stage-door Johnny

Noun

stage-door Johnny (plural stage-door Johnnies or stage-door Johnnys)

1. (idiomatic) A man who is infatuated with one or more theatrical actresses and who routinely lingers in and around theatres in an effort to meet and form relationships with the female(s) of his affection.
   • "You went off and married that—whatever that stage-door johnny's name was—and it broke me all up."1917, P. G. Wodehouse, “Extricating Young Gussie,”, in The Man With Two Left Feet and Other Stories
   • […] and for lack of anything else to do I thought I'd take in a strip show. And it was Terry up there on stage. She looked to me like she was straight, yet I knew from experience that a lot of the girls in show business were gay. Well, I figured, nothing ventured nothing gained. I decided to become...1986, Rusty Brown, “Always Me”, in Marcy Adelman, editor, Long Time Passing: Lives Of Older Lesbians, page 149

   Synonyms:

   groupie, lothario

2. (idiomatic) A devoted fan of live theatre and of performing artists, who habitually spends time in and around theatres.
   • The stage was my obsession from age 6. . . . By my early teens, I had become so conspicuous a Stage Door Johnny that the manager of the National Theater, Washington's one Broadway tryout house in the pre-Kennedy Center era, took pity on me and hired me as a ticket taker.1994 February 13, Frank Rich, “After 13 Years of Drama and Farce. . . Exit the Critic”, in New York Times, retrieved 13 Jan 2012