Robert Rodan, the Naked Man on the Operating Table

One day in May 1968 when I was second grade, my friend Doug and I came home from school to find his older sister in the living room watching tv.   Outraged over her co-opting Garfield Goose, we demanded that she change the channel, but she said "Cool it, gremlins!  This is good."

I looked at the screen.

A naked man on the operating table.

Seeing shirtless guys on tv was almost unheard of, and here was a guy totally naked. Chest, shoulders,arms, belly.

Everything beneath the belt.

I had heard of the Gothic soap opera Dark Shadows -- the older kids all grooved on tortured vampire Barnabas Collins.  But I didn't watch, so I didn't know that Barnabas was trying to cure his vampirism by by transferring his life force into a young hunk, a man built out of the spare parts of bodybuilders.  I don't think I had even heard of Frankenstein.

But there was a naked man on the operating table!



Ok, in the actual episode, he's covered up except for his head and shoulders,but in my memory you get an eyeful.

It was a busy summer, with Vacation Bible School and the move from Racine to Rock Island, and then starting out at a new school in the fall, so I caught only glimmers of the plot.

After a few weeks of grunts, the man, dubbed Adam (Robert Rodan), becomes eloquent, super-strong, and vicious.   An altogether formidable foe, but all he really wants is a date.  First he tries for Caroline, and then he forces Barnabas and Julia to build him a mate, Eve.  His storyline ends in December, when he goes off to a clinic to have his scars removed and fade into obscurity.

He never got naked on screen, but he did in my memories.  A lot.

Robert Rodan, 30 years old, was born Robert Trimas (he chose his last name after his favorite sculptor).  An art major at the University of Miami, he graduated in 1960, spent five months in the army reserve, and then moved to Los Angeles to seek a job in advertising art.  But he was so goodlooking that people kept mistaking him for a movie star and asking for his autograph, so he figured, why not?

He had a few minor roles: an episode of A Day in Court (1963), a musical, Looking for Love (1964), and the comedy Goodbye, Charlie (1964).  Then he moved to New York and began modeling for magazines and auditioning for the theater. 

A soap opera gig sounded like a good steady paycheck.

When he went to the Adam audition wearing regular clothes, Robert was intimidated by the guys in full Frankenstein makeup, but he had three things that they didn't: he was tall, dark-haired, and blue-eyed, characteristics that, according to Robert himself, producer Dan Curtis found especially sexy.

Wait -- is he implying that there was a gay casting couch going on?

And that Dan Curtis was a member of the fraternity?

That explains why half of the male cast members were gay.

After Adam, Robert returned to L.A. and started auditioning for movies.  But he was only offered villains and monsters.

After a few commercials and the softcore porn thriller The Minx (1969), which a Swedish producer bought and turned into an X-rated movie, Robert hung up his headshots, turned back into Robert Trimas, and went into real estate.

Today Robert is 80 years old, divorced, retired, with sons and grandsons.  He has returned to acting recently to voice some of the Dark Shadows audio dramas.

But I'll always remember him as the naked man on the operating table.

See also: Barnabas and Willie