‘Hart to Hart’ Is a Glamorously Gay TV Delight

I, like all of you, am on a journey while shut-in at home. The journey isn’t taking me far physically (I haven’t left my apartment building in 76 days), but I’m traveling—sometimes spiraling—further than ever before emotionally. That’s led me to take solace in bizarre places; truly, how many Instagram Lives have you watched in the past two months, let alone participated in? But by far the most surprising source of comfort to my aching, gay soul over the past month has been the impossibly glamorous, 1979 to 1984 mystery/romance procedural Hart to Hart.

Just to get into the bejeweled and enormously coifed elephant in the room, yes, I sought out the comfort of this retro whodunit after streaming the HBO doc Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind. Robert Wagner, co-lead of Hart to Hart, will forever be a person-of-interest in Wood’s death as far as tabloids are concerned. What Remains Behind partially sets out to exonerate Wagner, and that’s because the doc comes from Wood’s daughter Natasha Gregson Wagner. Because I’m a millennial with an anxiety problem, I feel compelled to state all of this up top for full-disclosure reasons. I’ve watched multiple docs about the subject and they’re all over the map regarding blame. Am I choosing to believe What Remains Behind’s version of events and evidence—evidence fully believed by the people most affected by this trauma, Wood’s family—in order to justify indulging in a campy crime show from slightly before my time as a desperately needed reprieve from my overwhelming anxiety caused by 2020? Yeah, I am, partly because getting behind the tabloids inflicts actual harm on all of Wood’s survivors, as they detailed in that doc. I have no answers, really, but I’m telling you, this pandemic journey is an interesting one.

And, at least for right now, I’m glad I am going on this Hart to Hart journey because I have learned something that I never knew about this show: it is fully for the gays. Like The Golden Girls, Match Game, and RuPaul’s Drag Race Seasons 1-3, Hart to Hart deserves a place in the pantheon of vintage gay television. Truth, if you’re a gay man that’s as obsessed with classic TV, ’80s elegance, hairy chests, deliciously bad puns, and campy action as I am, you have to get into Hart to Hart.

While the show stars straights Wagner and Stefanie Powers, and is also about a relentlessly straight couple (Jonathan and Jennifer Hart essentially take breaks from vigorous lovemaking to deal with all the murder that keeps happening around them), there’s legit gay cred behind-the-scenes. Let’s talk about iconic allies Aaron Spelling and Nolan Miller. Executive producer extraordinaire Aaron Spelling gave us Charlie’s Angels, Dynasty, and Beverly Hills, 90210; he also gave us Hart to Hart. And costume designer Nolan Miller? Before he inspired every single pageant drag queen of the last 30 years with his evening looks on Dynasty, he designed lewks for Hart to Hart.

Then there’s legendary gay creator Mart Crowley, who served as producer and executive script consultant on the show. Crowley, who worked as Wood’s assistant in the ’60s, changed—and helped create!—queer pop culture that was by gays/for gays/starring gays with his revolutionary 1968 Off-Broadway play The Boys in the Band. It was actually Wood who got Crowley installed close to the top of Hart to Hart, and it was Crowley who no doubt made the show so fabulous.

Hart to Hart is a glorious episodic mystery show, the kind that was all over TV in the ’70s and ’80s. Think Murder, She Wrote but with two impossibly sexy leads and set in luxurious Los Angeles instead of sleepy—but equally murder-y—Cabot Cove. That’s what I always assumed Hart to Hart was, and I assumed correctly. I never know however, just how delightfully ridiculous the show is! Whereas today’s procedurals tend to err on the side of grounded-ish, Hart to Hart is bonkers. How bonkers? There’s the time Jonathan and Jennifer went undercover at an artists’ masquerade disco ball, featuring a breakdancing cowboy and, I swear to God, someone doing some proto-voguing…

There’s the time they battled a nasty fencing prodigy out to ruin an old lady’s reputation, and the episode involving the twin sister of the Hart corporation’s on-staff psychic (?) that leads to Jonathan going undercover as a film noir detective and Jennifer gazing into a crystal ball.

And I’m not even talking about the chases! Honey, Hart to Hart has not met a mode of transportation that does not merit a high-octane chase sequence. Helicopters, luggage vehicles, snowmobiles, dune buggies, old jalopies, golf carts—!

There’s the episode that revolves around a hair salon that opens up with this montage.

That GIF is exactly as gay as Chromatica. Not buying my whole “for-the-gays” thesis yet? Look at the episode that takes place on a cruise, where butler Max enrolls in this dance class.

You want Hart to Hart’s action summed up in a GIF? Howsabout this one of the Harts jumping off a roof onto a mattress truck while Jennifer slings a zinger?

Oh yes, get into the one-liners! As if the action wasn’t already over-the-top, every episode is scored with a symphony of puns that pushes the show into Drag Race acting challenge territory. I am here for it.

That’s not even mentioning the sexual innuendo! Not only are the Harts a healthy and happy couple, they want everyone to know it. Chains and mirrors, honey!

Surely you’ve noticed one unifying factor in all of these pics: Hart to Hart’s fashion is on point. Would you expect anything less from the designer behind Dynasty? The gays will gag over their formal eleganza.

But the Harts don’t need an excuse to look good; it’s effortless. And if you’re as into men’s fashion as I am, you will find a new impeccable style icon in Jonathan Hart. Where do I even begin?!

The thing I love most, though, is Jonathan’s (and TBH Robert Wagner’s) unwavering devotion to the undeniably gayest men’s fashion accessory of all: the neckerchief.

I. Live.

Let’s move from talking about the fabric wrapped around Jonathan’s neck to the lack of fabric on his torso, because Hart to Hart absolutely loved finding any excuse possible to get this dashing hunk shirtless. Lounging in bed…

Opening a gift from Jennifer…

Seducing a prison guard…

Reading Marie Claire magazine in the tub…

Got to get through exposition? Set it in the bathroom.

Even when he’s wearing a shirt, he’s still not really wearing a shirt.

Jonathan Hart isn’t just a snack, he’s a whole damn three-course meal.

But more than just the camp-tacular action, cheeky dialogue, and head-turning fashion, I realized as I made my way through Season 1 that Hart to Hart depicts an ideal gay marriage—even if the lead is a hetero couple. Two catty, fashion-conscious individuals who live a jet set life of opulence without kids but with a found family that includes a curmudgeonly chauffeur and a lovable pooch? Sign me up!

This is probably why both attempts at a modern Hart to Hart revival focused on gay couples (one in 2002 with Alan Cumming attached, and another in 2015 starring a couple named Jonathan Hart and Dan Hartman). You can totally see why they went this route. It’s right there in the original show! I mean, this was a couple that loved getting spooky together! Name something gayer?! Gays love Halloween!

Hart to Hart was for the gays in 1979 and it’s for the gays now—especially right now, when my panic-riddled brain desperately needs an escape. Hart to Hart provides that escape through its consistently kooky plots, jaw-droppingly silly action, lust-inducing fashion, and perfect leads. And all of that is summed up by this campy AF GIF of Jennifer delivering dinner in a bedazzled evening gown and roller-skates while Jonathan watches with a neckerchief around his neck and a dog in his lap.

Hart to Hart is available to stream on Tubi and IMDbTV. The entire series, including the TV movies, will begin airing on Ovation on November 17, with four-hour blocks following every Wednesday at 7 p.m. ET.

Where to watch Hart to Hart