It was a Cecil B. DeMille film. One of the stars was Charles Laughton. In the original version (before being sanitized for TV) Laughton's Nero was a bigtime Homo who was accompanied by a painted blonde Boy Toy.
Guess he didn't have to dig too deep to get to the heart of the character
ttp://www.fact-index.com/c/ch/charles_laughton.html
Despite his homosexual inclinations, he had a long and resilient marriage to the British-born American actress, Elsa Lanchester, possibly because she had her own such inclinations according to contemporary gossip
I'll have to try and watch it if I ever come across it on TV