [00:23:45] because there was some nice tatas in our family. And they, you know, the teenagers, all the women, I mean, they were gorgeous. And you know, we seem to in the church have to categorize like, oh, I'm an athlete, so. Or I'm a ballet dancer. So that's why I'm wearing this costume. Like, if I could, I wouldn't wear this, you know, small ballet outfit. But it just never crossed their mind because you didn't have that dress code mentality then. At least not in the world that I grew up.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [00:24:26] And a lot of they hadn't gone through the temple. They didn't do that until later on. So they weren't wearing them.
Cam Clarke [00:24:31] So there weren't garments they had to cover up. But there also wasn't a chastity element to their costume because everyone else would see those gowns and go, oh, those costumes are so beautiful.
John Dehlin [00:24:46] Interesting. All right, well, we can nerd out a little more about this in the next episode.
Cam Clarke [00:24:51] You bet.
John Dehlin [00:24:52] Long story short is your parents met on a blind date in Hollywood area, and you were born as their first and only biological child.
Cam Clarke [00:25:01] Yeah. Spoiler alert. I was born at all. My dad had a very slow swim team. And the doctor said it would be one in a million because they were trying and trying, trying. Nothing happened. And they did this test and that, and mom said, like, well, I have two sons already, so this isn't me. And dad went to doctors and doctors, and finally he decided it's okay that I don't have a kid. You have two boys who are adorable, and I can't think of anybody better I'd rather have as my sons. The next day, literally, the doctor calls and says, alice, put Bob on the phone. Bob gets on the phone, and the doctor goes, you're gonna have a baby. And that was that. And it wasn't supposed to. He wasn't supposed to be able to, but.
John Dehlin [00:25:58] So you're a miracle baby.
Cam Clarke [00:26:00] Yes, because I was meant to star in Saturday's Warrior. There was a plan. I had to get down here somewhere. Very good. Yes.
John Dehlin [00:26:09] Oh, yeah, yeah.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [00:26:11] Anyway, John knows all the Saturday horror songs.
Growing Up Mormon in a Hollywood Family
John Dehlin [00:26:17] Okay, so what's it like growing up a Mormon boy in a Hollywood family? What was that like? Did you have family meeting, Scripture study? You know,
Cam Clarke [00:26:29] Hollywood, I mean, we didn't have that kind of a structure. We went to church every Sunday.
John Dehlin [00:26:36] Which ward?
Cam Clarke [00:26:37] Studio City Ward. And a funny story about that. Our area, if you wanted to be an actor or you wanted to be a singer or designer, you know, set designer or what, a composer, that's where you went. And eventually we got slack from the church because almost like the order or communism, where nobody gets to shine, you have to be all the same. Because, like, our Christmas programs would be. A church would be awesome, professional.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [00:27:21] Yeah.
Cam Clarke [00:27:21] Insane stuff. I mean, I remember one year, this guy who was a set designer built a stained glass image of Mary and Jesus. It was at the podium in the chapel, wrapped with garlands. It had a light in the back. One of our singers in the ward started singing some old Hebrew song. Like a chant or something. And as he's singing, this is recorded, the light comes up on the stained glass and his voice rises in this Hebrew song. And our programs were really good, but we got dressed out, dressed down eventually, for you got to be more like everybody else, you know, that whole thing. So you're not supposed to shine as far as church socialism goes.
John Dehlin [00:28:25] Were there other celebrities in that ward that you can remember? Was it a star studding ward or working.
Cam Clarke [00:28:30] Well, working singers and actors? I don't know that there were really. I wouldn't say they're celebrities, but yeah, there were successful working singers. My best friend's mom, for example. Jerry Engeman. My best friend was Paul.
John Dehlin [00:28:44] Oh, we've had many women on Mormon stories.
Cam Clarke [00:28:47] There's a lot of them, I guess.
John Dehlin [00:28:48] Didn't Larry King marry an Ingaman?
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [00:28:50] Yes. Sean, one of Cam's best friends.
John Dehlin [00:28:53] Oh, you knew these people? The ingamens.
Cam Clarke [00:28:55] Oh, grew. Grew up.
John Dehlin [00:28:56] Oh, cool.
Cam Clarke [00:28:57] Shawnee and Paul since. Pretty much since the cradle, were my best friends.
John Dehlin [00:29:03] They were a Hollywood thing in some way.
Cam Clarke [00:29:05] Yeah. His mom sang on, was a jingle singer, and she was on every Henry Mancini album. She was one of the go to gals for that world. And his dad was in A and R at Capital. My uncle Jim got Carl his position. Carl Engemann and Carl got Julie's dad, Lex into A and R at Capital. So quite a connection there. And the Klingers, who had a modicum of success as singers, and they were the beautiful family. And I'll always remember they were just called the Klinger sisters. I remember an ad of them in the trades that said, soft bodies, hard rock for these little Mormon gals from Utah. Talk about cleavage.
John Dehlin [00:29:55] I love it. Okay, so not a traditional Mormon upbringing, but still weekly church attendance and belief.
Cam Clarke [00:30:05] Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:30:06] Do you remember gaining traditional Mormon beliefs as a Mormon boy about Heavenly Father Jesus? Gaining.
Cam Clarke [00:30:14] Gaining. What does that mean?
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [00:30:16] Like, what was him? Yeah. What did you believe?
John Dehlin [00:30:19] Did you believe in Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon? Did you read the Book of Mormon? Did you think about Mormon church as the one true church?
Cam Clarke [00:30:25] All I knew as a church, but it was always. I mean, I loved the social. I mean, you don't have the sophistication as a child. I don't think to think. At least me. I didn't.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [00:30:42] There wasn't a lot of doctrine taught.
Cam Clarke [00:30:45] No. No. Which is a good thing.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [00:30:47] It was social. Yeah.
Cam Clarke [00:30:50] I fit. I had good friends at church. I loved the social. And it wasn't till I got a little bit older that.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [00:31:00] Hmm.
John Dehlin [00:31:02] Julie You've probably heard me make this metaphor. Maybe, But I always say religion at its best is like the salt to the meal, not the meal itself. It sounds like in your family, religion was the salt to the meal, not the meal. Is that fair? Is that fair to say that it wasn't.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [00:31:19] Your. Your life wasn't. It didn't revolve around being Mormon.
Cam Clarke [00:31:23] Mom had no friends at church. I don't mean she didn't have. Her friends were from Hollywood.
John Dehlin [00:31:29] Yeah.
Cam Clarke [00:31:30] So none of those people were ever at our house for dinner parties or anything. She had friends, but her friends were the Hollywood crowd.
John Dehlin [00:31:41] Well, that's sounding healthy from a Mormon point of view. Like, do you think of your Mormon childhood as healthy?
Cam Clarke [00:31:49] Golly, that's loaded.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [00:31:50] That's what I know. I was gonna say. How are you gonna answer that, Cam?
Cam Clarke [00:31:54] Again, it was strictly social.
John Dehlin [00:31:56] Yeah.
Cam Clarke [00:31:58] So I can't really respond in that more of a, you know, heady way. And it wasn't till I grew older and was a. You know. I mean, when the Beatles were on. Ed Sullivan.
John Dehlin [00:32:13] 64.
Cam Clarke [00:32:14] 64. Right around there. Anyway, I remember seeing. Looking at Paul McCartney, now I'm. However old I am at that time, six, whatever. And seeing Paul up on the stage on the TV, going, Something's tickling inside of me. At Paul McCartney. Of course, I don't know what that is, but I'm like, I can kind of butterfly with that boy up there not knowing how to. What to do with that. It was just.
John Dehlin [00:32:44] He makes me feel kind of funny.
Cam Clarke [00:32:46] Yes. And my mom, as I'm getting older, like, I hated Scouts. Absolutely hated it. But it was like religion. Growing up, the boys. You had to be a Scout. Almost as like, you won't get your temple recommend if you don't go to Scouts. And I just wasn't. I wasn't a Scout kind of fellow. In fact, if you were to look at my badges, you'd go, aha. Art, drama, music, swimming, basket weaving, sewing.
John Dehlin [00:33:25] Yeah.
Cam Clarke [00:33:27] The closest thing I had to a butch badge was aviation, because my pack leader, whatever you call him, drilled us on the Alphabet. The, you know, Alpha. That's all I can remember. And we all passed our aviation badge. But I hated that.
Cam Clarke [00:33:52] And mutual. Speaking of Mormonism and the twisted part with my mom, mutual. When I was going, you'd have your, what, seven minutes of opening exercises, and girls would go to a class of something. And the boys were sent out to play basketball for an hour and a half.
Cam Clarke [00:34:18] And I would go, mom, all they do is play basketball. It isn't A. And I remember crying. You know, I'm like 14. I go, I don't want to go. And in our home, we had a big swimming pool. And I remember going as far to our fence on the back and having this screaming match with Mom. I want to stay home and watch Bewitched. And that girl. I don't play basketball where you're going.
John Dehlin [00:34:47] Is that Marla Thomas? Who's that girl? Yes.
Cam Clarke [00:34:49] Okay.
John Dehlin [00:34:49] Yeah, yeah.
Cam Clarke [00:34:50] So she. It didn't matter what was going on at Mutual. It was the program, and I lost.
Early Signs of Being Gay and High School Years
John Dehlin [00:35:02] You mentioned in this book the King family also, that you showed an early affection for chiffon. Is that right?
Cam Clarke [00:35:11] It is. And it first shows up. Thank God it exists. I don't even know how we found it, but. But there's some raw footage. The King sisters were asked to do this benefit. And again, my Aunt Yvonne went, wouldn't it be wacky if we put all the. Just had all the kids on the stage with us? I mean, I won't go into that right now, but there's this footage again. I'm like five and. All right, let's meet Alice's family. We got this footage. I come out and I start playing with mom's chiffon. I mean, who wouldn't, right? Am I right?
John Dehlin [00:35:49] Yeah, who wouldn't? No, I was the basketball guy, not the chiffon guy.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [00:35:53] Were you focused on, like, that was what you were focused on, was the material.
Cam Clarke [00:35:59] The moms do these. Alice and Vonni trying to tap dance right? As fast as they can. Yvonne goes. Cause the audience starts tittering as I'm going. I'm standing in front of my mom, yay high, and I'm wrapping the chiffon around me, going like, wee wee.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [00:36:16] It's so great. It's so.
Cam Clarke [00:36:18] And Yvonne ad libs and goes, yeah, we're a little worried about Cam. The audience howls. And I'm like. And then mom says, yes, he's going to be a dress designer for the church. Like that's a thing.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [00:36:39] Yeah, Dress designers, well.
Cam Clarke [00:36:43] But there was no shame. My parents were so ahead of their time with that. There was no finger wagging. And for my birthday or Christmas, there isn't boy toys and girl toys, and nobody thought that way. I had Tonkas and, you know, matchbox, G.I.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [00:37:08] joe.
Cam Clarke [00:37:09] G.I.
John Dehlin [00:37:09] joe trains. Who? You just.
Cam Clarke [00:37:11] Hot Wheels trains. Crazy about trains. But I also gotta have my Barbies.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [00:37:18] It is amazing to have an uncle 10 years older who has a Barbie collection. It was amazing to go play at grandma's house, play with My Barbies. Yes.
Cam Clarke [00:37:30] But I knew, even though there was no shame, I knew there was something wrong with me. Societal.
John Dehlin [00:37:37] Yeah. Cause I was gonna say, your parents may not have brought shame to it, but, you know, from a mental health perspective, being, quote, homosexual was in the DSM as a disorder, and people would go to. People would be committed to mental institutions for being homosexual, and they literally gave lobotomies to gay men or tranquilize them because it was viewed as an illness not just within Mormonism, but within. It was illegal. It was illegal. Sodomy laws were all over the.
Cam Clarke [00:38:09] Thank you. Stonewall.
John Dehlin [00:38:10] Yeah. Yeah, right. Yeah.
Cam Clarke [00:38:12] But again, no shaming from my parents. But as a kid in your room, you know, your toys are scattered everywhere, and if a friend was coming over or ding dong, somebody shows up at the door, King Cam, come out and play. Oh, my God. I ran around the room. I had a secret, secret drawer where I would stash all the Barbies when someone was coming over. So I couldn't be. So you knew that socially? I knew it was wrong. I knew that boys don't play with
John Dehlin [00:38:49] dolls overtly publicly, you know?
Cam Clarke [00:38:52] Yeah. In fact, there's a cartoon that's on my fridge from the New Yorker that says to a boy and a girl in a sandbox, and little girl says, yeah. I don't think of trucks as a boy thing or a girl thing. I think of it as a liking trucks thing.
John Dehlin [00:39:11] Yeah, yeah.
Cam Clarke [00:39:13] Which is so great for allowing creativity and not saying no. You play with cars.
John Dehlin [00:39:20] Yeah.
Cam Clarke [00:39:21] But I love blowing up things. So I had my totally, like, split down the middle. Guys like to destroy things, and I had my army guys and I put them up in little town and flooded in the back. But also I'm putting on fine garments on the Barbies and treating them delicately. But I was all over the map with that, with toys, with playing.
John Dehlin [00:39:45] Yeah. So when we move it to that Mormon context in the 60s, you have sort of the rise of Spencer W. Kimball and eventually his book Miracle of Forgiveness. You have the rise of.
Cam Clarke [00:39:58] But we never had any books.
John Dehlin [00:39:59] Joseph Fielding Smith. You even have Peterson. What was his name? Markey Peterson. A lot of the anti. The kind of. The homophobic, anti masturbation anti homosexual rhetoric emerges in the late 50s, early 60s. It sounds like you were shielded.
Cam Clarke [00:40:17] We had no books.
John Dehlin [00:40:18] You were shielded from that?
Cam Clarke [00:40:19] Yeah, we had no church books. It was, in fact, the church was never discussed.
John Dehlin [00:40:25] Okay.
Cam Clarke [00:40:26] It was just like a Christian who goes to church on Sunday.
John Dehlin [00:40:30] So you escaped the Mormon homophobic shame in the service.
Cam Clarke [00:40:33] I brought it all on myself. You know, as a parent, you're going to win and you're going to lose. There's no right way. And there's going to be bumps and. Hmm, maybe I should have.
John Dehlin [00:40:45] Da, da, da.
Cam Clarke [00:40:45] But we didn't have church at home, okay? There was no scripture reading. Mom would say my prayers with me like any Christian parent would. And I gotta tell you, having a woman with a voice like that sing you a lullaby before you go to bed, Talk about insane and beautiful. But we say our little. We kneel and say our little prayers, but there was no weight on it. It wasn't valued. It was just, you know, you brush your teeth and say your prayers, there was nothing more to it.
John Dehlin [00:41:21] And so it actually sounds healthy.
Cam Clarke [00:41:22] It was. What's that?
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [00:41:24] Sounds healthy.
John Dehlin [00:41:25] Sounds healthy.
Cam Clarke [00:41:26] Yeah. But somehow, as I got into my tween years, I started being a Mormon parent to myself.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [00:41:35] Ooh.
John Dehlin [00:41:36] Yeah. So did you go to seminary? Did you. How did you get.
Cam Clarke [00:41:40] I got out of my senior year, but I did go the first three years and I remember absolutely nothing.
John Dehlin [00:41:47] What high school was this?
Cam Clarke [00:41:48] Well, in la, you had to go before school seminary. We didn't get released. Like in Utah.
John Dehlin [00:41:56] Early morning seminary.
Cam Clarke [00:41:58] Yeah, like at 6:30 or something so that we could all make it to school. But I'm a boomer, a baby boomer. So in our ward, there was a zillion people my age. So we had two separate seminary rooms. And it isn't Utah. We're doing it at the church, but that's how many kids we had, so.
John Dehlin [00:42:21] And what high school was it? I'm just curious.
Cam Clarke [00:42:23] I went to North Hollywood High.
John Dehlin [00:42:24] Okay, got it.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [00:42:25] Go Huskies.
Cam Clarke [00:42:26] Go Huskies.
John Dehlin [00:42:27] Did you go Huskies?
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [00:42:27] So did Julia.
John Dehlin [00:42:28] Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Cam Clarke [00:42:29] She got hit by a car in
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [00:42:31] front of the school.
Cam Clarke [00:42:32] In front of the school in a crosswalk.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [00:42:33] But I'll save that for my Mormon story.
John Dehlin [00:42:35] Okay.
Cam Clarke [00:42:35] Okay.
John Dehlin [00:42:36] Oh, hey, I can't wait for that.
Cam Clarke [00:42:39] Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:42:40] Okay, so let's just say through high school, how did you navigate dating? Were you in the closet? Did you try and date women? Did you experiment?
Cam Clarke [00:42:50] Oh, my God, Julie. Did I try and date women?
John Dehlin [00:42:52] Did you experiment with boys?
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [00:42:53] Women love, Cam.
Cam Clarke [00:42:54] Women adore. It's like white on rice. Are we allowed to say white on rice anymore?
John Dehlin [00:42:59] Were you out in high school as a gay boy or out to your parents or anything? Out to yourself?
Cam Clarke [00:43:06] I knew.
John Dehlin [00:43:06] Okay.
Cam Clarke [00:43:08] In fact, this is kind of related out of these shame. It's like, I don't know why that parent emerged in my brain.
John Dehlin [00:43:18] Was the seminary. Was it Sunday School, was it General Conference. There were no books. It wasn't coming from your parents.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [00:43:24] Honestly, somehow you absorbed the message that you were different. I think.
Cam Clarke [00:43:30] I think also the fact that I was like, raised by wolves. Of course that's also an exaggeration because that sounds bad because wolves have much more structure than we did.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [00:43:43] Very permissive parents.
Cam Clarke [00:43:45] So, you know, I had no rules.
John Dehlin [00:43:50] Okay.
Cam Clarke [00:43:51] So the parent decided you gotta have some boundaries.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [00:43:56] Yeah.
Cam Clarke [00:43:58] I mean, I'm just totally guessing there. Dr. Hanks.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [00:44:03] John's also a doctor too.
Cam Clarke [00:44:04] Oh, you are too. Are you a psychotherapy therapist?
John Dehlin [00:44:08] Clinical and counseling. Ph.D. in psychology. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Cam Clarke [00:44:12] And I remember.
John Dehlin [00:44:12] Which means nothing.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [00:44:14] Means a lot.
Cam Clarke [00:44:15] Well, I remember secretly going to the lds. I was going to say lds. Secret Services.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [00:44:22] Secret Family Services.
Cam Clarke [00:44:24] Ld. What did they call it then? Social Services. Social Services, ldsss. Whatever. Cuz I had homosexual tendencies.
John Dehlin [00:44:34] In high school or after?
Cam Clarke [00:44:36] Oh, since seventh grade.
John Dehlin [00:44:39] No, no, no. I mean going to lds. Ss.
Cam Clarke [00:44:42] Oh, old enough to drive.
John Dehlin [00:44:44] Okay.
Cam Clarke [00:44:44] Because it was a secret.
John Dehlin [00:44:45] You're a teenager still in high school. You're going to Mormon Church counseling.
Cam Clarke [00:44:50] Yeah. Which had. No. Well, they were church counselors.
John Dehlin [00:44:54] Yeah.
Cam Clarke [00:44:55] So they're going to tell me it's a bad thing and you'll grow out of it. And to be fair, I would imagine even in psychotherapy back in those days,
John Dehlin [00:45:05] it was a disorder.
Cam Clarke [00:45:06] Yes.
John Dehlin [00:45:07] Yeah.
Cam Clarke [00:45:07] So I got to be, you know, fair about that.
John Dehlin [00:45:11] Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Cam Clarke [00:45:12] But I sent myself.
John Dehlin [00:45:14] Wow. So you were. And you didn't come out to your parents in high school.
Cam Clarke [00:45:18] It was after my mission.
John Dehlin [00:45:20] So you were just like, seeing.
Cam Clarke [00:45:22] But I dated up a storm in
John Dehlin [00:45:24] school, hoping women only, women only women.
Cam Clarke [00:45:28] Hoping that I might catch it like a virus, you know? You know, heterosexuality is catching. I read it on the interwebs.
John Dehlin [00:45:37] Or build it up like a muscle. Right. Like you could build it up.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [00:45:41] You just have to find the right woman. Right?
Cam Clarke [00:45:43] Oh, always. And boy, I had the right women. And Mormon girls who were offering themselves up. There was a thing at byu. My cousin Lorette, we always coined this phrase. Women love dating gay guys because they practice such. He's such a gentleman. And practices such great restraint.
John Dehlin [00:46:12] Was that they're so well behaved. They're so well behaved, they're respectful.
Cam Clarke [00:46:18] Did the whole dating thing. In fact, I dated a gal that your dad set me up with. And because Lex wanted me to date her, I dated this woman for a year. I failed my driver's test. And yes, this does. I can connect the dots here three times. The last time the guy felt sorry for me. And just gave it to me. Danger. But I didn't want to get my driver's license because then I could be alone in a car. If you can drive, then you have to have makeout sessions.
John Dehlin [00:46:57] So did you experience. So there's attraction or no attraction, and then there's aversion or no aversion. Did you experience aversion towards the idea of romantic engagements with women? Not all. There's the Kinsey scale and then there's attraction and there's aversion.
Cam Clarke [00:47:14] I had no attraction to women.
John Dehlin [00:47:19] So you were a six on the Kinsey scale.
Cam Clarke [00:47:22] And when I would take this gal home, Lex's choice for me, I dreaded walking her to the door. Yeah, it was the. I dreaded the date. But I'm doing what you're.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [00:47:37] For a year, you date.
Cam Clarke [00:47:38] Wow, what's that?
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [00:47:39] You dated her for a year?
Cam Clarke [00:47:41] Yes. And thank God Saturday's Warrior came along
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [00:47:44] because you could break up with her.
Cam Clarke [00:47:45] I could break up with her.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [00:47:46] Too busy.
Cam Clarke [00:47:47] When I had my high school, most of my friends came from either church or the Saturday's Warrior crowd. Right. I didn't have friends in high school, really? And I had a. When at my 40th high school reunion, I didn't go, but I arranged this party for my theater kids from Saturday's Warrior and my cousins stuff to have this reunion the year of my high school reunion. And one of the things I said as I'm introducing this party and everybody here, and I said to the group, one of the rites of passages for a woman as a teenager is to be in love with a gay man.
Cam Clarke [00:48:37] I can't tell you how many girls I know that dated a guy, a gay guy, and it broke their heart. But it's one they loved beyond other things. And likewise. And so I said, sean, Suzanne, Polly, you're welcome.
Cam Clarke [00:49:00] And then I turned to Jeff, my best friend, Jeff Creighton. And I said, likewise. A rite of passion for gay men is to fall in love with their straight best friend. So thank you, Jeffrey.
John Dehlin [00:49:15] Oh, yeah.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [00:49:17] I had a huge crush on Jeff Creighton. Oh, he was.
Cam Clarke [00:49:21] Everybody did.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [00:49:22] I was little.
Cam Clarke [00:49:23] Yeah.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [00:49:24] I just remember he was just.
Cam Clarke [00:49:25] He looked like Prince Charming.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [00:49:27] Yeah.
Saturday's Warrior and Early Performance Career
John Dehlin [00:49:28] So what year did you graduate from high school?
Cam Clarke [00:49:31] 75.
John Dehlin [00:49:32] Okay, so this is. Your high school is in the early 70s. That's good to put that in the context. Talk about, if you want, how Saturday's Warrior comes into your life and how you end up with the Jimmy role, if you want to do that.
Cam Clarke [00:49:51] We hung out. We always had Sunday dinner with My brother Lex, he either the kids and his. You know, and Lex and his wife Linda would come over to my house or we go to his. And just one day he says, hey, Cam, come out to the studio. I want to play you some songs that I've been working on because. And here comes the word benefit again.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [00:50:15] Yeah.
Cam Clarke [00:50:15] They're wanting me to do a benefit for the Burbank State. And this is a show I wrote about a year ago, and I just want to play you some of the music. Not thinking. He was not thinking about casting at all.
Cam Clarke [00:50:27] And when I heard Sailing on, which was my main. It rang so true to me. And then the song Brace Me up, which is about a teenage boy falling to pieces, and I'm not gonna make it. Brace me up. I'm going under. Help. I think I'm gonna die.
Cam Clarke [00:50:55] People thought I did an amazing acting job in this show, but the truth is, I wasn't acting. And Saturday's Warrior came along at the age that a kid from my generation would have run away to San Francisco or New York to be who you are, even if you didn't know. So every night as I'm on stage with Saturday's Warrior, in my mind, I am. Because the character does run away. It's the early 70s, and there were so many fears of the runaways. It was a huge thing.
John Dehlin [00:51:38] Yeah. This would have been on the back of Woodstock and the whole.
Cam Clarke [00:51:41] Yes.
John Dehlin [00:51:41] And the drug culture emerging. You know, hippie drug culture and communes. Yeah. And so just for those who have no idea what we're talking about, Saturday's warriors, this musical about this family called the Flinders Family. And they had how many children?
Cam Clarke [00:51:59] Seven or seven or eight. Seven or eight. Who's counting?
John Dehlin [00:52:02] And kind of a Mormon family. But it's not explicitly a Mormon family.
Cam Clarke [00:52:06] Oh, it is. Well, they don't say we are Mormons, but it is totally known. And the mythology is all.
John Dehlin [00:52:15] Because there's Mormon missionaries in it.
Cam Clarke [00:52:17] Oh, totally. And it was very. About poking fun at missionaries. I think that was one of the strong points. It allowed people to laugh at themselves.
John Dehlin [00:52:29] We are not the ordinary.
Cam Clarke [00:52:32] An extraordinary. In our humble way. It was like a gospel song. Humble way. Now it was great. So every night I would run away in real life.
John Dehlin [00:52:49] Yeah, Cathartically.
Cam Clarke [00:52:50] Through the script and the music. Because I don't have a time machine. I don't have a crystal ball. Where would I have gone as those feelings started to emerge? When you're 15, you're a unicorn. You're finding out you're not fitting. I Could see me easily. Eventually taken off to San Francisco.
John Dehlin [00:53:17] Yeah, yeah. Just to kind of finish the setting for that. This Flinders family, large Mormon family in the musical, they have an oldest son who's being tempted by this group of basically hippies to leave the family and run away. So he's tormented between staying faithful to his family, to the promises he made to his siblings, even to his sibling who is yet to be born, who's in heaven waiting to come down as a spirit. There's a whole zero population. Anti pro birth control, anti large families. Environmental theme. It's actually.
Cam Clarke [00:53:51] There's some good things.
John Dehlin [00:53:52] Quite relevant. Quite relevant for even today. But you would have played Jimmy Flinders,
Cam Clarke [00:53:57] the runaway, who does runaway.
John Dehlin [00:53:59] The son who ends up running away but then comes back, comes home.
Cam Clarke [00:54:02] You asked me about the casting.
John Dehlin [00:54:04] Yeah. No. How did it go from songs that your brother was writing to, like an album into a global. Was already production produced.
Cam Clarke [00:54:15] I think at BYU they did a production of it, but there was no album. There was nothing.
John Dehlin [00:54:24] Okay.
Cam Clarke [00:54:25] But when Lex hit those chords to sailing on these huge chords, it hit me like, if you're musical at all, or maybe even if you're not, and Benny and the jets, bump, bump. And if you go to see an Elton John concert, all you have to do is go bump, bump. And everybody freaked. Bump, bump. And that's what.
John Dehlin [00:54:54] Hey, kids.
Cam Clarke [00:54:59] And that's what that felt to me. And in my mind, I went, well, I'm gonna play this part. And everybody was surprised how well I did.
John Dehlin [00:55:11] You were young. How young were you when you. 15. You were fit. What? Jimmy was 15 on that album?
Cam Clarke [00:55:17] Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:55:18] Wow.
Cam Clarke [00:55:18] But here's the deal.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [00:55:19] Amazing, huh?
John Dehlin [00:55:20] That's crazy.
Cam Clarke [00:55:21] I was never Donny Osmond or Michael Jackson. I was adorable as a little monkey on our show. But my being gay tampered my adolescent performing. If I'm on stage, I didn't want the flip of my wrist or the tilt of my head to give me away. And my ability to perform as well as you might think. This little kid from the King family would have gone from there again. I compare myself to Michael and Donnie because they were always who they were, insane performers.
John Dehlin [00:56:03] Well, Michael. Michael had a little bit in the closet, possibly.
Cam Clarke [00:56:07] Well, no, true. But his performing never false.
John Dehlin [00:56:10] Right? He was as a professional performer. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Cam Clarke [00:56:14] So when I decide that these songs are mine, mine, all mine, I can remember mom coming to a dress rehearsal and hearing this voice come out of me because I had made sure no one would get a whiff of who I was. And my performing had really disappeared. But this came along. I remember mom going, who is this and what have you done with my son? I mean, that's a little harsh, but nobody expected me to have that because they hadn't seen it since I was a little monkey.
John Dehlin [00:56:48] Julie, were you on that album?
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [00:56:50] No, I was about five. Right. Four or five when it came out, so. No, but Julie is named after me. Julie's one of the sisters. That's my.
Cam Clarke [00:57:02] Julie and I are the lead kids.
John Dehlin [00:57:04] Julie's in the wheelchair.
Cam Clarke [00:57:06] No, that's right. No, sorry. Pam is in the wheelchair, played by Sean Engeman.
John Dehlin [00:57:11] DLC Line Upon Line.
Cam Clarke [00:57:13] Yes.
John Dehlin [00:57:13] Right, yeah.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [00:57:15] Sean Engeman, who was married to Larry King, was the original pal.
John Dehlin [00:57:19] Oh, and Julie was the one who's in love with the missionary. Right?
Cam Clarke [00:57:23] Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:57:25] You were named the. The character that's saying Dear John was named after you. Okay, got it.
Cam Clarke [00:57:31] And I actually did. Lex will probably disagree, but I remember it my way. I did a lot of the casting. I mean, I went, you really got to see Aunt Donna. I mean, literally, my Aunt Donna, one of the King sisters. For any of you who are old enough. Remember Aunt Clara from Bewitched. And Donna was always like, aunt Clara. And I remember at 15 going, this character needs some of that. Although she's the. This character, she was the heavenly matron who was like the trapping. What do you call it?
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [00:58:04] The traffic director.
Cam Clarke [00:58:05] Traffic director.
John Dehlin [00:58:05] Ushering the spirits down to earth.
Cam Clarke [00:58:08] And so she. Lex used her and she brought this little bit of bumbling with her. I knew the Angamans would be great, that Paul, who had an amazing voice, would be great for this guy.
John Dehlin [00:58:21] And who was it? Who was he?
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [00:58:22] Mack.
Cam Clarke [00:58:23] Mack. Who was the lead bad guy?
John Dehlin [00:58:24] He was the bad guy. Hey, Flinders. No, Flinders.
Cam Clarke [00:58:27] Yes.
John Dehlin [00:58:27] You got to go.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [00:58:29] Most of the stuff, the cast was from our ward or family.
Cam Clarke [00:58:32] Yeah. And I said Jonathan, cousin Jonathan would be great as one of the little brothers. And the Klinger sisters, who I mentioned earlier, were in the show as well, and it was kind of an inside casting.
John Dehlin [00:58:46] That's awesome.
Cam Clarke [00:58:46] The woman who played Julie, whose stage name was. Oh, golly.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [00:58:53] Heather Young.
Cam Clarke [00:58:54] Yes, Heather Young. Good, good. Deep dive.
John Dehlin [00:58:57] Played who?
Cam Clarke [00:58:58] She played Julie.
John Dehlin [00:58:59] Okay.
Cam Clarke [00:59:00] And I met her at a screening of where the Red Fern Grows, which was a family oriented film that a friend of Lex's had done. Anyway, I met her at the screening. She was one of the leads on. Okay, Senior Moment, Not Time Tunnel, Land of the Giants, which kids my age were thrilled over. And I met her and was like, I am not worthy to be in your presence. To this day, we are tight. Really good friends.
John Dehlin [00:59:37] That's awesome.
Cam Clarke [00:59:38] And she played Julie. She was lds and she had a great voice and a terrific actor.
John Dehlin [00:59:46] So when the album gets recorded, do y' all all go on to perform in stage versions of the album?
Cam Clarke [00:59:54] Well, version. We kind of recorded the album. I mean, I don't know what Lex had in his brain, but, like, as a momentum. A momentum. A memento.
John Dehlin [01:00:05] Wasn't it Embryo Records?
Cam Clarke [01:00:07] Yes. Which was founded, like, oh, we need a name for a record company.
John Dehlin [01:00:11] But were the Osmonds related to that somehow or not? Okay, no.
Cam Clarke [01:00:14] Okay, no.
John Dehlin [01:00:15] Okay.
Cam Clarke [01:00:16] But we recorded this album at Carl Engemann's studio. We had. I think we had a trio, you know, piano, guitar, drums kind of thing, and a 5,000 voice choir that recorded on it.
John Dehlin [01:00:35] Wow.
Cam Clarke [01:00:36] But nobody knew that this was going to be anything other than a sweet benefit with a terrific musical.
John Dehlin [01:00:42] But I remember, I think talking to Lex that it sold a lot of copies.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [01:00:47] Well, it went gold for sure.
Cam Clarke [01:00:50] Really?
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [01:00:51] Yeah.
Cam Clarke [01:00:51] I mean, it was big. Huge. And we would sell out auditoriums. I remember playing Phoenix and so, like,
John Dehlin [01:01:00] the people who sang on the album would tour and perform.
Cam Clarke [01:01:03] The same people at the benefit. Everybody stayed on.
John Dehlin [01:01:07] And you would then just tour and perform the musical.
Cam Clarke [01:01:10] Yeah, just like a national touring company. Lion King or, you know, whatever.
John Dehlin [01:01:16] 16, 17, 18 touring.
Cam Clarke [01:01:18] 16, 15 when we started. Well, I've been touring since I was 6, so that was nothing new.
John Dehlin [01:01:24] But how many years did you do a Saturday's Warrior tour? Two years.
Cam Clarke [01:01:27] Two years.
John Dehlin [01:01:28] And it was just auditoriums filled.
Cam Clarke [01:01:31] We sold more tickets at the Phoenix Civic Auditorium. I'm going to get some of these numbers wrong. But we sold more tickets in two hours than Elton John did in a week.
John Dehlin [01:01:47] What?
Cam Clarke [01:01:48] Like, boom. I mean, the line was insane. Insane, in fact. Fame within our world. When my parents got sealed in the temple, I was, I think 17 or 16. Obviously, I can't. So the parent. The temple people can go in. But I'm in the nursery with all the other converts. Like the converts children, they're born out of the covenant. And we're now getting married in the temple. And I'm with the kids. So I'm standing. I had this huge, gorgeous fro, all natural, big blonde curls. Oh, I'm going to. I'm going to digress for a moment. The COVID of the album, which is a very pixelated graphic y thing, has me in a fro. The designer of the album, they put straight hair on me because they didn't want it to look. Have any mistake that this Might not be a white person.
John Dehlin [01:03:03] Oh, oh. They didn't want to give.
Cam Clarke [01:03:07] Why would you do that to this beautiful hair? We better put some straight in there. Well, you're gonna be out of love with putting the straight in there. So anyway, I'm at the temple in the nursery and you know how spooky that can be for kids. All these old ladies in their, you know, their Michelin man costumes, you know, those horribly fitting temple clothes, and they've got some little like 3 year old screaming his head off trying to. Because they've just taken his parents away, right? Left him with these elderly women and he's freaking out, right?
Cam Clarke [01:03:50] I'm standing there, I'm already Saturday's Warrior. Jimmy Flinders. This little guy sees me, breaks free of the women and comes running up to me crying, Jimmy. I pick him up in my arms and he's doing that. You know, after when you've been crying this part.
Cam Clarke [01:04:23] And I had such a moment of not ego, but just acknowledging the power, the impact. Impact, Much better word, the impact of this performance that a toddler would find safety in me because this little kid obviously has seen the. Seen the show and people went multiple times.
Cam Clarke [01:04:51] But that remains one of the most important things that has happened in my life. To experience a lost child finding solace in another stranger, but someone he knows. I also got a stalker out of Saturday's Warrior.
John Dehlin [01:05:15] Oh, tell us about that.
Cam Clarke [01:05:18] I had this gal who. Well, first of all, it was a different time. She looked up in the phone book and saw the name D acevedo. And in those days there were only two in the phone book called Rick's got his wife Anna. And I'm still thinking, how do you. How are you so naive that you would even do this then, yeah, I'm a friend of Cam's and I've lost his number.
Cam Clarke [01:05:45] Okay, here. She gave it to him. She starts sending me scriptures in the mail, like written on a cocktail napkin or a torn piece of a Denny's paper placemat. All this stuff was scriptures and she had interpreted them.
Cam Clarke [01:06:07] And she would start to call at the house and either breathe or cry. And my parents mom would go, like, again, raised by wolves. She'd pick up the phone and she'd hear this. Mom would hear this breathing or crying, and she'd go, cam, your breather's on the phone.
Cam Clarke [01:06:30] And I'm like, seriously? Seriously. I mean, this could have. This needed some adult intervention. Anyone? One. Anyway, so this goes on forever. And one morning I'm going to priesthood meetings. So whatever it is, 8am I'm leaving the front door. We had a very long front yard with a long brick walk to the street.
Cam Clarke [01:07:01] I see this woman standing in the street, looking my way. She had hair like Rosanna Danna, for those of you that remember Gilda Radner. And something in me just knew, this is her. So I walked down the long walk to this woman who's standing in the street, and I said, can I help you?
Cam Clarke [01:07:32] And she told me who she was. I went, I was right. I stepped down into the street. And she says, no, get up there where you belong. The curb. So yay by yay, you know, it's not like a pedestal. It's about, you know, seven inches.
Cam Clarke [01:07:51] And she started sharing scriptures. And she said, because there were always visions and prophecies. She goes, I've had a vision that. And here's the scripture that goes with it, that you are to be the father of a prophet.
John Dehlin [01:08:06] Whoa.
Cam Clarke [01:08:06] And then she would add, but I don't know what my job is to be. Well, you're not going to be the mom, I'll tell you that. And in that nanosecond, again, I'm 16. I said, how do I get out of this? Fight fire with fire. So funny. I had a vision last night, too. And the Lord said, you are not to be in contact with me anymore. And like, mistake, she disappeared, never to be heard from again. That could have ended up really dangerous. We've heard so many stories from John Lennon, and I'm not comparing myself to that, but still, she could have. She could have had a gun. If you're not going to be with me, you know, double suicide, you know, whatever. It could have gone really south.
John Dehlin [01:09:12] Absolutely scary.
Cam Clarke [01:09:15] But it did not.
Life as a Mormon Celebrity and Missionary Service
John Dehlin [01:09:18] What was it like to be kind of a Mormon celebrity?
Cam Clarke [01:09:23] Well, it didn't get me better seating at a fine restaurant, I'll tell you that.
John Dehlin [01:09:27] No. What was it like to be a Mormon celebrity, but to be a closeted, conflicted gay teenager?
Cam Clarke [01:09:34] Well, part of the reason my life is so compartmentalized and screwed up is because I could always hang my hat on the fact that this is indeed a phase and the Lord will make me straight. So that really didn't play that much, if you follow what I'm saying.
John Dehlin [01:10:00] You just were like, this is gonna go away.
Cam Clarke [01:10:02] Yeah, like acne.
John Dehlin [01:10:03] Okay.
Cam Clarke [01:10:04] This will go away so well. No. Something you're going through and a kid knows. This is ugly and it's showing. At least I tried my acne. My acne often did not show. But I was secure in the teachings and if you're righteous, connect the dots.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [01:10:28] Was that part of why you chose to serve a mission? Like, I'm going to be very righteous
Cam Clarke [01:10:35] also in those days, if you don't serve a mission, what's wrong?
John Dehlin [01:10:40] Yeah.
Cam Clarke [01:10:41] Almost like back in the. In the. Like World War II or even going. So however far back you want to go with a military, if a guy did not serve in the army, what's wrong? Yeah, likewise in the church. I did not want to go, but I had my interview because everybody has to go. And the patriarch or whoever it was that, you know, set me.
John Dehlin [01:11:08] State president, maybe. State president.
Cam Clarke [01:11:10] Set aside or set apart. Yeah. Give me my blessing. I knew, I believed so black and white, the scriptures, that religion was like an Aladdin slam. So he promised me.
John Dehlin [01:11:24] Yeah.
Cam Clarke [01:11:25] Because I was open. I said, I have homosexual tendencies. I've never acted on him, but.
John Dehlin [01:11:30] So you hadn't experimented prior to your mission?
Cam Clarke [01:11:33] No.
John Dehlin [01:11:33] Oh, wow. Okay. What year were you called on a mission?
Cam Clarke [01:11:39] I left in 77, so probably 76.
John Dehlin [01:11:43] Where were you called?
Cam Clarke [01:11:45] Argentina.
John Dehlin [01:11:45] Oh.
Cam Clarke [01:11:47] But he promised me I would come home magically straight.
John Dehlin [01:11:51] Yeah. That's so Mormon. Yeah.
Cam Clarke [01:11:54] Up to that time, I had a very healthy ego coming home from the mission, which was a horrible experience for me.
John Dehlin [01:12:08] Why? How was the mission itself?
Cam Clarke [01:12:12] Well, I hated everything about it.
John Dehlin [01:12:13] You did.
Cam Clarke [01:12:14] And I never felt the spirit. You know the song from Chorus Line. Every day for a week, I would try to feel the wind rush. Feel, you know.
John Dehlin [01:12:24] Yeah.
Cam Clarke [01:12:25] But I felt nothing. So this is on me. I'm broken.
John Dehlin [01:12:31] You didn't feel anything because you were gay, baby.
Cam Clarke [01:12:34] Or just not even connected to that because I've already confessed. So I'm a clean vessel. So I'm going to get my blessings. I'm going to come home straight. So the whole thing came tumbling down when that didn't happen. And my esteem started to get lost on the mission because I never felt any of those things. I didn't want to give a blessing.
John Dehlin [01:13:05] I didn't want to.
Cam Clarke [01:13:06] Didn't want to do a baptism because I'm not feeling it. And the president, who was president of my mission at the time, fortunately, halfway through my time there, we got a new guy who was wonderful, but this guy treated this president, treated it more like you were insurance salesman.
John Dehlin [01:13:28] The first one.
Cam Clarke [01:13:29] Yeah. Like perks.
John Dehlin [01:13:33] Mine too. Like rewards, incentives.
Cam Clarke [01:13:35] Yeah. They had the BAP club and you'd get. I remember you get a Jonathan Livingston
John Dehlin [01:13:41] Siegel poster if you got a certain number of baptisms.
Cam Clarke [01:13:45] Certain number. And I remember one of my first experiences was it's 11 o' clock at night. On the last day of the month we have some goldens. I don't even know if they called them goldens, but the boys took a ladder to the chapel where the baptismal font was. It's 11:30 at night. Throw this ladder up on the high wall of the church, get these baptism, you know, push their butts up the ladder and get them to cross the other side so that their baptisms would count on the 31st.
John Dehlin [01:14:27] For the month's quota. For the month's quota, yeah.
Cam Clarke [01:14:29] So that you could be in the
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [01:14:30] club
John Dehlin [01:14:33] and get the Jonathan Livingston Siegel book.
Cam Clarke [01:14:35] Yes. And he had this list, this president, which can only ruin self esteem. No matter. He had a list every month when the newsletter would come out. Every elder, every sister was ranked with their number of baptisms, like selling insurance, you know, how many life policies. So you've only been there a month and of course you're entering at the bottom, but no one is doing percentages or, you know, for, you know, you know what I'm saying? The math of this doesn't equate because this guy has been here, you know, longer.
John Dehlin [01:15:15] Yeah.
Cam Clarke [01:15:17] And Julie had mentioned something before.
John Dehlin [01:15:22] Can I just say, on my mission in Guatemala, 88 to 90, same thing, newsletters. And it was a Janice Kat Perry tape. You would get instead of a Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Like literally, if you got 10 baptisms in a month, you would get a Janice Capari serving with joy cassette tape.
Cam Clarke [01:15:42] Did you care?
John Dehlin [01:15:43] Oh, I was in. I mean I was, I, I wanted to be a great missionary and I wanted to.
Cam Clarke [01:15:47] But did the prize mean anything to get in that?
John Dehlin [01:15:52] No, it also felt wrong. My story is different, but like I, I had a corrupt mission where they were baptizing little kids who didn't deserve to be baptized. So to meet the quota, there were some companionships that had 40 baptisms in a month and they were mostly like 7 to 10 year old boys. I confronted the mission president saying this doesn't feel right. All these quotas feel wrong, all these incentives feel wrong.
Cam Clarke [01:16:14] I'm glad you had such a healthy ego at that age.
John Dehlin [01:16:17] Well, it's dark because he sent me home early. And it's part of what led to Mormon stories is just the trauma of having a corrupt mission and a corrupt mission president. So anyway, I'm just saying. Me too. That's all I'm saying is Me too.
Cam Clarke [01:16:31] Hashtag MeToo.
John Dehlin [01:16:32] Yeah, yeah, this is.
Cam Clarke [01:16:34] That should be. Well, you could use that hashtag for a million problems in the world of People's lives.
John Dehlin [01:16:42] But also I never felt the Holy Ghost like I was told I would. And on my mission, I remember saying. Well, I'm just going to say that I know it's true, even though I don't. Even though I'm not really feeling it because I've got to baptize people and teach the gospel. And maybe they promise me that if you just say it's true, eventually you'll know. But again, like you, the spirit never manifested to me either. So I really relate to your story.
Cam Clarke [01:17:09] Yeah, I. Yeah, I love. I mean, I don't love it, but.
John Dehlin [01:17:13] Yeah.
Cam Clarke [01:17:13] Yeah, I'm glad you can relate on that.
John Dehlin [01:17:16] I'm so sorry all that happened. I have a sense for how hard that might have been.
Cam Clarke [01:17:20] Thank you.
John Dehlin [01:17:20] Yeah. Yeah.
Cam Clarke [01:17:21] And I know we're not alone in that.
John Dehlin [01:17:22] Oh, no, no, no, no. Yeah.
Cam Clarke [01:17:24] Like, in a lot of religions, religion is looked at, like I said earlier, like Aladdin's lamp, that if you rub it, you know, you'll get. Because we were always told if you do this and this, the heavens will open up to you and you'll have everything that you desire, that that's righteous and blah, blah, blah. Well, masturbation, for example, was a huge. No, no.
Cam Clarke [01:17:54] And as a teenager, I carried a little pocket calendar right here, and I would mark off the days like a smoker trying to quit, that I didn't masturbate. You know. And you're 15. Right. And I also know a lot of boys, and not even just in the church, but it was a. Considered a bad thing. But I had the added delight that if I did masturbate, and I marked it as such, that callback that I had for that commercial the day before would be. I would not get it. I'm definitely out of the running because I masturbated.
Cam Clarke [01:18:41] So you want to unpack. You want to unpack that, ladies and gentlemen. So the guilt that comes with that. Oh. So on my mission.
Navigating Sexuality and Church Teachings on the Mission
John Dehlin [01:18:52] Oh, and by the way, Spencer Kimball taught that masturbation makes you gay in the miracle of forgiveness. I don't know if you would have absorbed that, but in the miracle of forgiveness.
Cam Clarke [01:19:01] Well, of course I absorbed it, because I'm promised it is a sin and I will get out of it because I'm the most righteous guy you have. No one sparkled or shone, shined.
John Dehlin [01:19:13] You were Jimmy Flinders.
Cam Clarke [01:19:14] I was Jimmy Flinders, for crying out loud.
John Dehlin [01:19:17] Jimmy freaking Blinders. Jimmy Fetching Plinders.
Cam Clarke [01:19:20] Yeah, Fetch picking, Jimmy Peck, whatever those words were. So I'm on my mission and I imagine most of the boys had. You know, they jerked off and it
John Dehlin [01:19:31] was like, come on, man. It's like 90, 95%.
Cam Clarke [01:19:35] And just like. I learned about a year ago the expression docking.
John Dehlin [01:19:39] Yeah.
Cam Clarke [01:19:40] That as long as you're not moving, you're not having sex. You know, a guy and a gal.
John Dehlin [01:19:43] Yeah.
Cam Clarke [01:19:45] And I would masturbate, but not come to ejaculation, which in my brain doesn't count.
John Dehlin [01:19:55] Yeah. Yeah.
Cam Clarke [01:19:56] And one time.
John Dehlin [01:19:57] So Mormon.
Cam Clarke [01:19:58] One time I didn't stop soon enough and I ejaculated. I'm going to be sent home. I am going to be sent home in disgrace. And it was long enough ago that you didn't have direct. You had no contact. There wasn't any interwebs. There was nothing. So I had to wait. I told my zone leader, another kid, that I needed to meet. You know, he's the leader, so he will counsel, you know, Lord of the Flies, whatever. And I said, I need to meet with them. I need to meet with a president which isn't gonna be for weeks, which seemed like years, who is probably masturbating
John Dehlin [01:20:43] too, by the way.
Cam Clarke [01:20:44] I hope so.
John Dehlin [01:20:45] Bishops to stake presidents and mission presidents. They're not immune to any of this, by the way.
Cam Clarke [01:20:50] So I had to wait weeks to get what I'm sure was gonna be dismissal.
John Dehlin [01:20:56] Yeah. Torment. That's weeks of real terror.
Cam Clarke [01:21:00] Insane. Because the disgrace to be sent home
John Dehlin [01:21:03] in the 70s from a mission could be life ending. I mean, it's serious.
Cam Clarke [01:21:08] Yes. Talk about a scarlet letter.
John Dehlin [01:21:10] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Cam Clarke [01:21:12] And this was the second president, not the one with. Because he got. There is no such thing as a BAP Club. There is no such thing as counting. He was a native. Not that. That. Well, I take that back. They were both natives to Argentina, but he did away with all that bullshit. So I met with him and told him my.
John Dehlin [01:21:37] You know.
Cam Clarke [01:21:39] And he just kind of got this grin on his face. He said, that's okay. He didn't say, jerk off all you want.
John Dehlin [01:21:46] No.
Cam Clarke [01:21:47] But there wasn't even a word of shame. Shame. Just a smile and, you know, like, it's okay. But he was Mormon, so it's. But try to. Try to nod or whatever he said, but it wasn't connected to. You won't have any baptisms or any of that. But I was sure I was going home. I was raised again. So black and white and other guys that went on their mission kind of laugh that I known when I tell this story that they would never would have thought of that masturbating, even though we're not supposed to that. It didn't come into play like the Aladdin's lamp part.
John Dehlin [01:22:40] I interviewed a guy on Mormon Stories from Oakland who was told on his mission that if you masturbated, it would lead to families not getting their eternal salvation.
Cam Clarke [01:22:49] Oh, because your sperm has.
John Dehlin [01:22:52] No, no.
Cam Clarke [01:22:52] Already not available.
John Dehlin [01:22:53] No, because he was sinning and then he wouldn't be spirit people to baptize or his teaching wouldn't have the spirit.
Cam Clarke [01:23:01] So that is correct, you know.
John Dehlin [01:23:03] Well, well, no. In a very dark. Just.
Cam Clarke [01:23:07] I'm totally teasing.
John Dehlin [01:23:08] No, I know he as a missionary, wanted to cut off his penis because he was so tormented that he couldn't stop and that he was going to prevent other people's eternal salvation.
Cam Clarke [01:23:17] This was a. Because of his sin guy that was on your show.
John Dehlin [01:23:20] Yeah, it's a Mormon story. Story like that. And that's not the first time I've heard that. So I mean, I'm just trying to
Cam Clarke [01:23:24] convey how do you.
John Dehlin [01:23:25] Over.
Cam Clarke [01:23:26] How do you move forward from.
John Dehlin [01:23:28] Well, that's why I'm just so glad you had the second mission president because, you know, if you don't have the right mission president, it could literally be fatal. These types of torments that you're talking about.
Cam Clarke [01:23:38] Sure, yeah, sure.
John Dehlin [01:23:40] Yeah. It's serious stuff. We're joking about it. But it's a matter of life and death in some instances.
Cam Clarke [01:23:46] Part of the reason I had such a horrible time, because I missed my family. Remember I came from this insane anti maim wild kingdom.
John Dehlin [01:24:05] Did your older. Two brothers, half brothers, serve missions?
Cam Clarke [01:24:07] Lex did.
John Dehlin [01:24:08] Okay.
Cam Clarke [01:24:08] Ricky did not.
John Dehlin [01:24:09] Okay.
Cam Clarke [01:24:12] So I'm coming from this huge life of love and church as they knew it to this. And I would stand on the rooftop of my apartment when I first arrived in Argentina. Yes. I would get up on the roof and I would see how far I could see. And then I would imagine myself teleporting to wherever my vision stopped and I'd look again and then I would teleport in my mind to the next vista of where I was that I would. Till I was home. Because I missed. I missed my. I call them my kids.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [01:25:02] Yeah, we missed you too.
John Dehlin [01:25:04] So not. Is it your mom? Was it your cousins? Was it your.
Cam Clarke [01:25:07] All of it?
John Dehlin [01:25:08] Oh, yeah.
Cam Clarke [01:25:09] We had such a world, such a non Mormon Mormon, an untraditional Mormon world.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [01:25:18] Like I knew my great aunts and uncles. Like aunts and uncles. I mean, which. Some people don't even know who they are. Right? Tight, tight. My second cousins were like first cousins. My.
Cam Clarke [01:25:31] Yeah, yeah.
John Dehlin [01:25:32] We all Were kind of raising each other.
Cam Clarke [01:25:34] Yeah.
John Dehlin [01:25:35] Yeah.
Cam Clarke [01:25:36] And so my home, this was no adventure. This was like being in a Turkish prison, but not in a good way.
John Dehlin [01:25:45] Is there a good way to be
Cam Clarke [01:25:46] in a Turkish prison? And I would break down my going home. I had another pocket calendar where I would count the days. And so what is the percentage? How much more is left?
John Dehlin [01:26:01] Oh, torture.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [01:26:03] Horrible.
John Dehlin [01:26:03] Were you ever attracted to any of your companions? That would be a false stereotype that just because you were gay, you would be attracted.
Cam Clarke [01:26:10] That never happened.
John Dehlin [01:26:11] Okay. Okay. So. And did you. Were you, like. Did you have a calendar or a countdown for, like, when's God going to take the gay away? Was that in your mind?
Cam Clarke [01:26:19] No, I know that was. It wasn't going to happen till I'm home.
John Dehlin [01:26:21] Okay, so you were just knowing that was going to magically disappear? Yeah. When you give your homecoming talk from your mission or when's your setup when you're released.
Cam Clarke [01:26:31] And in that talk, because I am honest in what I say to a fault, I don't mean hurting people's feelings, but when I get up there to give my talk.
John Dehlin [01:26:43] Homecoming talk.
Cam Clarke [01:26:44] Yeah. I remember saying. Because everybody's got to say, I know the church is true and that Joseph Smith is a prophet. I knew I couldn't say that, but how could I camouflage this? And people still think I'm saying that. I said, I am knowing the church
John Dehlin [01:27:03] is true, meaning
Cam Clarke [01:27:06] it's a process, and it's a growing thing, so I can be in process. I couldn't say the church is true, but I could. Yeah, I could go with I'm knowing because I dig it here. So maybe it is evolving. But I couldn't lie. Couldn't lie.
John Dehlin [01:27:26] I was never comfortable ever saying, I know the church is true. It never felt right to me.
Cam Clarke [01:27:31] So you come home in disgrace, dishonored. How did Is your fam. Are your parents LDs?
John Dehlin [01:27:39] They still are, yeah.
Cam Clarke [01:27:41] Were they ashamed?
John Dehlin [01:27:42] Well, I didn't. So they sent me. My mission president sent me home four months early, but I was not. And with honor. He just wanted me gone because he felt like. So we see. He just said, you go home early then, you know, But I was not gonna. I was so committed. I was not gonna end my mission early. So I asked to finish my mission, and I transferred to Tempe, Arizona.
Cam Clarke [01:28:03] Oh, you just finished my mission.
John Dehlin [01:28:05] Yeah. Cause I was hardcore. I was not gonna do 20, come
Cam Clarke [01:28:08] home in disgrace 20 months.
John Dehlin [01:28:09] No, no, no. I wasn't gonna even. I would have been ended with honor. It just would have been four months.
Cam Clarke [01:28:14] Early.
John Dehlin [01:28:14] And in my mind, I wouldn't have done the full 24 months.
Cam Clarke [01:28:17] Well, so you don't think shame at all came into play with I better not go home early?
John Dehlin [01:28:22] Sure it did. I'm just saying I wasn't released without honor. I would have been released with honor just early.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [01:28:29] You're still a slacker.
John Dehlin [01:28:30] Probably. Maybe. Maybe.
Cam Clarke [01:28:32] Did you ever think of going on a mission, Jules?
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [01:28:35] Yeah, I did.
Cam Clarke [01:28:36] Yeah, I did.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [01:28:38] But then I got married.
Cam Clarke [01:28:40] Oh, that's right.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [01:28:41] Yeah, Got married.
Cam Clarke [01:28:42] That's what you do.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [01:28:43] Yeah.
Cam Clarke [01:28:44] And a lady missionary is just cause she can't get married.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [01:28:48] Yeah. I think that's changed quite a bit now.
Cam Clarke [01:28:50] Thank God. I mean, I'm not of the fold, but I do love that that attitude is changed. There's one thing.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [01:29:00] Yeah.
Cam Clarke [01:29:00] Yay.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [01:29:01] Small victories.
Coming Home and Seeking Conversion Therapy
John Dehlin [01:29:03] So what was it like when you came home and you were released and you're like, okay, take it away. Take away the gay.
Cam Clarke [01:29:10] Well, first of all, I'm out of prison.
John Dehlin [01:29:13] Right.
Cam Clarke [01:29:14] So I came home bright and shiny like the day of a baptism. And I remember the music that was on the headphones in the airplane. I mean, on the airplane. It was to be real. To be real. Bom bom bom bom. And what a fool believes. Doo ba doo doo doo doo doo doo.
John Dehlin [01:29:44] And these were Michael McDonald.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [01:29:47] Yeah.
Cam Clarke [01:29:48] And those songs still remain in my head. As clean as a new beginning. Clean slate. So I dated up a storm. Yes. You know, you start with this is such a cliche. As Julie said earlier, you just haven't met the right woman. And the women I dated were stunning.
John Dehlin [01:30:16] Was this BYU now? BYU Provo or After your.
Cam Clarke [01:30:20] Well, I got home in June, so I did some dating Hollywood girls at home.
John Dehlin [01:30:26] Hollywood Mormon girls.
Cam Clarke [01:30:27] And they were stunning. And I remember my cousin Adam. This is before my mission, but the gals that I dated in high school, one he had a crush on, but she loved cousin Cam. And then when I'm in the singles ward, the gorgeous women, that's what I had. I could have had. I could have been a contender. And it kept not coming true.
John Dehlin [01:31:00] You mean you never were feeling it? You weren't feeling it?
Cam Clarke [01:31:03] Nothing. I went to byu, not because that's what Mormons do, but I heard there was a doctor off campus who would do aversion therapy.
John Dehlin [01:31:16] This is during the electroshock therapy stuff?
Cam Clarke [01:31:18] Yes.
John Dehlin [01:31:19] Wow.
Cam Clarke [01:31:19] And I sent myself to that. Nobody sent me. In fact, I don't know if my mother would have signed on for something. Do you think Lala would have?
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [01:31:31] No.
Cam Clarke [01:31:31] Or Bobo? My parents nicknames no. Would have been okay with shock therapy?
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [01:31:38] Absolutely not.
John Dehlin [01:31:39] Wait, did you actually participate in that?
Cam Clarke [01:31:41] Yes.
John Dehlin [01:31:43] Can you do. Are you comfortable talking about that? Is it too short? Okay. Yeah. So what was that? Tell us. Well, dang.
Cam Clarke [01:31:51] You were told to bring porn and it had to be the porn that worked for you.
John Dehlin [01:31:58] So erotic gay porn.
Cam Clarke [01:31:59] Yeah. Okay, well, both and I had to bring. So I go to Salt Lake with Jeff, my buddy who I had a crush on in high school. We drive to Salt Lake and go to the porn shop and I couldn't get hard. The magazines there were just like Playboy and Cavalier and Hustler. Yes, I know the names of the porn magazines. And Hustler and some kind of real soft core gay torso or whatever. And you bring this to the doctor guy and he'd put these wires on you in like the places, you know what they call horse bites skin here, your inner thighs is the most sensitive part of your flesh.
John Dehlin [01:32:58] So not to your genitals. And I don't mean to be.
Cam Clarke [01:33:00] No, God no. Okay, so I take the second to having it on your testicles. But so then he would show slides, he'd turn them into slides and you know.
John Dehlin [01:33:14] And you've got electrodes hooked up to your body that deliver a shock.
Cam Clarke [01:33:19] Yeah. And when there was a pornographic picture of a woman, there was no shock with the guys. Sometime there was none. Sometimes it was a short one, sometimes it was really long. So you couldn't prepare and it didn't work.
John Dehlin [01:33:39] What does that mean? Did you get aroused looking at the male porn versus the women?
Cam Clarke [01:33:43] Oh, hells yeah. Since I was in junior high, I was aroused by that.
John Dehlin [01:33:49] In the study, would you have arousal or not and then get shocked?
Cam Clarke [01:33:52] Well, I'm strapped up to this and that. No, there was nothing sexual about porn. When you got electrodes.
John Dehlin [01:34:00] Yeah.
Cam Clarke [01:34:01] Hooked up to you. So it almost doesn't. It doesn't even work because you are straight, gay. Whatever. You're attached to things. How are you going to have under
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [01:34:12] stress and you're being observed.
John Dehlin [01:34:14] You're being observed, right? Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so it wasn't about failed at it. What does that mean? What do I mean in the context of the study failing?
Cam Clarke [01:34:23] Well, it wasn't a study. It was. It wasn't part of a study.
John Dehlin [01:34:27] It was therapy.
Cam Clarke [01:34:28] It was therapy from this off campus guy that another guy that I knew said, hey, you know, you can do this. Because he likewise was gay and he took the treatment. I don't know how that panned out with him, but I finished, stayed at BYU for two Semesters.
John Dehlin [01:34:48] How long do you think you did that shock therapy?
Cam Clarke [01:34:50] A semester.
John Dehlin [01:34:51] So you did it for a good three, four months. Weekly.
Cam Clarke [01:34:55] Yeah.
John Dehlin [01:34:56] And was the shock uncomfortable?
Cam Clarke [01:35:00] Yeah. I mean, to be fair, I know I've said that a couple of times, so I hope it's appreciated. It wasn't like Frankenstein and strapped in huge lightning bolts, but it still was my experience. It was very painful, but I don't want to mislead. Like it was like, he's alive.
John Dehlin [01:35:22] Yeah.
Cam Clarke [01:35:23] Throwing this. Well, and here I go, backpedaling and making excuses. Dr. Hanks.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [01:35:28] Yeah.
Cam Clarke [01:35:30] Trying to be just. Anyway, it doesn't matter. Strike all that. Yes, it was painful.
John Dehlin [01:35:36] And so you would see images of erotic.
Cam Clarke [01:35:40] Don't you start. Don't you start crying or I will.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [01:35:44] It just makes me so sad. I'm so sorry that you went through that.
Cam Clarke [01:35:51] Thank you. This. Okay.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [01:35:57] All right.
John Dehlin [01:35:57] Sorry.
Coming Out: Cam's Story and Julie's Role
Cam Clarke [01:36:01] This leads in to our perfect coming out story to which Julie was a part of.
John Dehlin [01:36:08] And I'm also very, very sorry you experienced this. And I've heard that there have been people who have died by suicide as a result of experiencing this therapy, but also that it can really mess up your sexuality.
Cam Clarke [01:36:25] I am so compartmentalized. I'm single. I've never been able to do it. I think it fucked up a lot of stuff. And a lot of people, they got over it. You know, everybody's different. How things. How deep something will go, but might. Which will then go into the Book of Mormon. The song. If any of you know. Have you seen it?
John Dehlin [01:36:52] Turn it off. Turn it off.
Cam Clarke [01:36:53] Yes. Bullseye. That song destroyed me. Have you seen Book of Mormon?
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [01:36:58] I haven't, no.
Cam Clarke [01:37:01] Well, we can get into that later. But since we're talking about the coming out. My mom had a dining room table that sat 16. We were very large family, obviously, and we. I am so proud that our family never left the table. Dinner was less about food. Wouldn't you say, honey?
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [01:37:30] Yeah. And conversation.
Cam Clarke [01:37:32] Conversation. And she said, you know, you do. You know, you started this. Have I ever told you?
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [01:37:38] No.
Cam Clarke [01:37:39] Am I coming out?
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [01:37:40] No, I started it.
Cam Clarke [01:37:42] Yes.
John Dehlin [01:37:43] What year around was this while you were at BYU?
Cam Clarke [01:37:45] I got home at 79, so 81 or something.
John Dehlin [01:37:51] And this would have been after the electroshock therapy?
Cam Clarke [01:37:53] Yes. Yeah.
John Dehlin [01:37:54] You just realized from the study. Did you conclude something from that study?
Cam Clarke [01:37:59] No, again, it wasn't study. It was like.
John Dehlin [01:38:00] Sorry, from that therapy, did you conclude that I'm just.
Cam Clarke [01:38:03] Well, this isn't working.
John Dehlin [01:38:05] Okay.
Cam Clarke [01:38:07] You know, at a dinner, if you are a person that hangs out at the table, One of your favorite things is candle wax. We always had. First of all, I should say we always had candles. And you get the wax on your fingertips or. And then you peel it up, make a little square. Yeah, I'm just setting the stage for the mood our family would be in. And Julie, I don't know how we. We were on the topic of unconditional love. And Julie, who's. What are you, 14 or in the early 80s?
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [01:38:45] So I graduated in 87. So I was 87. 12. 12 ish. 13.
Cam Clarke [01:38:51] And you said to your father, lex, if I didn't. I don't remember what you said. Or maybe it was general, but you said at that age, at the table, if I did, dad, if I did something, something, would you still love me? Do you remember this?
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [01:39:15] I don't remember saying that.
Cam Clarke [01:39:16] Well, I'm glad you're hearing it now because you're the instigator. Madam.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [01:39:21] Oh, my goodness. I remember you starting to shake. I was sitting next to you.
Cam Clarke [01:39:27] Yeah. And you started thinking. Because then Lex says, there's nothing you could do that would make me stop loving you. Blah, blah, blah. In fact, I remember a time when I did blah, blah. And people said the words. You said what you were. It wasn't just fill in the blank. I just can't remember what he said. And mom loved me. Nothing happened. So I'm going, oh, flip and pick. Better to cut the. As they. You know the old saying, cut the dog's tail off in one cut as opposed to little pieces. So I'm going, it's now or never. I had already recently come out to my brother Rick, and I kind of look at him like this, and he's like, don't look at me.
John Dehlin [01:40:25] Had you told your parents yet?
Cam Clarke [01:40:26] No. This is. This dinner where Julie goes. We're talking about freaking unconditional love.
John Dehlin [01:40:33] And this one, Sandy Cottonwood Heights.
Cam Clarke [01:40:35] Where is LA? This is LA.
John Dehlin [01:40:36] Oh, LA.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [01:40:37] Oh, yeah.
Cam Clarke [01:40:38] We all lived around the corner from each other.
John Dehlin [01:40:40] Okay, so this is like an LA
Cam Clarke [01:40:41] family dinner Sunday night.
John Dehlin [01:40:43] Sunday night.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [01:40:43] We went to every Sunday.
Cam Clarke [01:40:45] Every Sunday.
John Dehlin [01:40:45] Okay.
Cam Clarke [01:40:47] So you got Julie going, dad, would you love me? Blah, blah, blah. Yes, I would. Alice says, yes, I would to her son Lex. So I said, shaking like a leaf, as Julie knows, what would you do if I told you I was gay? Silence. I start crying. Within seconds, my entire family, which included four teenage grandkids. This wasn't just adults. There was a fourth even. Who's the fourth kid? Lex.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [01:41:26] Yeah.
Cam Clarke [01:41:28] So what is he, 10?
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [01:41:30] He would. Yeah.
John Dehlin [01:41:32] These are your Brothers.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [01:41:34] My siblings.
Cam Clarke [01:41:35] Sorry, brothers and sisters.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [01:41:36] Yeah.
Cam Clarke [01:41:37] Lex, baby. Lex. I wasn't going to call a halt to this electric conversation even though the kids were there within seconds everybody was on my side of that ginormous table. Do you remember that part?
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [01:41:53] Yeah.
Cam Clarke [01:41:55] Touching me, your mom, we love you. Every like touching the hem of Jesus garment, you know, they each touch had their hand on me like a single cell of support. And the only thing, my father, who was not judgmental at all. Why? Because he wasn't religious. The only thing he said, I'm sorry you've had to go through all of this alone. So that's my coming out story.
John Dehlin [01:42:48] Wow.
Cam Clarke [01:42:49] And I got to say one thing about Julie and I last night were talking about the expression passing. If you're a fair skinned black person, you could pass for being white. And in the gay community we all tried to pass.
Cam Clarke [01:43:08] But speaking of the African American experience, when someone beats you up because you're black or whatever traumatic thing happens to you, you go home to a black family and you can say everything about it if you choose because they can relate.
Cam Clarke [01:43:33] Any gay kid who gets beat up or name called or whatever, you can't disclose that because it's not like you come home to a family of homosexuals where they can go, honey, I remember when I was a teenager and as a parent might do with a child that's struggling with I don't know what.
Cam Clarke [01:43:59] So a gay kid has to keep that all under wraps because you can't tell them why you got punched in the stomach or, you know, whatever.
John Dehlin [01:44:12] Yeah.
Cam Clarke [01:44:12] That's not at all to say that the black experience.
John Dehlin [01:44:16] No, of course, but they at least
Cam Clarke [01:44:17] got my point is they could go home to like minded people.
John Dehlin [01:44:24] Yeah. What I'm struck with, and I don't mean to like try and stick it to the church, but what I'm struck with is it was your dad's non Mormon ness and your family's unorthodoxy that allowed them to give you a loving supportive response. In other words, it was the opposite of what the church wanted for because
Cam Clarke [01:44:52] it was strictly love. It was organic. There at that. That evening the world had disappeared. And the only thing mom ever said at that evening was, yeah, I've often wondered, but that was it.
John Dehlin [01:45:16] What'd you think, Julie?
Cam Clarke [01:45:18] Oh, yeah. I've never asked you, Tammy. You were an orthodox because you're a child.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [01:45:22] Well, yeah, and I also had a very different upbringing in my family. There was a lot more orthodox beliefs and teaching. We did read the scriptures. We did, you know, do all of those kinds of things, and. But I remember I only felt love because of my relationship with you and how much I loved you. It was just like, okay. And from that moment on, I became an ally for LGBTQ people. It's like, oh, you know what? The church says this, but I, like, I don't agree with this. Even at that age, it changed me because I'm like, wow, well, it can't be. Cam's gay. Like, and we love him. So, like, it can't be.
Cam Clarke [01:46:11] If my uncle, who I adore.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [01:46:13] Who I adore, you know, possibly more than anyone on the planet, how. How can this be bad or wrong? And so it just. I just stood up.
Cam Clarke [01:46:25] This is so interesting for lg hearing this for the first time.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [01:46:29] Yeah. I. It changed me. And knowing you and loving you and knowing, you know, having you come out changed. Changed me. I hadn't thought a lot about homosexuality. Right.
Cam Clarke [01:46:43] Why would you?
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [01:46:44] But from that point on, it was, like, on my radar. And. Yeah. So thank you for, like, opening up my world.
Cam Clarke [01:46:54] Well, thank you for being a part of this evening. When I finally left the church, when I figured I've done all the dating I can with women and diversion therapy. Yes. My bishop was the sweetest man, Arlan. Sweetest man there could be. But you guys, as doctors and I, as just a layperson, know that clergy should not be laypeople. You know, you're a pharmacist. You're a fireman or a gardener. You don't know how to. You don't have the. You don't have the tools. So I go in and I tell my bishop, who was a friend of the family, we adored him.
John Dehlin [01:47:46] What's his last name? Or do you not want to say?
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [01:47:48] Is it Woodward?
Cam Clarke [01:47:49] Yes. Arlen Woodward.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [01:47:50] Yeah. So.
Cam Clarke [01:47:51] Who are very tight with our family.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [01:47:53] His daughter was one of my very best friends. One of your best friends growing up. Yeah.
Cam Clarke [01:47:58] And I told him that I was gay, and Arlan blessed his heart. And I mean that sincerely, not like, bless your heart. He said, oh, come on, Cam. A Greek God like you, you're not gay. You're just shy.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [01:48:23] Nope, I'm gay.
Cam Clarke [01:48:25] And that was curtin curtain down. And his comparing good looks.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [01:48:37] You can't be gay because it's attractive.
Cam Clarke [01:48:39] If anything good looks mean, is that guy gay or just European?
John Dehlin [01:48:45] I mean, also, as a Mormon, your bishop kind of speaks for God to you. Now, I don't know if by the time you're off your mission and had gone through electroshock therapy and had had all the promises fall through. Whether you were viewing him as God's mouthpiece at that point or not. But that's traditionally what my bandwidth was shot.
Cam Clarke [01:49:05] What my bandwidth was shot. But I was still had one foot in, one foot out. But when he compared myself, compared me to a Greek God, I went, I adore you, but you have so no idea. I mean, he didn't. Again, there was no shaming from him. It was, you're too good looking to be gay.
John Dehlin [01:49:34] It's kind of gaslighting, though, a little bit.
Cam Clarke [01:49:37] I think he.
John Dehlin [01:49:38] I would.
Cam Clarke [01:49:40] Gaslighting is malice.
John Dehlin [01:49:42] That's right. You're right, you're right, you're right, you're right.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [01:49:44] It was just ignorance.
Cam Clarke [01:49:45] It's ignorance.
John Dehlin [01:49:47] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Cam Clarke [01:49:50] So there was no shame up. Trust me, I had enough shame of my own. I didn't need anybody to I do love. In our day, it was often thought that gay is caused by a dominant, a domineering mother.
Church Teachings, Guilt, and Being Gay
John Dehlin [01:50:06] An existed father.
Cam Clarke [01:50:08] Yes.
John Dehlin [01:50:08] Yeah.
Cam Clarke [01:50:10] Well, since dad wasn't Mormon. Yeah, whatever. And I blame my mother and my oldest brother for talking smack about him. So I didn't listen to his counsel. So mom had the front seat. So. Oh, that's where I was going. So this thought of. It's the dominant. I keep saying that domineering mother. So mom gets a therapist. She goes to her first session and she says to the person, is it true that being gay is brought on by a domineering mother? And the guy or gal says, no, that's not a thing.
John Dehlin [01:51:04] Must have not been a Mormon therapist, because a Mormon therapist would have said, yes.
Cam Clarke [01:51:07] No, he said no. And mom was like, phew, not my fault. I don't need to come back.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [01:51:13] First and only session, right? Yes.
John Dehlin [01:51:16] No, but that.
Cam Clarke [01:51:17] She did not cause it.
John Dehlin [01:51:20] Yeah. But in the Mormon therapy world, and even in the Mormon bishop counseling world, it was sort of like, it's sin. You sinned, you masturbated, you're evil. That's why you're gay. But don't worry, because if you serve your mission and marry a woman, it'll go away. But it's there also because your parents, your dad was distant and your mom was overbearing.
Cam Clarke [01:51:45] He wasn't distant. He couldn't get a freaking word in.
John Dehlin [01:51:49] I'm just saying this is what so many Mormon men and women were taught, and I can't tell you how many. In a way, I don't know if you'd see it as dodging a bullet. Generations of Mormon men who were gay, married, straight women and Even had kids.
Cam Clarke [01:52:06] That was not me. When I know about so much of that, you feel like you judged them. I can't lie. We all have trouble with being authentic. Whether it's out of fear or ego or whatever it is, we all battle with authenticity. But that was something. That was a no brainer for me. I never thought I'd already been dating every woman in the country, you know, so how does marrying one gonna push me? Oh that's right, I do.
John Dehlin [01:52:41] Yeah.
Cam Clarke [01:52:42] I'm attracted to women. So.
John Dehlin [01:52:45] Yeah, you dodged a bullet there.
Cam Clarke [01:52:47] Yeah.
John Dehlin [01:52:48] Yeah. And so did any woman who would have married you. Right? Yes.
Cam Clarke [01:52:53] But speaking of. And this is good news and the bad. In the church you were told that the Lord will not give you a. What is the word? Trial or a trial.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [01:53:08] Greater than you can handle.
Cam Clarke [01:53:10] Greater than you can handle. And so I thought being gay was probably the toughest thing there was. So you know what that makes me?
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [01:53:21] I'm strong.
John Dehlin [01:53:24] Oh, God gave you the biggest challenge. Because you're special.
Cam Clarke [01:53:27] Because I'm special. I am that. I'm that diamond in the rough. Because I have the hardest problem of anyone.
John Dehlin [01:53:36] Yeah. So plus you're Jimmy Flinders.
Cam Clarke [01:53:39] Plus I'm Jimmy Flinders.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [01:53:40] So you are special.
Cam Clarke [01:53:42] Yeah. But that's what kind of kept me as sane as I could be. Cause I trusted that I was special. That's twisted. But again, for better or worse, I didn't kill myself.
John Dehlin [01:54:03] Yeah.
Cam Clarke [01:54:04] In those formative years because I was programmed. I sometimes think of battered women, battered wives. That if he doesn't hit me when he hits me, he loves me. Or you guys could articulate that better than I, but it's not dissimilar.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [01:54:28] Does that you're talking about your relationship with the church? Kind of.
Cam Clarke [01:54:33] That the harder my life is, the more I'm loved. And it's not a direct correlation. But he loves me.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [01:54:43] Yeah.
Cam Clarke [01:54:45] Right. I mean the abuse can be some kind of a.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [01:54:50] It's an attachment. Like there's still attachment caring, there's connection. Not caring, but there's a connection there.
Cam Clarke [01:54:58] Yes.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [01:54:59] Yeah. I'm with you.
John Dehlin [01:55:00] And somehow that abuse or that it's because they really want the best from you. Because you have so much potential. So in some ways you deserve it. But in some ways it makes you special and it keeps you connected to something that is in some ways very. Also toxic. It's lifting you up.
Cam Clarke [01:55:18] Although incorrect. It was praise.
John Dehlin [01:55:24] Yeah. Toxic praise. Kind of.
Cam Clarke [01:55:26] Yeah. And then of course you're reading Paul Dunn's book I challenge you, I promise you, which was very cleverly. Designed. Are you old enough to remember that book? No, it was a book. Do you remember it, John?
John Dehlin [01:55:40] No. I remember Paul Dunn, but not the book. Yeah.
Cam Clarke [01:55:42] I challenge you. I promise you. It was written upside down and right side up. You read it like this. You get the challenges. You turned it upside down to the back cover, so the front is now upside down. You've turned the book, now you're getting the promises.
John Dehlin [01:56:03] Wow.
Cam Clarke [01:56:03] Very clever.
John Dehlin [01:56:04] That's great.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [01:56:05] Wow.
Cam Clarke [01:56:05] Isn't that wild?
John Dehlin [01:56:06] Yeah, that's great.
Cam Clarke [01:56:06] So you'd read page one, and again, I'm 14, 15. You turn the book upside down and read the other side. Very, very clever.
John Dehlin [01:56:17] And the idea is you're being challenged with the challenge, but you have the promise that he'll help, that this will lead to that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So powerful. So once you come out and you just decide this isn't going to work for you anymore, where does your Mormon story go from there?
Cam Clarke [01:56:39] Well, it disappears.
John Dehlin [01:56:42] Did you stay at byu? What'd you do?
Cam Clarke [01:56:45] No, I only went there for the shock treatment.
John Dehlin [01:56:47] Okay.
Cam Clarke [01:56:48] And that didn't work. And I pretty much knew what I wanted to do, which wasn't voiceovers. I went to Parsons School of Design the first year that they took over Otis, which was a fine arts school in la.
John Dehlin [01:57:02] Okay.
Cam Clarke [01:57:02] I wanted to be an illustrator of children's book. A writer and illustrator of children's books. In fact, My Turn on Earth, which is one of Lex's other musicals, it came with a storybook, which I illustrated.
John Dehlin [01:57:17] Oh. So did you know Carolyn Pearson? Cause I was about to ask you.
Cam Clarke [01:57:21] Sure.
John Dehlin [01:57:21] If she had come out by I love you yet, and if you knew her husband Gerald, and if her.
Cam Clarke [01:57:28] I only knew Gerald casually, but I knew Carolyn well.
John Dehlin [01:57:34] Did the good.
Cam Clarke [01:57:35] I remember the documentary on them about AIDS quilt.
John Dehlin [01:57:39] Yeah. But did you. Did the Goodbye, I Love youe book. So for those who don't know Carolyn Pearson.
Cam Clarke [01:57:43] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
John Dehlin [01:57:43] Has been on Mormon Stories. She's a legend. And she was a poet, an author, and her husband Gerald was her kind of like, her support. But eventually she came out with a book called Goodbye, I Love youe, about how she. Her Mormon husband became gay, got aids,
Cam Clarke [01:57:59] or was always gay.
John Dehlin [01:58:00] It was always gay. Thank you. Was always gay.
Cam Clarke [01:58:02] Came out as gay.
John Dehlin [01:58:03] Came out as gay, acquired aids. And then eventually she nursed him to his death.
Cam Clarke [01:58:09] Yes.
John Dehlin [01:58:10] And then that book became a national bestseller. It was on Oprah, Donahue, whatever.
Cam Clarke [01:58:14] Yeah, I remember seeing her, like, on Donahue and Emily. Her daughter, Pearson.
John Dehlin [01:58:20] Yeah.
Cam Clarke [01:58:22] In that after my mission, she and I Had this great little bonding. I haven't talked to her in years.
John Dehlin [01:58:29] She was also talented. Very good singer.
Cam Clarke [01:58:31] Very good singer.
John Dehlin [01:58:32] Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Cam Clarke [01:58:33] Very good little actor, too.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [01:58:35] Yeah, she's a friend of mine.
Cam Clarke [01:58:36] Is she still.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [01:58:37] Yeah. I mean, not close, but like, we. We keep in touch periodically.
Cam Clarke [01:58:42] Yeah, yeah.
John Dehlin [01:58:43] So did. Did.
Cam Clarke [01:58:45] And she told a different. Well, I shouldn't speak for anybody else, so.
John Dehlin [01:58:50] Well, I'm just wondering.
Cam Clarke [01:58:51] I wanted to say she got put on this path of pr.
John Dehlin [01:58:55] Emily or Carolyn?
Cam Clarke [01:58:56] Emily.
John Dehlin [01:58:56] Okay.
Cam Clarke [01:58:57] Carolyn is being her authentic self in writing this book. I don't think this is telling tales to say the kids had nothing to do with this. So why are they on the junket with you?
John Dehlin [01:59:11] I mean, it's just. It's a difficult thing. And we get that with social media now. Like, parents are doing their thing, but kids have to. Are along for the ride. And how do you balance them being part of the family?
Cam Clarke [01:59:23] Television as rah rah. And I don't know that you're saying
John Dehlin [01:59:28] it might have been hard on Emily.
Cam Clarke [01:59:31] Yeah, she's a kid still trying to figure this out, but now she's a poster child. And these are my words.
John Dehlin [01:59:38] Yeah, yeah.
Cam Clarke [01:59:38] But in our conversations, that was kind of my takeaway that this wasn't her flag to wave.
John Dehlin [01:59:50] And Carolyn still watches Mormon stories. So, like, I'm also just mindful.
Cam Clarke [01:59:54] Hi, Carolyn, I love you.
John Dehlin [01:59:57] I'm mindful that she loves her kids and would have wanted to do only what was best for them. So I'm guessing she and Gerald just were doing the best they could with what they knew how at the time. And I know Emily as well.
Cam Clarke [02:00:11] Has she been on your show?
John Dehlin [02:00:13] We've talked about it.
Cam Clarke [02:00:15] But her married to a gay guy.
John Dehlin [02:00:18] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Cam Clarke [02:00:19] Story.
John Dehlin [02:00:19] Yeah. She was gonna marry her.
Cam Clarke [02:00:22] She did.
John Dehlin [02:00:23] She did. I'm just saying. And the bishop blessed them well because the women were able to make it.
Cam Clarke [02:00:28] Also know they are going to change him. A lot of the guys do come out and tell their wives this. It isn't a closet, but I'm only going to be with you now. And because we're doing what we're supposed to with the woman involved, even more chance of change.
John Dehlin [02:00:45] Yeah. I'm just saying she was going to succeed where her mom failed. She was going to marry the gay Mormon man and change it. And she was gonna. They were gonna successfully conquer it, which failed spectacularly as well. So it's just complicated. And I just want to make sure Carolyn knows we love her and I don't want her to feel judged and Emily's perspective is also valid that it must have been very difficult.
Cam Clarke [02:01:08] And this is again my interpretation of memories from decades.
John Dehlin [02:01:15] The kids point of view. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's valid. It's all valid.
Cam Clarke [02:01:19] And I was not with Emily, but I certainly knew her journey with her husband.
John Dehlin [02:01:26] Yeah. Did all that Carolyn Pearson Gerald discussion, goodbye, love you stuff. How did that land for you during your Mormon ex Mormon gay journey? You know what I mean?
Cam Clarke [02:01:40] I thought her act of nursing him to death. What kind of superpower is that after their divorce?
John Dehlin [02:01:50] Right? Yeah.
Cam Clarke [02:01:51] Yes.
John Dehlin [02:01:52] Yeah. And we have a whole Carolyn Pearson episode, multiple episodes where she tells this whole story and it's a classic. So we'll have Brooklyn put it in the show notes and you all need
Cam Clarke [02:02:02] to check it out. I had nothing but respect for a person who is betrayed. And her episode, I'm sure she talks about how she decides how to handle this next part. So I don't from her mouth know the process and the evolution of how she came to take care of him, but my golly, that's amazing.
John Dehlin [02:02:34] Yeah. Yeah. And how did it inform your journey as a gay ex Mormon?
Cam Clarke [02:02:42] Well, as you said, I didn't marry anybody, so for me, I was never gonna do that.
John Dehlin [02:02:51] And also, I guess so you would have been figuring out how to live as a gay man.
Cam Clarke [02:02:58] I'm out of the closet.
John Dehlin [02:02:59] But as the AIDS crisis is coming on board.
Cam Clarke [02:03:03] Yes.
John Dehlin [02:03:04] Like, was that all the same time or not? Magic Johnson. Yes.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [02:03:08] Quilt 80s, right?
John Dehlin [02:03:09] Yeah.
Cam Clarke [02:03:09] It covered the entire lawn in front of the, you know, Washington Monument.
John Dehlin [02:03:15] So what's it like to be realizing coming out as a gay Mormon man while the age crisis is emerging? Like, is that terrifying
Cam Clarke [02:03:27] considering the fact that I was part of it? I'm HIV positive and it was a death sentence. You couldn't even do your actuary tables because nobody had lived. You couldn't say, well, people do live till the old age of 80, whatever. Because everyone was dying. Everyone was dying. I would constantly be with my doctor going, is anything new around the corner? Because my T cell count was like so low I can name them.
John Dehlin [02:04:04] So you did have a period of exploration in your life after leaving the church or exploration of being a gay man and dating?
Cam Clarke [02:04:15] Oh, yeah. I was always out and I was dating.
John Dehlin [02:04:21] So you went from being an ex Mormon to dating as a gay man dating other men?
Cam Clarke [02:04:25] Right.
John Dehlin [02:04:25] Okay, we haven't talked about that.
Cam Clarke [02:04:27] My family, at least. I don't know what they say behind closed doors, but everyone was loving and I felt they were authentic with it. In fact, they felt so authentic that we could joke.
John Dehlin [02:04:44] But I'm wondering what it's like for you. Do you lose your faith in Mormonism or are you dating men and having sex with men? As a still Mormon believer who just
Cam Clarke [02:04:54] thinks you were broken when Arlen called me a Greek God.
John Dehlin [02:04:59] The bishop.
Cam Clarke [02:05:01] Yep. Then I knew.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [02:05:02] Y' all are don't get it. You don't get it.
Cam Clarke [02:05:06] You don't get it. Nor are you speaking as a mouthpiece. You are not speaking from God. And I was on the fence about believing in God. But I knew that was not inspiration as well meant as it was. I went, mm, you gotta check your telephone wires.
John Dehlin [02:05:27] Cause so you lost your faith in Mormonism at that point.
Cam Clarke [02:05:34] That sounds so gentle.
John Dehlin [02:05:36] Does it?
Cam Clarke [02:05:37] I went out. I don't know why. That was just my trigger.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [02:05:42] Yours is done response.
Cam Clarke [02:05:44] I was done and furious because you lied to me.
John Dehlin [02:05:47] Who lied? Did you start studying church history? Truth claims?
Cam Clarke [02:05:51] No. You just told me my whole life that you would fix this. You promised this. You lied. Shame on you. Shame on you. And you're calling this inspiration. And we can say that about all kinds of leaders, religious or otherwise. But religious leaders especially because you're supposed to be a rebel like Jesus and yet the Mormons are always on the wrong side of history.
Cam Clarke [02:06:24] Can't you be a rebel and be before everyone like Christ was with his change of teachings? Yeah, we're done with that. I'm going to teach you something more sophisticated. The black thing, which we don't need to go into, but it's after the fact. I'm on my mission when they do.
Cam Clarke [02:06:45] And they are never the first at any kind. And churches, not all the churches, let me be clear about that. But you are never with a radical thought. You are never with a radical thought to change things for the better.
Cam Clarke [02:07:07] You get on board. So after the fact. So how is God at the head of that? Why? If there is a God, why is he making the non believers more radical? You're supposed to be a leader. You're supposed to be the shepherd. You're the shepherd's mouthpiece.
Cam Clarke [02:07:28] Yet you don't have your staff in front of the sheep. You're behind him. So struggling with fury remains part of my turn on earth, shall we say.
John Dehlin [02:07:47] Valid. Very valid. What do you want to share? Like from going from never dating men to leaving the church to losing your faith in the church during the AIDS scare, to be dating men and I assume having sex. Like, what's that like for a boy raised Mormon who was Jimmy Flinders in Saturday's Warrior, who was kind of even a Mormon celebrity.
Cam Clarke [02:08:14] Fortunately, I had the health. Like I said, you were not under inspiration. If you call me a Greek God. Sorry to keep coming back to that, but that was when the light bulb went off. So you have no hold on me other than the constant knowledge that you lied. So I had no trouble going, God isn't at the head of this. If there's no radical thinking, you know, why can't women be priests? I mean, I don't need to go off on a, you know, equity rampage here, because that's not our story. I will say testing positive when everyone was dying. It was going to be my 40th birthday soon.
John Dehlin [02:09:12] Sorry, I do want to get to that 100%. I'm just. Just this idea of being raised Mormon, having a delayed adolescence, and I'm not trying to ask, like, sexual details. I'm just trying to have you discuss, like, as an adult, discovering your sexuality for the first time and then pursuing, quote, a lifestyle that the church would deem as the most evil possible, and it would be totally new for you, and, I would guess, terrifying. What was all that like?
Life After the Church and Finding Intimacy
Cam Clarke [02:09:46] Yet the first time I had sex, I felt guilty that I did not feel guilty.
John Dehlin [02:09:58] Ooh.
Cam Clarke [02:09:59] Do you follow?
John Dehlin [02:10:00] Yeah, I kind of like that.
Cam Clarke [02:10:02] But this feels. I'm home. This is authentic. This is authenticity. And I wasn't even looking for, in fact, a guy. I was going to a job interview, and a car drove by, and, you know, we just started chatting, and he gave me his phone number. And after. After that audition, I went straight to his house, not knowing. Not really knowing anything that might transpire, but I felt no guilt, so I didn't have to have. When I say I felt guilty that I didn't feel guilty, that's a very intellectual place. But as far as visceral guilt, none.
John Dehlin [02:10:57] And did you get to experience love or, like, courtship and love and companionship and all that stuff?
Cam Clarke [02:11:06] I am so compartmentalized that I have not. I feel like Spock, you know, cocks his head because his human genes are not as strong as his Vulcan genes.
John Dehlin [02:11:24] So you're saying you kind of have compartmentalized into logic and reason and your emotional side?
Cam Clarke [02:11:32] Because I didn't feel organic about love. I. And I still struggle with that. So I have dated up a storm, but I've never had. I've dated people for extensions of. Extensions of time, but not living with anybody or calling it my boyfriend. I was dating giant. Fear factors in there, and it has remained in the forefront, and I've spent More money, my name should be above some psychiatric college as the Cam Clarke Therapeutics.
John Dehlin [02:12:21] Psychiatry. Yeah, you mentioned that the electroshock therapy harmed you. I thought I heard you say that it kept you from being able to have sex after your shark therapy. Did I mishear that or. And again, I'm not trying to dig into details.
Cam Clarke [02:12:37] We were. I mean, the treatment is. I guess you want to be technical. It is about sex, but it's actually about changing your entire person.
John Dehlin [02:12:46] Yeah.
Cam Clarke [02:12:46] So I wasn't speaking of sex as a standalone.
John Dehlin [02:12:50] Okay.
Cam Clarke [02:12:53] But all that self loathing, okay. And the shock treatment kept me, did the damage so that by the time I went, oh, I don't feel guilty about this. I can't even unpack it. To this day, I just know I've not. You know, people go, well, at least look who you are now. I'm going, yeah, that's why I still have fury. My dog ate my homework. My dog ate my homework. I'm not saying, I'm not putting myself down. I'm just saying as the cards fell with this boy's personality, it was a formula for disaster. And I have certainly done enough therapy to try to unpack it, but.
John Dehlin [02:13:47] So you were able to have sex.
Cam Clarke [02:13:50] Oh, yeah.
John Dehlin [02:13:50] But it, but it, but it messed up your. Maybe it messed up your ability to have healthy, normative relationships, emotional or love based relationships. Is that right? I don't want to put words in your mouth.
Cam Clarke [02:14:03] That works.
John Dehlin [02:14:05] That's. And that's really. That's the thing, is that relationships aren't about sex. I mean, loving, committed relationships are about love. So when we focus on the sex, we forget that it's really just about being able to find a companion that we want to do life with. Right.
Cam Clarke [02:14:22] And the expression that we use about love when you get apartment, an apartment, that's love. A partner. I fell in love. What is the verb to fall? You guys, tell me what that is. What is fall? Falling. It's an accident. It happens without your being involved. You don't go out to, you know, slip on a banana peel or walk on black ice. It happens. Positive or negative. You fall in love like black ice. It happens to you. I have never been able to use the verb to fall. I've never had the organic element of, yeah, we met at a friend's picnic and yeah, we didn't like each other at first, but then I fell for him hard. You fell. Okay, that's what I'm talking about. It's an element in my personality that evades me. Evade is that the Right. Word evades my development. So I don't get any help from nature.
John Dehlin [02:15:41] Yeah. Yeah. I mean, if you had been able to just fall in love as a high school kid and date.
Cam Clarke [02:15:51] I'd like to think so.
John Dehlin [02:15:53] And be. Be out and open about who you were and have people excited for who you were. And you weren't paranoid about masturbating or what thoughts you had, and you were just able to have a normal developmental formation, you know, adolescence of intimacy. Yeah. Things might have been very different.
Cam Clarke [02:16:12] Do you guys. Have you had clients suffering from Spock syndrome,
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [02:16:23] feeling disconnected from feeling that they
Cam Clarke [02:16:25] do not have the tools to be intimate? Yeah.
John Dehlin [02:16:30] To be emotionally intimate.
Cam Clarke [02:16:32] And hence they do not couple because they don't have the tools. Have you had that experiences in your clientele?
John Dehlin [02:16:43] I think Margi would say I'm super cerebral and compartmentalized, especially during emotional conflict, and I can turn off my emotions and be very analytical.
Cam Clarke [02:16:55] You're saying you can?
John Dehlin [02:16:56] Yeah, that Margi would say I, in many ways, was emotionally stunted by the compartmentalization that I had to do. And she would say, I've had to do a lot of work in the past decade or two to learn to be more in touch with my emotions, to not be disconnected from them. So I'm not going to in any way compare myself to you, but I'm going to say, in some ways, me too, in ways that affected my ability to. Well, there's the whole attachment thing. Right. The secure attachment versus insecure attachment. And people that are more emotionally connected versus, like, guarded and shield and evade intimacy through being a workaholic or having a cause or seeking relationships, you know, outside the dyad because you're terrified of the risk of deep, true communication, emotional relationship.
Cam Clarke [02:17:54] Am I going to fail at this? Like, I have failed? The tapes are recorded. Some people might say, well, get over it. That was then, this is now. Oh, really? Thank you for the. Aha. I know that. And I have worked on it. And hasn't. Hasn't. You know, blah, blah, blah.
John Dehlin [02:18:19] Yeah, yeah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. No, not blah, blah, blah. This is the most. I think emotional intimacy is why the most important thing in the human experience. We're not talking blah, blah, blah. We're talking the fuel that makes our engines run. And you were left stunted without core experiences and abilities to have what we all most long for.
Cam Clarke [02:18:46] Yes.
John Dehlin [02:18:47] I don't know. I don't. Is that right?
Cam Clarke [02:18:49] Familial love? I think I am a poster child for familial and friend love. I mean, sure, I have insecurities and I, you know, I do more than I'd like. You can't fire me. I quit. But I have been intimate with my family and gone through the pitfalls that I still deal with of the Mormon thing.
Cam Clarke [02:19:18] But I think I make a good uncle. I think I was a good son. I think in a family way, I have done everything, perhaps more than some others. But also, being HIV was a blessing. And it's not just hiv. If you've had a bad run with cancer or whatever, where you weren't supposed to survive, or however you want to couch that, you can either curl up into a ball and say, just take me, or you can find how precious.
Cam Clarke [02:20:04] Every day is like Scrooge after the visitations. And I became aware of every day. So I have no regrets about being clean with Julie or any family member. I could be hit by a bus or say they die because I'm still alive, going, they knew everything. I have no regrets about my family relationships, even the ones that don't work.
Cam Clarke [02:20:43] I honor that position. It makes me sad, but I'm not holding back or not saying things that would bring a woulda, coulda, shoulda, family wise and friend wise. At my 40th birthday, if I may, because it plays into this.
HIV Diagnosis and Building Resilience
John Dehlin [02:21:07] What year did you find out to get the diagnosis?
Cam Clarke [02:21:10] Like 89.
John Dehlin [02:21:11] You were how old?
Cam Clarke [02:21:14] Do the math. I'm born in 57, so 67. 78.
John Dehlin [02:21:20] So 32.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [02:21:20] I was 20 and 89. So you're 11 to 12 years old.
Cam Clarke [02:21:26] So I'm early 30s.
John Dehlin [02:21:27] Yeah, 32.
Cam Clarke [02:21:28] Please call in. Operators are standing by. And give us the correct number of my age and you will win.
John Dehlin [02:21:34] So in your early 30s, you were diagnosed with HIV, does that sound right?
Cam Clarke [02:21:40] Yes, because I'm having my 40th birthday and it might have been seven years or whatever. I knew I wasn't going to make it to 50 and doubtful I would make it to the half decade to 45. So I threw two separate birthday parties.
Cam Clarke [02:21:59] You sang at the family one. Emptied all the furniture out of the living room, set up a huge table down the middle worthy of King Henry VIII's banquets. Huge. I had one dinner with my friends and one with my family.
Cam Clarke [02:22:18] None of them knew this, but I was saying goodbye. I bought everyone a present and I roasted and toasted each one individually. Because I wasn't going to be here to honor them in years to come. So that's part of the preciousness of a terminal disease, whatever it is.
Cam Clarke [02:22:46] And I can't take credit for intellectually coming to this position. Speaking of falling, I fell into gratitude with this disease. I didn't go, well, pick, you know, pull your bootstraps up. I just fell into that position.
John Dehlin [02:23:10] Kim, you're a freaking. You're a miracle. Like, I'm not trying to flatter you, but you're a miracle.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [02:23:16] He likes being flattered. That's okay.
Cam Clarke [02:23:17] Yes. Keep bringing it out.
John Dehlin [02:23:18] No, no. In my interview with Carolyn Pearson, she said these words, we throw them in the gutter and we expect them not to get dirty. And what she was talking about there was sort of this Mormon evangelical thing where HIV is God's curse and they're not welcome in our churches, and so they have to separate themselves from their family, and then they go to San Francisco and they contract aids and then they die, and then they're the cautionary tale. See, what happens when they die of aids? It's because they were sinful. Right? And.
John Dehlin [02:23:51] But we do that to them. We reject them. We reject you. And then how do they even live? How do they not die? How do they survive? The fact that you're past your 50s and alive and have thrived and is such a delightful human, not just the miracle of whatever medicine has helped keep you alive, but that's kept your spirit positive and robust and creative and successful. You're a miracle to me. Just this story. You're a miracle to me.
Cam Clarke [02:24:26] Thank you, John.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [02:24:27] Amen.
Cam Clarke [02:24:28] And thank you, Julie, for being here to support me. I have to say, a twisted connecting of the dots. I mean it when I say I got to act out running away in Saturday's Warrior. Yeah, Jimmy runs away, which kept me from doing it.
Cam Clarke [02:24:51] If I had not gone on the mission. There are consequences to every decision. There's. Hence, how can you believe in a right and wrong of everything? Because everything. Nothing happens in a vacuum. Had I not gone on my mission, would I have ended up in San Francisco or New York being one of the first to contract and not being alive?
Cam Clarke [02:25:24] So I wasn't around for the dark years when nobody knew what the. What is going on here. No, he has died of cancer. No, he died of brain tumor before they knew what was going on. So in one way, the happenstance of those things coming together.
Cam Clarke [02:25:51] Also, I was offered a job in Vegas. King Family was already winding down, and I was working on my own. And I done work as a singer, dancer. My mom always pooh poohed me being anything less than a star. I got offered a job to go to Vegas to be one of Connie Stevens boys. Was she a Singer Connie Stevens.
John Dehlin [02:26:20] Yeah.
Cam Clarke [02:26:20] Yeah. She was huge in the 60s and 50s. And like a lot of Vegas people, they are. I hate to say this, but yesterday's stars, right?
John Dehlin [02:26:30] Yeah.
Cam Clarke [02:26:31] And they book huge because it's people their age that are coming to relive their youth, Right?
John Dehlin [02:26:36] Yeah.
Cam Clarke [02:26:37] So I would have been one of those singer dancer boys. When this choreographer called me and I didn't have to audition for a lot of these, I was already being passed around, if you will, as being someone you could go to. I don't need to see him. Just hire him. Save ourselves an hour. And I got off the phone and I said, mom, Kevin Carlisle. And he was a huge choreographer back in the 70s. I don't know how long his career was. But anyway, I hung up the phone. Mom was likewise in the kitchen. And I said, I've just been offered a job to work with Connie Stevens in Vegas. She was at the sink. She didn't turn around, but kind of over her shoulder says, you don't want to be a chorus boy flushed with red.
John Dehlin [02:27:40] You or her?
Cam Clarke [02:27:41] Me?
John Dehlin [02:27:42] Yeah.
Cam Clarke [02:27:44] Did she mean, I'm too good for the chorus or chorus boys are faggoty, effeminate dancer boys? Because I am so afraid of being found out, I chose that she was going. I was going to be known as a gay person if I become a.
Cam Clarke [02:28:11] A singer dancer. If I was secure enough to think, oh, that's mom just thinking, her baby boy doesn't have to be in the chorus. I could have laughed it off. I had a carol. I'm really getting off topic. I had a caroling group after college. I had some. It was like a garage band. Three of my best friends, and our reputation got around, and we were booked all November and December, having the time of our lives, because we were pals. We were all terrific singers, and I love to sing.
Cam Clarke [02:28:50] And mom, I remember her saying on more than one occasion, oh, why are you. Why are you doing that? Likewise, being a caroler is not being a star or, you know, however you want to say that. And I was able to laugh and go, dude, I'm having the time of my life and I'm making Christmas money. Am I working? Yeah, I'm already working.
Cam Clarke [02:29:20] But what part of I'm enjoying doing what I enjoy to do, which is using my gift for music and directing and producing and having a reputation that I don't have to put out an ad, just like as a singer dancer. So to bring. To bring that back in, I've thought, had I gone to Vegas and become a singer Dancer.
John Dehlin [02:29:51] You didn't go?
Cam Clarke [02:29:53] No, I was too ashamed. Add to that, I was still doing Saturday's Warrior and doing King Family, so I was making some good money. So I told myself I was passing because of money. I think part of me was. I don't think that was a lie. I was a good businessman going, you're doing these other things. And I was literally talking about money. I wasn't going, you're a star in Saturday's Warrior. I just went, let's check my wallet. That's bigger money. And I am having a blast. But had I chosen it again? Had I come out earlier? And I hate to sound so stereotypical, but we have the facts in the history book. I could have been infected earlier, hence not have the medication that came along by the time I contracted it.
John Dehlin [02:30:55] I mean, that's great framing. It's powerful framing. Right. I mean, it's resilient.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [02:31:00] Right.
John Dehlin [02:31:00] It's resilient framing. Right.
Cam Clarke [02:31:02] And it's true sometimes. And thank you, and I appreciate it. Sometimes I wish there was a different word than resilience.
John Dehlin [02:31:17] What's that?
Cam Clarke [02:31:21] Resilience is about surviving. It is a positive word. Yet for me, it also speaks of having to rise above brokenness.
John Dehlin [02:31:41] Brokenness or defect.
Cam Clarke [02:31:43] Yes.
John Dehlin [02:31:43] And you don't like that connotation.
Cam Clarke [02:31:45] And I know it's a.
John Dehlin [02:31:46] A good word.
Cam Clarke [02:31:47] But for me, I don't want to be resilient. I want to just be. And I would in my brain, my history, my journey. Resilience also reminds me of you will not be tempted more than you can stand. I mean, weird connecting of the dots, but it is so in my brain. And I kind of wanted to just be. And this isn't accusation of using the word. I just don't want to be resilient.
John Dehlin [02:32:20] Yeah.
Cam Clarke [02:32:21] I want to be stronger than resilience. I mean, that. Not even. That might not even make sense, to be stronger than resilience. Because we all have things. We have to be. We're resilient or we have problem. But it just had this extra baggage on the word.
John Dehlin [02:32:41] Yeah. That being gay is a defect that you have to be resilient to overcome.
Cam Clarke [02:32:45] Yes.
John Dehlin [02:32:46] It's not a defect. It's not a broken. Yeah, yeah. It's a beautiful part of who you are.
Cam Clarke [02:32:51] Yeah.
John Dehlin [02:32:52] Is that right?
Cam Clarke [02:32:53] Yes. I don't show resilience for being a man or being an artist.
John Dehlin [02:33:01] Right.
Cam Clarke [02:33:02] Those are fine things. Or being a good singer. No. Resilience is required, yet life comes with need of that. I'm kind of talking in circles about that.
Julie Reflects on the Church's LGBTQ Policies
John Dehlin [02:33:14] Right now, Julie, I just want to jump in. How do you feel hearing this from Cam and just everything he's just shared. It's some intense stuff, and you were a witness to him. But he's also sharing something really personal right now. Is there anything. I'm just dying to hear your reaction to all of this.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [02:33:32] Just. Just love. Just love and respect and.
Cam Clarke [02:33:36] Well, and you are part of the survival after the fact. Tell him about your son and me and you
John Dehlin [02:33:47] if you want to. The book.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [02:33:48] Oh. Oh. I was so. My son was probably five, my oldest.
Cam Clarke [02:33:53] And we're sitting on the couch at her house, just the three of us,
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [02:33:56] and somehow we're talking about pictures that were photographs or they're going to marry this person or something about marriage. And she's. And he said, well, but he can't marry a boy. And I said, oh, yeah, he can in Hawaii.
Cam Clarke [02:34:12] I don't even recall that you said Hawaii.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [02:34:14] Oh. Because I think gay marriage was. Anyway.
Cam Clarke [02:34:19] Yes, I remember it well. I just remember the simplicity.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [02:34:23] Just like.
Cam Clarke [02:34:24] With which you said it was.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [02:34:26] They can. Yeah, they can be.
Cam Clarke [02:34:28] It wasn't like a learning moment.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [02:34:32] It just is spontaneous.
Cam Clarke [02:34:35] Yeah. They can be together. It wasn't. Sweetie, let me tell you something about life. It just flowed out of your mouth with, no, that's because of fanfare.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [02:34:49] That's because of you. That's because of you.
Cam Clarke [02:34:55] It seems more universal. You gotta give yourself credit for that. Okay.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [02:35:00] Yeah. Like, I try to be aware. Right. But because of my early experiences of knowing and loving you and only wanting good things for you and. You know what I mean? And wanting you to have everything you want. Yeah. So thank you, because I credit you for that awareness and having that just be like, well, of course I can
Cam Clarke [02:35:32] even remember my body language. It's almost like I went whoop.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [02:35:38] Like what?
Cam Clarke [02:35:38] I remember kind of like pulling back and looking at you with, wow, I wasn't expecting that. Not that I expected something negative.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [02:35:50] Right, right.
Cam Clarke [02:35:51] But the fact that you just slipped that in there, like, oh, yeah, they can. It didn't even sound like planting a seed. You know what I'm saying? It did not sound important.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [02:36:01] It was just a fact.
Cam Clarke [02:36:03] Just a fact.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [02:36:03] Yeah.
John Dehlin [02:36:04] Julie, I'm dying to know, as an orthodox Mormon believing Mormon, what was it like to see the ld? If you want to share, you can say, I don't want to share.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [02:36:12] Okay.
John Dehlin [02:36:13] To see the LDS Church, whether it's Prop 8 or Prop 22 or the exclusion policy in 2015 or the reversal in 2019 or even today. What's it Been like for you to love Cam, to know Cam, to support Cam, and to have also been such a committed member of the church that seemed to constantly be declaring war on Cam and people like him. Has it been hard?
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [02:36:41] It's been really hard, John. And it's given my love for Cam, has given me the courage to say, like, that's wrong. That policy is wrong. Like the 2015 policy I knew. I'm like, oh, that is not of God. And I was able to say that. And I was able to say, you know, there are lots of things about the church that I love and they're wrong about this. They've got it wrong. And be able to, you know, declare that and be able to kind of. Yeah. Just say they get a lot of things wrong.
John Dehlin [02:37:25] It must also make you sad, though, right?
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [02:37:28] Yeah, really sad. And just because of the pain, like, unnecessary pain, not just of Cam's story, but, you know, LGBTQ friends, family members, clients, like, we don't have to create this pain.
Cam Clarke [02:37:45] You know, I was shocked because my family was so on board out the gate and when the church decided to take a political stand against eight.
John Dehlin [02:38:01] You're a Californian. Yeah. You're a Californian.
Cam Clarke [02:38:03] I did not have the antibodies required to have my family. That has been so ahead of the curve of so many stories I've heard from other people. That broke my heart. And it was a really hard time. To the point knowing that I'm not in a relationship, but that isn't what it's about.
Cam Clarke [02:38:31] I wrote everyone and said, I just need to know where you stand on this because I'm seeing 800 pound gorillas around you, and you can help me either know that's a real gorilla or that I don't have to think about that with you.
Cam Clarke [02:38:51] As I recall, And I'm trying my best to recall, your mom and your sister Emily had big problems with this, and that was really hard. And yet I don't know how many years had passed, you know, I'm still like, I can only say hi to you and be the best.
Cam Clarke [02:39:32] Acting as if. And then at separate times, each, each. Both of those women, unsolicited, wrote me an email saying how wrong they were, owning every bit of it. Nobody said it was a different time. There was no, as I've said already today, dog ate my homework. Or when you say it was a different time, that's almost like you're expecting a free pass. And yes, people do think differently and people evolve. But there was not one word in either of these notes of excuse they just owned it. And. Can you forgive me? This is all on me. And I'm sorry I hurt you, but. There was no but or except for. And that just unlocked all kinds of things.
John Dehlin [02:40:45] Shout out to Linda and Emily.
Cam Clarke [02:40:47] Yes.
John Dehlin [02:40:51] It's beautiful. Can I just note if we're talking about, like, I don't know, coincidences or grace. Like, talk about what? Grace or coincidences? I don't even know, serendipity. Like, you know, you talked about how it was fortunate that you were Mormon because then you served a mission which delayed your exploration, which then maybe helped you be able to, once you acquired the HIV virus, that you were able to have the medicine to stay alive. Like, that's fortune or blessings or, you know, coincidence or whatever.
Cam Clarke [02:41:25] I believe in organized chaos.
John Dehlin [02:41:27] Okay.
Cam Clarke [02:41:28] I don't believe anything. I don't believe anything is meant to be.
John Dehlin [02:41:31] No.
Cam Clarke [02:41:32] I don't believe I was meant to still be here.
John Dehlin [02:41:34] Yeah, well, it was just good.
Cam Clarke [02:41:38] Good timing.
John Dehlin [02:41:38] Yeah. Well, I'm with you. I get that.
Cam Clarke [02:41:41] I cut you off. Go ahead.
John Dehlin [02:41:42] No, I just want to say that, like, there's a type of moral standard or family that the Mormon Church would hold up as the ideal. And it's not the Hollywood family. Right. It's not the family that may drink socially or wear bikinis or show their shoulders or that didn't get married at the temple at the time they should, or that is pursuing worldly wealth. You said being raised by wolves. Right. But at the same time, and I
Cam Clarke [02:42:10] even say that partially in a funny, even a lovely. I mean, all of us cousins go,
John Dehlin [02:42:18] yeah, no, I. Yeah, we had to
Cam Clarke [02:42:20] do that on our own.
John Dehlin [02:42:20] And wolves are great. I'm just trying to note, if we're talking about positive things that happened, what a great thing for you, maybe, that you were raised in the family you were raised in, not in the orthodox traditional.
Cam Clarke [02:42:35] Like, if you're just talking broad strokes
John Dehlin [02:42:37] like that definitely Wasatch front, Sandy east bench, Orthodox Mormon family, that would have given you a very different reception when you did come out.
Cam Clarke [02:42:49] And that would have maybe in my era, quite. I mean, I don't know the statistics of emotional responses from religious conservative folks. I imagine there's a table out there somewhere with those kind of numbers. But definitely my upbringing, wouldn't you say, Jules? Has to impact some of the openness
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [02:43:16] and the fact that there's a lot of shame that you did feel, but a lot of shame that you didn't internalize because it wasn't an orthodox upbringing.
Cam Clarke [02:43:27] And sadly, I listened to the teachings not from My family.
John Dehlin [02:43:34] Right.
Cam Clarke [02:43:34] But I opposed the things I was learning at church.
John Dehlin [02:43:41] No, you internalized. It's called internalized homo negativity.
Cam Clarke [02:43:45] And say that again.
John Dehlin [02:43:47] Internalized homophobia or internalized homo negativity that you got from the church. And the only thing I just want to say, I got my PhD. My dissertation for my PhD was on the gay and lesbian Mormon experience. And.
Cam Clarke [02:44:00] Wow, why?
John Dehlin [02:44:02] Just because I had some cousins who. Who I loved, who grew up in Ogden and they came out as gay. And the way that they dealt with that was to move to the other side of the United States and cut themselves off from the Mormon family and stop coming to family reunions. And when I reconnected with them at byu, got to hear their stories, realized that they were lovely, Harvard educated or, you know, just professional beautiful, kind hearted.
Cam Clarke [02:44:35] Did have any. Yeah. Buts from the family. In fact, because my dad wasn't lds, some of the three of us were in my mom's little dressing room area and somehow we were talking about sex or something in that realm. About chastity.
John Dehlin [02:44:58] Yeah.
Cam Clarke [02:45:01] And dad says, but if you do decide, be sure to have a condom. And mother and I were incensed because. Just say no. But dad had no judgment.
John Dehlin [02:45:21] Yeah. Yeah. Safety first, maybe, but not rejection. And the only thing I was going to say is, from my dissertation on the LGBT Mormon experience, one of the most important pieces of research I found was that LGBT youth who experience high levels of rejection from their family, as
Cam Clarke [02:45:44] opposed to from their church, from their
John Dehlin [02:45:47] family, are three times more likely to engage in risky sexual behavior, three times more likely to engage in. In illegal drug use, and eight times more likely to attempt or complete suicide. It's the family rejection that is the core determining factor in whether many of these LGBT kids live or die. And all I'm saying is your Hollywood Mormon family may not have been the perfect Mormon family from the Mormon Church's standpoint, but it was a family that overall loved and accepted you. Which I think might be an important part of why you're here today with us and why you've been able to live the big, beautiful life you've had is you didn't have the family. I didn't have that highly rejected you. That made you feel highly rejected. You know, and I. I'm grateful for that.
Cam Clarke [02:46:42] Me too. Because there certainly was enough from the outside.
John Dehlin [02:46:46] Yeah.
Cam Clarke [02:46:46] And not just churches. Society too.
John Dehlin [02:46:52] Yeah. I guess they loved you. In spite of their religion.
Cam Clarke [02:46:55] In spite. It's like I've heard how nice somebody is and they're not Mormon.
John Dehlin [02:47:01] Exactly.
Cam Clarke [02:47:03] Can you imagine that there's that qualifier that accept for it. Can you imagine? That's mocking.
John Dehlin [02:47:10] But no, but the church teaches. The Mormon Church teaches wickedness never was happiness. But the truth is there are behaviors that quote, wicked Mormons support or tolerate. That's actually. Actually Christlike love and kindness. So sometimes things that the church calls wicked is good. And sometimes things the church calls good, like bigotry, is actually wicked. And it's just a. It's just a crazy world we live in. You know,
Cam Clarke [02:47:38] my mom, you mentioned this earlier, before we started rolling. I'm sure there was a lot of talk about it not in front of me. There's a wonderful song from musical Mame called if He Walked Into My Life Today about the. Do you guys know the musical?
John Dehlin [02:48:01] I wish I did.
Cam Clarke [02:48:03] You'll have to interspert. You have to put my mom singing that song on her show on there.
John Dehlin [02:48:07] Okay.
Cam Clarke [02:48:10] She raises her nephew and she is like our moms, eccentric, over the top, out of the box. But she sings this song about did I try too hard or did I not try enough? You know, that delay, you know, that thing that parents go through.
Cam Clarke [02:48:33] Did I for. Did I forget the boy? Shit, I'm gonna have to look these words up. But it's about, did I do too much? Did I do little? Was I too harsh or was I too open? And it's this great song of a parental insecurity.
Cam Clarke [02:49:05] So fast forward years and John, you know a little bit of this story. We're at the market and we bump into Earl Hamner, who was a friend of mom's, for those who don't know, might not even know the show. He was the creator of the Waltons, a very successful television show about a big family.
Cam Clarke [02:49:31] And it was autobiographical. Beside the point. Anyway, we bump into Earl, who's with his son, who is of a similar age. We're chatting, mom kind of disappears. And she goes down another aisle, and I hear, cam, honey, can you come over here? I can't reach this thing.
Cam Clarke [02:49:57] And I'm like, okay, excuse me, guys, I'll be right back. I go over to the other aisle and she's reaching for a can and kind of conspiratorial, she goes, thanks, honey. Earl's son is gay. Do you want me to ask Earl if he's seeing anybody? You can't make this shit up.
John Dehlin [02:50:22] That's a Mormon mom.
Cam Clarke [02:50:24] A Hollywood. I mean, that's my mom.
John Dehlin [02:50:26] Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Cam Clarke [02:50:28] And I was aware of the progress at my conventions, at my comic cons. It's not A secret that I'm gay. And there are even at panels it may come up and we joke about it.
John Dehlin [02:50:44] So you're a comic con star because of all your voices?
Cam Clarke [02:50:47] Oh, I am, yeah.
John Dehlin [02:50:47] Yeah. I'm so amazing. Pretty big deal.
Cam Clarke [02:50:51] I'm pretty all that, right?
John Dehlin [02:50:53] Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Cam Clarke [02:50:55] And there was a couple stories here, so let me get linear. Can't. Life isn't linear, is it?
John Dehlin [02:51:02] No. So. So you ended up having a voice acting career.
Cam's Voice Acting Career and Iconic Characters
Cam Clarke [02:51:05] Yes.
John Dehlin [02:51:06] Do you want to just talk a tiny bit about that? Because that's interesting and I think people are going to want to know how you got into it.
Cam Clarke [02:51:11] And I went to art school. Art school is hard and expensive. My brother Rick was working at Warner Brothers at the time in what they call post production, which is the department of television, where you do all the after things, the sound effects and, you know, all that stuff. Color correction and the editing. In that world, there are vocal requirements of a television or Movie, which is one item 40. We have your suspect on Route 9. Please respond. Yeah, you need humans for that. We would do everything from fight grunts to hospital PAs to sex scenes from the football game and the sports bar. In the background, the panting. Yes, we do. Running. You know, I've been an izombie. I did many a zombie kirtle.
John Dehlin [02:52:13] It's called a kirtle.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [02:52:15] I didn't know that.
Cam Clarke [02:52:15] And speaking of being in the right place at the right time, working for my brother, I met this couple and they just really took a shine to me. And the wife, who was a big animation performer, named Linda Gary. She was huge in the 70s and 80s.
Cam Clarke [02:52:35] She was older than I. She says, have you ever thought of doing this for a living? I went, doing what? This? Voiceovers. And I went, mm, no. Well, I think you should. She sets me up with a coach. She sets me up with an agent because she's all that.
Cam Clarke [02:52:57] And it was pretty Cinderella. It took off. It was a little slow at first, but I never looked back. And I've never stopped working. So how many years couldn't get arrested on camera? But the voice thing took off, and a lot of people my age who are in that field stumbled into wasn't a plan. I mean, you may want to be a DJ that you go, that's what I want to do.
Cam Clarke [02:53:32] But I didn't even think about who does the voices for cartoons or who does the radio commercials. They're just there. So fast forward a few hundred years, and my buddy Rob Paulson, who is also one of the original turtles, says there's this thing called Comic Cons,
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [02:53:54] and
Cam Clarke [02:53:54] you sign autographs and you get paid for it. And I went, robbie, who's gonna want my autograph? We are so yesterday's news. He goes, just come once. Just try it.
John Dehlin [02:54:08] And primarily for your role, as for
Cam Clarke [02:54:11] my body of work. Good man.
John Dehlin [02:54:13] Okay, so remind people who I know we talked about at the beginning, but go through some of the voices or characters.
Cam Clarke [02:54:18] Being one of the OG Turtles is probably my biggest drop.
John Dehlin [02:54:22] And you were again, who?
Cam Clarke [02:54:24] Leonardo.
John Dehlin [02:54:25] Okay. And can you. What does that voice sound like?
Cam Clarke [02:54:27] Just Leonardo is like this. He's the leader of the group. And I was also rock steady, who was one of the main villains. And again, we mentioned Simba. I've done a lot of games.
John Dehlin [02:54:41] Do Simba if you want to.
Cam Clarke [02:54:43] Well, again, if you didn't tune in earlier to our program, Matthew Broderick did not want to come back anymore. So Rick Dembsky, Rick Dempsey, who's in charge? Disney has a. What do you call it? An area. What do you call it? Division.
Cam Clarke [02:55:01] All they do, all their job is to make sure their iconic characters never deviate from that voice. Who does Matthew Broderick? Nobody. I mean, it's not a thing. But Jimmy Cummings, who is Tigger and Pooh and a zillion other characters knew I messed around with that. So he's over at Disney character voices, and Rick is like this. And just off the cub, off the cuff, Jim goes, huh? Cam Clarke does a really spooky Matthew Broderick.
Cam Clarke [02:55:37] So the division brings me in, and after I was there, I realized this is just a meet and greet. Jim Cummings word was enough. And I showed up with a. I did do it, but I already came with a calling card. So the conventions, I come to find out, are about nostalgia and all the kids that ate their cereal in front of turtles.
John Dehlin [02:56:10] How many seasons was it? One season? Was it multiple seasons?
Cam Clarke [02:56:12] Oh, dear boy. Nine seasons.
John Dehlin [02:56:15] Okay. Yeah, yeah. This is a little bit after I was watching cartoons, probably.
Cam Clarke [02:56:18] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. 87 we started.
John Dehlin [02:56:21] Yeah, that's when I graduated from high school.
Cam Clarke [02:56:23] So, yeah, I don't think you would have been watching. So these people line up around the block to get their cause. They're mid crisis. I mean, they're midlife. And what do you do at midlife? You look back, back to what you perceive as simpler and you want to revisit your childhood.
John Dehlin [02:56:41] Well, if those kids watched nine seasons of you, that's powerful.
Cam Clarke [02:56:44] And the franchise is as alive today. Not with us. It's been a different incarnation every time. But We've been doing this for decades. And the stories people come up and share with us about you were my childhood and I didn't have any siblings and you were like my brothers, blah, blah, blah. Very humbling. So it turned out that the Comic Con circuit has been very, very good to me.
John Dehlin [02:57:20] It's income sustaining. Yes, good.
Cam Clarke [02:57:27] I had a shrink for a short while that I thought overstepped a little bit, like sharing a little too much. And whatever I was telling him I was doing a show in, I don't know whether it was West Virginia or someplace in the South. And he says, and he's gay, about in his 40s, well, you'd never catch me going to the South. And I went. And he says, aren't you afraid? No. And he says, well, you should be. What therapist uses the word should or could or would, right?
John Dehlin [02:58:12] To be scared.
Cam Clarke [02:58:13] So right then I pull out my notepad, I pull up my notepad, I'm going to. And I said, I know how to read a room. I'm not going to go to some shit kicker bar in, forgive the cliche, but in the south with a Confederate flag on the wall and start making out with some dude. I'm not an idiot. And just like anybody shouldn't, I'm not going to walk down a back alley alley by myself at 2 o' clock in the morning. You know, read the room, read the back alley. So I shared with him the story about I will not be afraid anymore of being gay. Within that I just have to also say, don't be stupid. Like what I just illustrated.
John Dehlin [02:59:13] Yeah, keep your wits about you.
Cam Clarke [02:59:16] When I was in my early 30s with my trainer, who was this little fire plug guy, we went to south beach in Florida. And we're walking down this street and across the street, there are these guys who start doing cat calls at us, saying nasty things.
John Dehlin [02:59:40] Oh, they're being mean. They're not.
Cam Clarke [02:59:42] Oh, not like sexy man. Sorry, that's probably the wrong word.
John Dehlin [02:59:45] Homophobic kind of slurs. Yeah, okay.
Cam Clarke [02:59:49] And I stopped in my tracks and I started to cross the street. My friend grabs my arm, grabs my elbow and says, don't go over there. And I jerked my arm away from him and I said, I am exhausted of being afraid.
Cam Clarke [03:00:18] This could go a number of directions. And at this moment, I don't care if they break my leg because I am exhausted. So that exhaustion played out as power, like network. I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore. Right.
Cam Clarke [03:00:43] I crossed the street and in this voice that I'm using with you right now. I'm sorry, were you talking to me? What? No. Those things you just said. My friend and I were standing over there, and I just want to know if that was meant for me.
Cam Clarke [03:01:03] And I must have had enough fury and exhaustion with a Charlie Manson chaser that they backed off and literally backed off. No, man. No, no, you're cool. And that from that moment on, I was fearless. Not stupid, but not afraid.
Cam Clarke [03:01:33] And things changed because of that. And it could have gone south. It could have gone really badly, but it didn't. So all I can say is it didn't. And it played out well. Could have gone. Everything could go a different direction, right?
Cam Clarke [03:01:48] This played out well. And I shared this with the therapist. I should not be anything, first of all, but I will not be afraid anymore. And I say these things.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [03:02:10] Amen.
John Dehlin [03:02:11] In the name of what? Cam Clarke.
Cam Clarke [03:02:14] In the name of Leonardo of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
John Dehlin [03:02:17] Amen.
Cam Clarke [03:02:19] And also the characters I played. Leonardo. He Man.
John Dehlin [03:02:27] But you were The He Man.
Cam Clarke [03:02:29] Second.
John Dehlin [03:02:30] Okay.
Cam Clarke [03:02:30] In 2000, they rebooted.
John Dehlin [03:02:32] Nice.
Cam Clarke [03:02:33] Rebooted. And I'm that. And I played a lot of heroes and very virile villains.
John Dehlin [03:02:39] So you can do a strong sort of alpha, heterosexual man voice.
Cam Clarke [03:02:45] Oh, may I back up for a second, please? I got this audition. Paula Abdul was having some reality show, something, something. And the audition company or the audition copy to be her announcer said, what they're looking for All American gay. I don't even know what that means. So I'm going, what the hell? Stay tuned. You won't believe what Paula does next. I book the job. I get there, I do my first read. Effeminate like that. The producer gets on the talk. Back he goes, uh, Cam, can you pull that back a little bit? Sure. So I pull it back a little bit, but still staying within whatever all American gay is. By the end of the session, you know, a little more, a little more, a little more.
John Dehlin [03:03:52] Pull you back, pull you back.
Cam Clarke [03:03:54] Stay tuned. You won't believe what Paula does next. So they.
John Dehlin [03:03:59] Is that kind of you? Is that just you?
Cam Clarke [03:04:01] That's what I used to. So they didn't want gay after all. Even though her following is a large percent, a lot of the fabulous women performers have a huge gay following. But to get back to what I was saying, I started getting letters and emails from gay kids around the country because I was out, basically.
Cam Clarke [03:04:33] If Cam Clarke, this gay man can be a superhero, Maybe I'm not so bad after all. My work here is done. Just this year when I Was in Virginia or someplace. We did our Q and A and somehow the gay thing came up. Maybe I shared that very story about teenagers writing me letters. And of course I can't give them counsel. I don't know you, I don't know your parents.
Cam Clarke [03:05:13] But I can be positive and say yes, I did it. I had this couple come up to me after our panel. Very Southern, mountainy kind of people. And they said, Mr. Clarke, we just, we love your panel and we just want you to know it is fine by us that you are, you know.
Cam Clarke [03:05:51] And I took that as huge. Anything in a positive, you know. Wow, Cam, I can't believe they would say that. You're missing the point. Then this. I don't know them, but this couple crossed the convention to stand in line to tell me that.
Cam Clarke [03:06:12] So don't tell me that isn't enough. It's plenty. Because I'm not dead yet. I'm not done. But that's all I require. Doesn't have to be huge. And that happens because I'm on the circuit that I am able to not give advice, but give a positive.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [03:06:43] Inspire.
Cam Clarke [03:06:44] Inspire. Perfect. Julie. Aren't I all that am And I the greatest person ever.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [03:06:52] One of the
Cam Clarke [03:06:55] keeping me humble.
Reflecting on Family, Faith, and Legacy
John Dehlin [03:06:57] Is your mom still alive? She's not. Right. Do you think your parents. I don't know. This is a weird question, but I want to ask if your parents are proud of you and how would you know but.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [03:07:08] Oh, absolutely.
Cam Clarke [03:07:09] They didn't have to be dead to be proud of me. I don't think there's any eye opening thing up in the sky. Cause they were always proud of me.
John Dehlin [03:07:20] Oh good.
Cam Clarke [03:07:21] Oh yeah, dad. Because as I said earlier, dad considered his career unsuccessful and I don't deny those feelings. No, he didn't become a movie star as Julie knows. He did these schlocky movies and he was never able to make peace with that. That there was a fandom for that because it's not what he wanted, But he gave. He was so proud when I landed the role of Snoopy. And yes people, Snoopy did talk for a small window of time, but he did it. Sounds like I did a talking Snoopy doll. And they animated the Broadway show like Good Man Charlie Brown called Snoopy the Musical.
Cam Clarke [03:08:10] So obviously he's gonna sing and everything. There was a doll like Teddy Ruxpin, you guys remember him, a talking bear. They did one of Snoopy and I was never really close to my dad's family. Not by design. They didn't live here in.
Cam Clarke [03:08:29] Nobody can compete with My mom's family. Sparkly, shiny, huge, crazy dad took the Snoopy doll to this reunion. Cause he was so proud of his son and wanted to make this doll talk for them. And it's like, yeah, that's my kid over there.
John Dehlin [03:08:56] Mm, that's great.
Cam Clarke [03:08:58] So proud.
John Dehlin [03:09:01] I'm so glad. That makes me happy. And I mean, the only reason I mentioned your parents or your mom specifically was that comment when she's washing the dishes and she's like, well, again, be a star. You gotta be a star. You know, that kind of thing.
Cam Clarke [03:09:15] Yeah.
John Dehlin [03:09:16] Did she end up seeing you be a star at least? In some ways?
Cam Clarke [03:09:20] I've been an incredibly successful actor, so I'm sure she would down with it. And that was enough.
John Dehlin [03:09:35] Well, Cam, what a beautiful and powerful story.
Cam Clarke [03:09:40] Thank you.
John Dehlin [03:09:41] This has been so incredibly meaningful. And Julie, it's been so lovely to have you with us.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [03:09:47] Thank you.
Cam Clarke [03:09:48] Thanks for having us. Me on.
John Dehlin [03:09:49] Yeah, well, you know, we were. We were talking at a break just about, man, I don't know, you know, and in some ways you left Mormonism behind, but in some ways, you really can't take the Mormonism completely. It doesn't wash off, as some say.
Cam Clarke [03:10:05] You can take the boy out of the country.
John Dehlin [03:10:08] Yeah, yeah.
Cam Clarke [03:10:09] But you can't take the country out of the boy sometimes.
John Dehlin [03:10:12] So I thought it might be cool to just have you share some final thoughts with our audience. There's going to be believing Mormons. There's going to be gay Mormons who have not come out yet. Ex Mormons, straight Mormons. There's going to be. We have a big audience and never Mormons. Half our audience has never been Mormon. But I want to give you a chance to give any final stories or wisdom that you feel you want to make sure and leave as part of this episode, which has already been more than enough.
Cam Clarke [03:10:37] But yeah, leave them wanting, I always say. Well, one thing that I'm always fascinated by with you being a heterosexual white male, my friend Natalie, who I've known since college, was the first person I knew to segue out. I understand women being alerted to this isn't. Something isn't quite right because they're second class citizens. Likewise gays. You don't even want me here. But I have a different kind of respect for someone such as. Is respect the right word? Okay. For lack of another. Respect for someone who could totally fits the desired demographic to be in this organization. So what did you do? Because you do fit women. Like I said, women and gays. There's a red flag that's Kind of unavoidable with certain choices.
John Dehlin [03:11:55] Yeah. What made me kind of.
Cam Clarke [03:11:59] Well, because.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [03:11:59] You fit.
John Dehlin [03:12:00] Yeah, no, it was a couple things. When my parents got divorced, I was left with this question as a young kid. About what? About my eternal family. So every time the eternal family thing gets taught in the Mormon Church, I'm like, well, my. My family's all split up, and what does that mean? So that was the beginning, but then there was my corrupt mission that we talked about a little bit. But then I discovered problems with the church's truth claims. But none of that was enough to take me out. I got married, had kids, went to work for Microsoft. I found out my cousins were gay. And then I found out that my wife.
Cam Clarke [03:12:37] Are they cute? Are they single?
John Dehlin [03:12:39] Maybe. Yeah. Yeah, maybe some of them. I can check. When I started learning that our gay brothers and sisters were dying by suicide, were being subjected to conversion therapy. That's. And I learned about Stuart Mattis, this Mormon. Ex Mormon. Sorry. This Mormon returned missionary that went to his local Mormon chapel, pinned a note on his chest that said, do not resuscitate, and shot himself on the steps.
Cam Clarke [03:13:07] Oh, my God.
John Dehlin [03:13:08] Of his Mormon chapel. That was in 2000, while I was working for Microsoft. And then Margi's gay cousin comes out to us before he comes out to his own parents because he was worried about what they would. That made me feel like, whoa, there's something really wrong here. So becoming an LGBT advocate back in the early 2000s was absolutely a major problem for me. And so those are all, you know, women. The misogyny, racism, homophobia, and then the truth claims. Those are the four things that kind of.
Cam Clarke [03:13:46] And a partridge in a pear tree.
John Dehlin [03:13:48] But the church. I tried to stay. That's good. I tried to stay, but the church excommunicated me. Because what I did is I started a podcast to just try and talk openly about all this stuff, hoping the church would change. And instead, they excommunicated me. So I didn't choose to leave. They kicked me out.
Cam Clarke [03:14:04] I gotta say, when I wrote my letter of resignation.
John Dehlin [03:14:09] Oh, you resigned?
Cam Clarke [03:14:11] Yeah. And I sent my Boy Scout badges back.
John Dehlin [03:14:15] Oh, yeah.
Cam Clarke [03:14:17] Part of me was kind of bummed that nobody ever came after me. I was like, okay, got it. Because I have so many friends who. The missionaries still show up, or. I kind of had wanted my day in court.
John Dehlin [03:14:32] It's not fun, but they were like.
Cam Clarke [03:14:34] It's like, okay, got it. Ciao.
John Dehlin [03:14:37] No, I would like to say it was some glorious moment, but excommunications are barbaric. And they're abusive and they're traumatic and they're not fun. Even if you feel righteous indignation, it's still abusive and traumatic.
Cam Clarke [03:14:51] Wow.
John Dehlin [03:14:52] Unfortunately. So I think you dodged a bullet there as well.
Cam Clarke [03:14:57] Love dodging bullets, I guess. One thing, since we've spent so much time about talking about the gay thing, one thing I would like to close with about when I mentioned, you know, people coming to me for advice, young people, when my shows were huge and I was everywhere on the tv, one bit of counsel I would give to anyone.
Closing Thoughts and Gratitude
Cam Clarke [03:15:27] Whether you're getting a divorce, you know, straight couple getting a divorce, or you're coming out, you need to remember you been. Like Julie was saying earlier on our lunch break, you've been working on this divorce in your head for a long time. Or I've been coming to grips with being gay for years.
Cam Clarke [03:15:53] So give the people in your life a minute to process. When I came out, it was like, okay, my work here is done. Get on board, everybody. Trains leaving. And as I got older, I realized that wasn't really fair because you went through a lot to get there. Give them a second, too. That's it.
John Dehlin [03:16:20] I mean, that's. To have to carry that burden of, like, letting other people catch up when you're also going through your own stuff. That's pretty magnanimous, I think. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Cam Clarke [03:16:33] Well, I also had an easier role, friend and family wise, than some. But still, the advice is, I think, good. Be gentle.
John Dehlin [03:16:45] Yeah.
Cam Clarke [03:16:47] They say in the scriptures, love thy neighbor as thyself. I think the reverse is even more true because the rest follows, love thyself as thy neighbor, and everything can follow.
John Dehlin [03:17:12] Beautiful. Amen. Amen.
Cam Clarke [03:17:14] Amen.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [03:17:15] Amen.
John Dehlin [03:17:17] Well, first, Julie, can I just say thank you so much for introducing me to Cam for all the beautiful work and important work you do. Julie, our hearts, we just adore you. And it's so great to have you in the co host chair.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [03:17:31] Thank you. It's been just a joy.
John Dehlin [03:17:33] I hope this isn't the last time.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [03:17:35] Oh, I'll be back.
John Dehlin [03:17:36] Okay.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [03:17:36] Okay.
John Dehlin [03:17:37] All right. Well, thanks, Julie. Thank you so much. I also, while we're at it, just want to.
Cam Clarke [03:17:43] What have you got there, John?
John Dehlin [03:17:44] What is that? I'm gonna plug this book. The book is how they. How they're all here now. They're all here. The king family. Over 100 years of entertainment from America's first family of song by Cam Clarke. Do you want to just tell people briefly a little bit about this book? And then we can do another episode too? But for the people that are here, tell them about it.
Cam Clarke [03:18:08] Yeah. I realized one day that my single family has been involved in entertainment since the days of vaudeville. And right now it is a hundred years since that. And it would be very topical to describe first person. I have also interviewed people in my family, so no one is saying anything. So it's 100 years of information, but all in the first person. Because only the moms who are long dead speak of the 20s, the 30s, and the 40s. Unfortunately, they kept journals and stuff like that. But it's all said in first person, which I think gives a totally different perspective to. Instead of one person going back into history when you weren't there, you don't have a visceral experience. So this should be a little different slant on the subject.
John Dehlin [03:19:18] And it's more than just the King sisters. The King family, again, it's multi generational. It talks about Lexi Azevedo, it talks about Saturday's Warrior. It talks about your career. I think Julie, Julie D. Hanks makes a cameo in the book. Right.
Cam Clarke [03:19:39] And my uncle Alvino who's a famous guitarist, and my cousin Tina Cole, who is one of the stars on My Three Sons.
John Dehlin [03:19:47] Uhhuh.
Cam Clarke [03:19:47] And my uncle Jim, who founded Warner Brothers Records and founded the Grammy Awards. So there's all this side information in all every arena from radio to TV to theater to video games and cartoons. So if you're just curious about the last. You don't have to be a King family fan to get some interesting thing about the world of entertainment over the past century.
John Dehlin [03:20:15] And where can people buy this? Can they buy it on Amazon?
Cam Clarke [03:20:18] You can get it on Amazon or at my publisher, which is rarebirdlit.com.
John Dehlin [03:20:26] okay.
Cam Clarke [03:20:27] R A R E B I-R-L-I-T.com.
John Dehlin [03:20:33] yeah. And the book again is now. They're all here, the King family. Over 100 years of entertainment from America's first family of song. Also, Cam, what's your website? How do people get to meet you? How do they reach out to you? How do they email you? How do they. Where can they find you? At Comic Con? What's up for you, career wise, Start with your website.
Cam Clarke [03:20:55] Wow. Okay. CamClarkVoices.com and that's Clarke with an E, right? Clarke with an E. Yes. We paid a lot of money for that silent letter and everything's there. I have a one man show that I did a number of years ago that's there.
John Dehlin [03:21:12] It's kind of your Mormon story a little bit, right?
Cam Clarke [03:21:15] Yeah, yeah. But with Songs.
John Dehlin [03:21:17] And there's video, right?
Cam Clarke [03:21:18] Yes. Lots of clips.
John Dehlin [03:21:20] Oh, wow.
Cam Clarke [03:21:22] And autograph requests and schedule of my Comic Cons. If I'm going to be in a city near you. So you want to check that out so they can.
John Dehlin [03:21:36] They can watch for when you're coming to town.
Cam Clarke [03:21:39] Yeah.
John Dehlin [03:21:40] And come up and have you sign their book or sign a T shirt or hat or whatever you signed.
Cam Clarke [03:21:45] I even had somebody sign their back and came back the next day with a tattoo of my signature on them. That's devotion.
John Dehlin [03:21:55] Dang.
Cam Clarke [03:21:56] Right?
John Dehlin [03:21:57] Wow. You really made an impact. Made an impression.
Cam Clarke [03:22:02] An impression, indeed.
John Dehlin [03:22:05] Okay, so they can check out at Comic Con and if people want to reach out to you, is there like a form?
Cam Clarke [03:22:13] Is there an email address on my page? There's a, you know, DM direct message. And.
John Dehlin [03:22:18] Okay, you.
Cam Clarke [03:22:19] You can just reach out to me privately there.
John Dehlin [03:22:22] Excellent. And then professionally, is it just Comic Con? You still doing voice acting?
Cam Clarke [03:22:28] Mainly doing the Comic Con.
John Dehlin [03:22:29] Okay.
Cam Clarke [03:22:30] Circuit now. Doing some games. But it's an insane world if you've never ventured out to one otherworldly.
John Dehlin [03:22:40] So it keeps you. There's multiple Comic Cons across the country.
Cam Clarke [03:22:43] It's like, I don't think a weekend goes by that there isn't one in some city or globally too.
John Dehlin [03:22:50] And you're just kind of on the circuit.
Cam Clarke [03:22:52] Yeah.
John Dehlin [03:22:53] Congrats. Good for you.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks [03:22:54] Yeah.
John Dehlin [03:22:54] Okay. Fun.
Cam Clarke [03:22:55] Ta da.
John Dehlin [03:22:56] All right, well, thank you for sharing your amazing Mormon story.
Cam Clarke [03:23:00] Well, thanks for inviting me on Mormon stories. It's been fun to be here.
John Dehlin [03:23:04] Yeah, it's a pleasure. Free therapy for me too. All right, that's Cam clarkvoices.com Clarke with an e. Cam Clarke, everybody. Again, please. This book is a great coffee table book. It's a great book to share, especially if you, you know, over 50, but for everybody.
Cam Clarke [03:23:25] But definitely if you're between the ages of 50 and death.
John Dehlin [03:23:29] Yeah, you'll. I really love it. It's got Batman in here. It's got Bing Crosby. It's got Donnie, you know, it's got the Osmonds. Appear briefly. Sadder's Warrior. Like, it's got something for everybody. So buy this book. Check it out.
Cam Clarke [03:23:44] And you want to be my PR team, John?
John Dehlin [03:23:47] I think I'm a little bit. I think I am right now. Yeah. All right.
Cam Clarke [03:23:51] Thank you.
John Dehlin [03:23:51] Support Cam. Thanks, Cam. Thanks for joining us. The Amor stories. And our plan is to do a brief little separate episode just about this book. But thanks for joining us today. Email us@mormonstoriesmail.com thanks to our donors that make this all possible. If you're a donor. Thank you. If you want to become a donor because you value content like this, all you have to do is go to MormonStories.org, click on the donate button, become a monthly donor, and we'll keep doing stuff like this.
John Dehlin [03:24:19] Even if you can't donate or if you do, ways you can support us are by subscribing to our channel on TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram. But subscribing and liking these episodes, commenting, sharing the links, all that stuff. Helps with engagement, helps with the algorithms. If you or someone you love wants to be a guest on Mormon Stories, it's really easy. Go up to MormonStories.org, click on the Apply to be on the show. You have to record a three minute video. Don't just send us some link of a random video of something you know we want to hear from you, why you feel like your story is a good fit for Mormon Stories for our audience.
John Dehlin [03:25:00] So you click on the button, fill out the application form, send in the three minute video, and Margi vets those and then we decide together. But we're always looking for cool and engaging stories like today. So please apply if you want to be on.
John Dehlin [03:25:16] But most importantly, thanks for joining us today. We've really enjoyed this time together. We've got much more coming, so be good to each other, be kind to each other, and we'll see you all again soon on another episode of Mormon Stories podcast. Take care everybody.
Transcript © 2026 John P. Dehlin. All rights reserved. Brief quotations are welcome with attribution and a link to mormonstories.org; all other use requires written permission.
One Response
Wow! Such an impactful Mormon Story. Cam’s story telling and authenticity kept me glued to the podcast.
I’m just three years younger than Cam to I related to a lot of the events and culture references, which made all the more fun to listen to.
Wishing the best for Cam.