Hunter Revealed: Does Fred Dryer, the epitome of 1980s macho muscle, have gay photos in his past?

Link to the n*de photos

Hunter (1984-91) starred Fred Dryer as Rick Hunter, a "renegade cop who bends the rules and takes justice into his own hands" (that's like every cop on tv).  He is partnered with the "stunning"  Sgt. McCall (Stefanie Kramer) for cases involving serial killers, gangs, drug dealers, and guys who murder their wives.  Just the thing for the the 1980s, when the rhetoric changed from "let's rehabilitate them" to "lock'em up."  

We didn't watch in West Hollywood, of course.  After Moonlighting, Remington Steele, The Scarecrow and Mrs. King, and Cheers, who wants to see yet another "will they or won't they?" straight-subtext couple? Besides, it aired on Saturday night, for old people moaning about how great life was in the old days, then on Monday opposite Murphy Brown and Designing Women.  Which would you watch?

But we knew about Fred Dryer: 6'6" (enough about the six foot, let's hear about the six inches), brawny, hirsute, with muscles that hardened on the street, not in some sissy gym.  

He grew up in Hawthorne, California, was a football star at Lawndale High and San Diego State, then played for the New York Giants and Los Angeles Rams in a career that lasted for 13 years (1969-81) and won him 104 sacks, 1 pro-bowl, and 1 all-bowl.

Ok, we didn't know all of those details -- I don't even know what a sack is.

We may have seen Dryer when he switched from football to acting, guesting as hunks on Laverne and Shirley (1980),  Lou Grant (1981), CHIPS (1982), and  Hart to Hart (1984).

Not to mention  four episodes of Chips (1982-87), playing focus character Sam Malone's former teammate on the Boston Red Sox, now a flashy ladies' man sports reporter.

We may even have tuned in to Hunter on occasion, or to Land's End (1995-96), about another renegade cop with a "stunning" partner, just to catch a glimps of Dryer's stuff.

Dryer never played a gay character or expressed the tiniest feminine-coded interest, on screen or in real life.  He scowled and smirked through the world, never doubting for a moment that there were buddies to watch the game with and babes to kiss in the moonlight, that no man in human history had ever wanted to kiss a man.  

Until the n*de photo appeared on some of the protypical 1990s gay celebrity websites (and on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends)

It showed someone who looked like a young Dryer in an early 1960s haircut, showing off his physique.  Black and white, like  Physique Pictorial and other early gay-coded physique magazines, which just started publishing n*de photos in 1964. When Dryer was 18 years old.

We were entranced.  The icon of heteronormativity had a gay past.  Or a gay-for-pay past.  

Nitpickers pointed out that the guy doesn't look 18, and his hairstyle is appropriate for the 1950s, not the shaggy hippie 1960s, but tiny details couldn't get in the way of a good story: Fred Dryer was, or had been, one of us.

More after the break

The years passed, and we moved on to other hunks. Some of us saw Dryer on episodes of The Millers (2013) or Agents of SHIELD (2015), interacting with Jon Foster (left) on Accidentally On Purpose (2009) or Mark Harmon on NCIS (2018), and remembered that long-ago photo, an icon of gay promise in a homophobic world.

Most of us didn't remember.  When you can see 1,000 n*de guys before breakfast, it's easy to forget.

Then, in 2025, the photo popped up again, this time with a Google-full of research to conduct.  This is Roy Scammell (right) and Vic Haywood in a 1956 photo collection by British physique photographer John Barrington.

Roy Scammell was born in 1932, and began performing on screen in the mid-1960s. He has 27 acting credits, including episodes of Doctor Who, Benny Hill, and Space: 1999, and movies like The Magic Christian, but he was primarily known as a stuntman.  

He stunted in A Clockwork Orange, Pampillon, Midnight Express, The Spy Who Loved Me, Doctor Who, and Nuns on the Run.  And although he was married to a woman for many years, he was well known in London's gay scene.

The two n*de photos look more like Ray Scannell than Fred Dryer.

A simple case of photo misidentification, or is there more to the story?  Does Dryer have some gay moments in his past?  Or do we just need him to?

See also: Ted Prior: Man-mountain hero of the macho 1980s, Chippendale dancer, Playgirl model. Any gay content?

Riley Polanski: From Xanadu to Silverlake, with n*de photos and bonus Michael J. Fox

Bill Cable: 1980s n*de model and gay video performer, boyfriend of Elvira and Pee-Wee Herman, rock star in "Basic Instinct"