Edson Stroll: Bodybuilding Opera Buff

I met Ed Stroll when I was working for Muscle and Fitness in Los Angeles: dashing, energetic, and still extremely buffed in his 50s. He was working in real estate, but he spent most of his time at the Marina del Rey Yacht Club, and knew everything there was to know about high culture: concerts, ballets, and especially opera.

And, whenever he could spare a moment, playing high-powered businessman types on Murder She Wrote, Hotel, Dynasty, Simon and Simon....

I didn't know that he had been in show biz for over 30 years. Or that his real name was Edson.

Born in 1929, Ed trained as a bodybuilder, actor, and singer, performing on stage in Shangri-La, Carousel, On the Town, and other plays before breaking into tv with guest shots on How to Marry a Millionaire, Sea Hunt, Lock-Up, and Men into Space.  

He starred in two famous episodes of The Twilight Zone: "Eye of the Beholder", about a society where the idea of beauty is our "ugliness"; and "The Trade-Ins," in which an elderly couple shop for hot new bodies.

He starred in the military comedy McHale's Navy (1962-66), as Virgil Edwards, "the handsome lover boy of the crew" (according to Wikipedia; I've never seen it).











He appeared in Snow White and the Three Stooges (1961) as Prince Charming, and The Three Stooges in Orbit (1962), as romantic lead Captain Tom Andrews.

Not a lot of gay content, but you don't really need any when you spend all of your time hanging around gay men.

I assumed he was gay; he never said he wasn't.

When he died on June 18, 2011, his obituary stated that he was survived by Anita Winters and his two dogs,  Eddie and Sugar Baby.    I have no idea who Anita Winters is.

Don's Party: Mostly Heterosexual Boys in the Band

Don's Party (1976), based on the long-running play by David Williamson, is set on the night of the 1969 Federal Election in Australia, where the conservative, establishment Labor Party is expected to win.

Schoolteacher Don (gay actor John Hargreaves, left) and his wife Kath invite some friends over to celebrate the victory.  They are:

1. Alcoholic professor Mal and his bitter wife Jenny

2. Conservative dentist Evan and his artist wife Kerry.

3. Sex-obsessed Cooley (Harold Hopkins, left, lately of Skippy the Bush Kangaroo) and his giggly girlfriend Susan.

4. Liberal-supporter  Simon and his wife Jody

5. Working-class Mack (gay actor Graham Kennedy), who has just left his wife.

Gradually it becomes clear that the Liberal party will win, sending Australia plummeting into a snake-pit of drugs and free love, so the depressed partygoers begin drinking heavily.

And the gloves come off.

Men snipe at each other about their failed ambitions.  Women snipe about how small their husbands' penises are and how they're likely to be gay.

Hidden homoerotic desires come out.  There are attempted gay pick-ups.  There is full frontal nudity. By the end of the evening, everyone hates everyone.

It's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf meets The Boys in the Band. 

To be fair, there's no actual gay sex -- heterosexual machinations predominate -- and there are more naked ladies than naked men.  But still, Don's Party provides a glimpse into the 1970s establishment anxieties over the gay potential of the sexual revolution