A decade before Scott Gurney created Duck Dynasty, he starred as a gay porn star in a 2001 movie called The Fluffer, an unmentioned but delightful fact in the background of the show's recent conflagration over Phil Robertson's homophobic comments to GQ. But it's not a secret either; The Fluffer, which was an independent film that played at the 2001 Toronto International Film Festival, is right there on Gurney's IMDb page.
I called Gurney Productions — which Gurney founded in 2005 with his wife, Deirdre — to ask for a comment. I was told no one gets connected to Scott on the phone, and I should send an email. (I did.) A spokesman for A&E also didn't immediately return an email requesting a comment.
Gurney's character in The Fluffer is gay-for-pay and a meth addict. He becomes the object of obsession for a male film student who gets a job as his on-set fluffer. It's dark! It was directed by Wash West and Richard Glatzer.
Here's one of several YouTube odes to The Fluffer
View this video on YouTube
Update: A few days after this story posted, Andy Zeffer, who co-starred with Gurney in The Fluffer, got in touch with me.
I told Zeffer via email that I had heard from another source who had worked on The Fluffer that Gurney was uncomfortable with the movie's gay subject matter during its filming.
Here's Zeffer's response:
"He was. I kept thinking — he read the script right?
I remember at one point we had to simulate him having intercourse with me. We kept bumping at each other clumsily — it was highly comical. I thought he was going to have a brain aneurysm he seemed so bothered.
He was good looking and knew it. I remember him being very charged, very wired. Like a man on a mission or something.
He started an on set romance with the female lead. I wondered if it was like overcompensating for the fact he had taken on a gay role.
I was in a pool scene with him and a party scene later. At the party scene Debbie Harry was there. I thought that was cool. Later, he told the directors to keep me way from him. Which I thought was a barrel of laughs seeing as I knew he had issues and had no intention of going near him other than the scene we had. I found it very offensive to be honest.
The experience influenced a small segment of a book I wrote titled Going Down in La La Land, which was also made into a film. I am working on another novel and trying to get a screenplay out there. In the meantime, this guy is making millions from duck people.
Perhaps I should find a family of fox hunters or rabbit hunters...what can I say?"