Meet Belinda Carlisle's film producer husband who appeared alongside Richard Burton & Elizabeth Taylor - and their only child

Morgan Mason has had something of a hybrid career. The actor, producer and politician was born on 26 June, 1955 in Los Angeles to actor parents James and Pamela Mason. He is credited as a producer on 1991’s No Secrets and 1989 film Sex, Lies, and Videotape. Alongside his father James, Morgan appeared on Hero’s Island (1962) and worked with Hollywood legends Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton on 1965’s The Sandpiper. He has also cameoed in his wife’s music videos, acting as the uncredited ‘Lover’ in ‘Heaven is a Place on Earth’.

Outside of his work in entertainment, Morgan got involved in US politics, and served in Ronald Reagan’s administration. He worked for a year as Special Assistant to the President for Political affairs at just 25 between 1981 and 1982. 

Maybe love really does come first. According to the singer, Belinda first saw now-husband Morgan Mason when he guest starred in the 1960s TV hit Daniel Boone. In a caption celebrating her husband’s 70th birthday, she wrote: “Way back when I was about 9 years old I had my first crush on the Dauphin of France from the tv show Daniel Boone – crazy that I would marry him 20 odd years later.” 

The couple met at a party in 1984 and moved in the next day. “We’ve been together ever since,” she told People magazine. They eloped to Lake Tahoe two years later in 1986. The couple share one child, James Duke Mason. 

James Duke Mason is the only child of Belinda Carlisle and Morgan Mason. He was born on April 27 1992. James has inherited his parents’ skill at forging a multi-hyphenate career, working as a writer and queer advocate, with bylines in Huffington Post, The Hollywood Reporter and OUT Magazine. He was named one of OUT Magazine’s 100 most influential LGBTQ+ people in the world in 2011.

James told his mother he was gay at 14 years old. She said that she told her husband three months later and he brushed it off as a phase. Eventually, the father and son “figured it out between themselves” and Belinda says “now we can’t imagine our son being any other way”.

The 'Heaven is a Place on Earth' singer was born, appropriately enough, in Los Angeles, the city of angels. Joanne Thompson and Harold Carlisle had their eldest daughter in 1958 and named her Belinda after her mother’s favourite film, 1948’s Johnny Belinda. 

Her father left when she was 5 and her mother remarried when she was 7. She told the Big Issue, “I grew up in a pretty normal, dysfunctional family. Barbecues, baseball, camping… my parents made a little bit go a long way. My stepfather had his problems, but he took care of us.” Belinda left her family home in Thousand Oaks for LA at just 18 and two years later, The Go-Go’s were born. 

Belinda first found fame as lead singer of new wave band The Go-Go’s. The all-female band released album Beauty and the Beat, which amassed over seven million record sales and featured hits like ‘Our Lips Are Sealed’ and ‘We Got the Beat’. The all-female rock group split in 1985. 

The lead singer went on to have a successful career as a solo artist, her most popular tracks including ‘Made About You’, ‘Leave a Light On’ and ‘Circle in the Sand’, as well as UK number one ‘Heaven is a Place on Earth’. She has since joined the rest of The Go-Go’s set, which reformed in 1999.