Even when I grew up and studied English literature, the title was still cryptic. It comes from "Adonais," an elegy written by Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley for his dead friend, John Keats.
He took the name from Adonis, the ancient Greek god of masculine beauty.
So audiences were supposed to expect a god of masculine beauty?
They got one: 37 year old Michael Forest as Apollo, an alien who was mistaken for a god by the ancient Greeks, and who still expects worship. It takes a femme fatale scientist to subdue him.
Although never a beefcake star of the Henry Willson stable, Michael managed to display his bare chest several times during the 1950s, in guest-spots in Westerns (as an Indian) and swinging-bachelor dramas, and in horror-sci fi movies like Beast from Haunted Cave (1959),
He fell somewhat short of the superlative physique necessary to cash in on the 1960s bodybuilder craze; his only peplum was Atlas (1961), directed by Roger Corman.
One of his most important was Deathwatch (1966), based on the Jean Genet play about two prison inmates, Maurice (Paul Mazursky) and Lefranc (Leonard Nimoy) competing for the affections the hot, muscular Green-Eyes (Forest).
That's right, Leonard Nimoy playing a gay character, a year before he became Spock.
(This actually wasn't his first; he played a hustler in Jean Genet's The Balcony in 1963)..
In 2013, he reprised the character of Apollo on the web series Star Trek Continues (2013).
Apparently heterosexual in real life, he has retired to Walla Walla, Washington.
Implying Leonard Nimoy wasn't playing a gay character as Spock. Not sure how it works for Vulcans.
ReplyDeleteI said that he was playing a gay character a year before he became Spock, implying that he was playing a gay character again as Spock.
DeleteForest made a memorable Greek god. Is Spock gay? I thought that kind of issue was irrelevant in the 23rd century.
ReplyDeleteThroughout the original series, "Next Generation," "Voyager," and "Deep Space Nine," "Star Trek" was criticized for never having a canonical gay character. Finally in one of the recent movies, they made Sulu gay and gave him a blink-and-you-miss-it husband, and George Takei criticized that! "Sulu was straight!" The only other gay characters in the franchise are a couple on "Star Trek: Discovery," which I believe came out in 2018.
DeleteI did a play with him here in LA about a decade ago. Really good guy, very down to earth about his career and married to a lovely woman.
ReplyDeleteForest not only looks great in that toga but he gives a heart breaking performance as an alien who just want to be loved. It would be interesting to remake this episode now- and have Apollo be bisexual and lust after a handsome male crew member or better yet Spock or Kirk.
ReplyDelete