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Dennis Quaid
One of the movies I saw in the famous summer of 1978 was Seniors. It was a terrible teen-sex comedy with one redeeming characteristic: a remarkably buffed, underwear-clad hunk named Dennis Quaid....
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My Boyfriend Ed Asner and I Make Gay History
Hi, Boomer,I'm Michael, from the gay synagogue in L.A. Here's my gay celebrity romance story:The episode "My Brother's Keeper" of The Mary Tyler Moore Show (January 13, 1973) is an icon of gay...
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Shirtless Sports Fans
I've never been to a sports match except for a couple of baseball games, but I understand that it's customary for fans to take their shirts off and spell out their team with letters on their...
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Fall 1985: Watching Brothers in the Hollywood Hills
When I first moved to West Hollywood in 1985, every Wednesday night my friend Mark, who introduced me to Michael J. Fox, drove me up to a house in the Hollywood Hills, where there were about twenty...
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The Blonde Phantom and the Hunk in Distress
With the glut of superheroes during World War II, comic book companies were experimenting with new types of characters. DC had Wonder Woman, so Marvel got the Blonde Phantom.Louise Grant is the...
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Homophobia and Trapper John
January 11, 1981: a Sunday night, my junior year at Augustana. So far it's been rather heterosexist. Last quarter I had a gay-free class in Modern American Literature; this quarter I will read Death...
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Elephant Men
Joseph or John Merrick (1862-1890) suffered from severe facial and body deformities that caused him to be exploited by Victorian showmen, put on display as "The Elephant Man." A physician named...
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Clyde Diddit's Beefcake Today
The January 1960 issue of Archie's Madhouse, the Archie comics version of Mad Magazine, referred to someone with the odd name Clyde Diddit ("Who he?").Clyde Diddit or Didit was often referenced in...
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10 Shirtless Bricks from "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof"
Tennessee Williams'Cat on a Hot Tin Roof was first performed in 1955, won a Pulitzer Prize, and remains a favorite today, in spite of (or maybe because of) its shrill theatricality: a dysfunctional...
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Camp Charlevoix, the Best Growing Up Experience Ever
The first summer camps opened during the 19th century, with the theory that city life was bad for kids-- they needed several weeks of "fresh air" and "exercise." One of the biggest, Camp Charlevoix,...
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The Czech Boys of Cedar Rapids
When I was growing up in Rock Island, Cedar Rapids I knew all about the towns within a 60-mile radius: Davenport, Bettendorf, Maquoketa, Tipton, West Branch, Iowa City. Friends had relatives there....
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Tarzan Cosplay
Feel like dressing up like Tarzan for Halloween, or for the next sci-fi convention.There are some problems with the idea.1. Tarzan doesn't really have a recognizable costume. He wears a loincloth,...
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All the Four Color Beefcake Ever Printed
The Four-Color series was the mainstay of Dell Comics, begun in 1939 and lasting through 1962, with over 1300 issues, often two or three per month. There were no ongoing characters: each book was...
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Land of the Lost
Saturday morning tv in the 1960s and 1970s was full of teenage boys trapped far from home. From 1974 to 1977, that boy was a hot teenager named Will (Wesley Eure), who was on a "routine expedition"...
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Robert Conrad Dares You
We're used to thinking of Robert Conrad as a two-fisted action hero, but he originally wanted to be a singer. During the late 1950s and early 1960s, the former professional boxer released a number of...
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10 Nude Celebrities
Sorry, accidentally posted to the wrong blog. I moved it to "Tales of West Hollywood"
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Robert Goulet: 1950s Gay Icon
You may not recognize the name Robert Goulet, but he was an icon to the gay generation who survived the pre-Stonewall Dark Ages (1950-1969).During those years, he was a fixture on Broadway, starring in...
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Elvis in Underwear
In the 1950s, nude photos of male celebrities were practically non-existent; the few examples we have were taken and developed in private, and didn't get mass exposure for many years. Even shirtless...
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The Homophobic Horrors of Gym Class
The homophobic horror that is high school gym class began in 1855, when the state of Ohio made the ill-fated decision to require it of all students. It took off during the 1920s, when "physical...
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