Kurt Russell's Secret

We usually went to church on Sunday nights, but for some reason I was home one night in November 1968 to see the last half of the best movie ever made, The Secret of Boyne Castle, on the anthology series Wonderful World of Color.
This was former child star Kurt Russell's only movie as a Disney Adventure Boy (others included Peter McEnery, Tommy Kirk, Tim Considine, and Jeff East) before he moved on to playing oddball outsider Dexter Riley in a series of Disney comedies.

Here Kurt plays Rich, an American exchange student in Dublin who learns that his older brother Tom (bisexual muscleman Glenn Corbett, previously a model for Physique Pictorial and star of Route 66) is not a steel company executive after all, but a spy charged with delivering essential information to Boyne Castle, in the west of Ireland. When Tom is captured by Russian agents, Rich must take over the mission, racing through the quaint villages and lush green hills of Ireland, hoping to elude capture and reach Boyne Castle before the Russians. Fellow student Sean (long-faced, steely-eyed Patrick Dawson) tags along, throwing himself into deadly danger for no logical reason except that he rather likes Rich.

The two are presented as more intimate than mere buddies, framed in tight shots, their faces together in close ups. While they are sleeping on the heather, Rich hears a suspicious noise, and wakes Sean by moving his own body slightly. Although all we see are their faces and necks, to wake someone with such a small gesture means that they must be cuddling together. They rescue each other a dozen times, and are eventually rescued by big brother Tom.

But the most important scene, the scene I have remembered fondly for 40 years:

At an inn, Rich flirts with a waitress.

“You didn’t tell me you had an eye for the ladies!” Sean exclaims, as if he hadn’t anticipated any competition.

Rich responds by asking the waitress if she has any rooms to rent for “for a few hours.” Suspicious, she wants to know why the two boys would need a room for such a short period.

Rich and Sean exchange a knowing grin.

In 1968 I was entranced by that grin. I knew that it was a clue to the secret. If only I could decipher it, I could find my way to that other world, Oz or Living Island or Middle Earth, the world where boys could fall in love and got married.

How might we account for the not-so-subtle homoerotic bantr between the Rich and Sean? Certainly Glenn Corbett might be a gay ally: he began as a model for the Athletic Model Guild, the Advocate Men of its day, and made a career as a buddy-bonding “man’s man. Kurt Russell was never particularly gay-friendly.

Patrick Dawson works mostly in Irish radio, but his limited filmography includes the gay-vague Ginger in The Jigsaw Man (1983). We should look at the director, Robert Butler, who in the 1960’s specialized in dramas with strong male leads, such as Ben Casey, Dr. Kildare, and I Spy, and later directed such hunk-fests as Remington Steele, Moonlighting, and Lois and Clark. Whether he was working with Bruce Willis, Dean Cane, Pierce Brosnan, or Kurt Russell, Butler neither minimized nor hid their physicality, allowing and even directing them to be open as objects of desire, both to male viewers and to each other.

There are nude photos of Kurt Russell on Tales of West Hollywood

See also: Kurt Russell

Joe Dallesandro: Counterculture Icon with the Most Famous Face, Physique, and Bulge of the 1960s

Joe Dallesandro had one of the most recognizeable faces, physiques -- and bulges -- of the 1960s.

When the teenager met Andy Warhol in 1967, he had already had a colorful career as a juvenile delinquent who had run away from two detention centers, crashed a car during a police chase, and was shot by a police officer.  He was currently working as a hustler, and a model for the gay-themed Physique Pictorial.  Bisexual, adventurous, a little dangerous, and devastatingly handsome, he was just the sort of person Warhol wanted for his entourage.










Joe immediately got a starring role in Flesh, directed by Warhol staple Paul Morrissey.  He plays a bisexual hustler who has several frontal-nude scenes and has sex with a number of people, including a transvestite.

During the next few years, Joe starred in five more Warhol movies:

Lonesome Cowboys (1968), a Western spoof which involved a nude wrestling scene, plus Trash, Heat, Andy Warhol's Frankenstein, and Blood for Dracula, sometimes with nude scenes, sometimes without, but his fame as a counterculture icon was sealed.

He appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone, nude, with his infant son.  20 years later, they recreated the iconic photo.

















He appeared on the cover of the Smiths' album The Album.

His bulge appeared on the cover of the Rolling Stones album Sticky Fingers.  Actually, Andy Warhol submitted it from a stack of photos without knowing who it depicted, but Joe has always claimed that it's him.  He should know what his own bulge looks like.

He was referenced in the Lou Reed song "Walk on the Wild Side":

Little Joe never gave it away, everybody had to pay.


(Joe is 5'6", a head shorter than Andy Warhol at 5'11")










During the late 1970s, Joe broke into mainstream cinema, first in Europe (The Gardener, The Climber, Season for Assassins, Je t'aime moi non plus), then in the United States, specializing in gangsters and other tough guys (The Cotton Club,  The Hitchhiker, Cry-Baby, Guncrazy). He also worked in tv, on such series as Wiseguy and Matlock.  

Today, at age 68, he has retired from acting, although he appears occasionally as a commentator in in documentaries about the 1960s, or Andy Warhol, or himself.

Joe has always been a vocal advocate of LGBT rights.  He said that if his sons, Joe Jr. and Michael, were gay, he wouldn't want them to endure the homophobia that he witnessed in the "liberal" 1960s and 1970s.

There's a story about Joe's hookup with Bobby Driscoll on Tales of West Hollywood.

The nude photos are on Tales of West Hollywood

Who is Tony Dow's Boyfriend?

This photo is causing a bit of speculation.

It looks like Venice Beach in Los Angeles (the cabana in the background says "Charter 0").

The guy on the right is Tony Dow, the teen hunk of Leave It to Beaver, shirtless, in his standard white shorts. Sometime in the early 1960s.

He's with a guy who is about his height and age, buffed, with a severe military haircut, wearing a dark t-shirt and cut-off jeans. They're both barefoot, and they both bulge to the left.

Tony is looking at the photographer, while the other guy is facing away, not sure what to do.  It's not a posed photo, it's a candid, two guys caught in an informal moment.  Hanging out together, or on a date.

But who is Tony's boyfriend?

I cropped the photo, but the original doesn't display any more information.  There are three guys sitting on the left, and there's a partial watermark: eart.ltd edit

Three possibilities have been suggested:

1. In "Wally the Lifeguard," a episode of Leave It to Beaver that aired on October 22, 1960, Wally thinks he has been hired as a lifeguard, and is embarrassed to discover that he will be selling hot dogs in a ridiculous outfit instead.  Some scenes are set at the beach, where the real life guard is played by 25-year old Dick Gering. Maybe he and Tony Dow bonded.

Severe military haircut, but the guy in the photo doesn't look like him.

2. Tommy Rettig, the star of Lassie, four years older than Tony Dow, became one of his closest friends during the early 1960s, and starred with him in Never Too Young (1965-66)

The guy in the photo is definitely not Tommy Rettig.

3. John "Butchie" Davidson.  Not the actor, the physique model. He was in Los Angeles for only a few months in the spring of 1965 before shipping out to Vietnam (he died tragically en route).  But during those months, he starred in several Athletic Model Guild films and got the cover of Physique Pictorial.  

Same haircut, same hands, same face.

Tony Dow never appeared in Physique Pictorial, but he mostly likely knew about it.  It's not inconceivable that he met Butchie, and was showing him the sights that day when an anonymous photographer snapped his picture.

There are nude photos of John Davidson on Tales of West Hollywood.

See also: Tony Dow Dating and Hookup Stories

Bob Hover/ Richard Harrison: Muscle Buddies

During the 1950s, when Muscle Beach bodybuilders were being snapped up by the Athletic Model Guild to pose in the burgeoning gay-vague physique magazines industry, buddies Bob Hover (right) and Richard Harrison (left) sometimes posed together.

Born in Salt Lake City, Utah in 1936, Richard Harrison hit the beaches of Southern California in 1954, just after he graduated from high school.  Bob Hover was two years older, but he arrived that same year, after a stint in military (he was a boxer in the Marines).  They became close friends, and maybe lovers (if you believe the sly hints that the muscle mags used to sell copies).

Soon Hollywood came calling.  Bob had several small movie roles in 1956-58, usually with some of the other gay or gay-friendly actors of the 1950s, such as Lafayette Escadrille (1958) with Tab Hunter, and No Time for Sargeants (1958), with Nick Adams.


During the 1970s he starred on several soap operas, including Another World and As the World Turns.  He retired from acting in 1985, and died in 2013.

Richard first appeared on screen in 1957, and in 1961 moved to Italy to become one of the sword and sorcery peplum heroes.  Between 1961 and 1965, he donned the toga nine times, growing a beard in the process.  When the peplum craze ended, he stayed in Italy to make spaghetti Westerns and spy dramas.













In the 1980s Richard returned to the U.S. just in time for the man-muscle craze: Golden Ninja Warrior, Ninja Hunter, The Ninja Squad, Ninja Dragon.  He was over 50 years old, but age never kept a true bodybuilder from flexing and taking out enemy squadrons.   He also moved into writing, directing, and production.

Both Bob and Richard married and had children, but they made an indelible impression on gay men of the first Boomer generation.

John Manning and His Beefcake Brothers

Born 1936 in Portland, Oregon, John Manning moved to Los Angeles during his teens and began putting his physique and penis to work.  He was photographed by most of the gay physique photographers of the era, including Bruce of Los Angeles, Pat Milo, Dave Martin, and Lyle Frisby.

But his favorite photographer was Bob Mizner of the Athletic Model Guild.  He appeared in many issues of Physique Pictorial from 1955 to 1968.

  Sometimes he capitalized on his half-Sioux, half-Irish heritage by appearing in an Indian headdress.

I have found only a few more details about John Manning.  Some may be apocryphal:

1. He was a paratrooper in the army.

2. He enjoyed judo, karate, and boxing.

3. He could lift the front end of a jeep.

4. He "had never been beaten in arm wrestling."

5. There is  a John Manning of the right age living in Portland today..  He's a retired botanist.

John's younger brothers, Jim and Joe, also appeared in a few issues of Physique Pictorial.  

The three brothers appeared together in two AMG films 

1. The Pharaoh's New Slave (1958).

2. The Experimental Model (1964).









I have found even fewer details about the lives of the brothers, except fo a tantalizing hint: They starred in The Experimental Model "during one of those rare times when they are all out of jail at the same time."

Nude photos of John and at least one brother are on Tales of West Hollywood.

Joseph Cali: from Physique Model to "Saturday Night Fever"

Joseph Cali was a familiar face in the late 1970s and 1980s, playing handsome Italian Stallion types:  John Travolta's friend Joey in Saturday Night Fever (1977), Joey Santorini in Trapper John MD (1981), Vincent D'Acosta in The Lonely Lady (1983).

He  starred in several short-lived tv series, such as Flatbush (1979), Today's FBI (1981-82), Santa Barbara (1989-90).

In the 1990s, roles became sparser.  Finally he retired from acting.  Today he is the co-owner of Cello Music and Film Systems, which sells home theater systems averaging $42,000 each to celebrity customers such as Matt Damon and Ben Affleck.

But there's more to Joseph Cali than meets the eye: a lot of nude photos online.

When he was in his early twenties, around 1970, he was discovered by George Haimsohn in the gay cruising area of Washington Square Park, and invited to model.  Haimsohn, who worked under the pen name Plato, published several sets of nude photos.  Later Cali posed the Model of the Month Club and Photozique, and after he moved to Los Angeles, Vulcan Studios.

Cali is apparently heterosexual or bisexual in real life: he's been married twice, most recently for 31 years, and he has four grown daughters.

But it's nice to know that he displayed his physique, and more, for gay fans in the past.

The nude photos are on Tales of West Hollywood

Forrest Millard, the First Gay Physique Model

During World War II, Forrester Dorlac moved from Missouri to Los Angeles with his parents.  He went out for gymnastics, and used to work out on Muscle Beach in Santa Monica with the other bodybuilders.  A lot of gay men used to come down to watch -- Forrester was straight, but he loved the attention -- and one day in 1946, Bob Mizner invited the 16-year old to his mother's house in downtown Los Angeles for a photo shoot.  It was fun to put on a skimpy posing strap, and recreate the poses of a classical Greek statue.  And it was gratifying to realize that guys found him attractive.

Forrester returned again and again for 15 photo shoots during the next 14 years, using the stage name Forrester Millard.   Bob sold the photos by mail order through his company, the Athletic Model Guild, and, beginning in 1951, Physique Pictorial, the first magazine aimed at a gay male audience (although it claimed to be for fitness enthusiasts).

He also appeared in a Mizner film.

Branching out, Forrester became the "mascot" for the Table of Contents of Tomorrow's Man beginning in 1954.

Mizner photographed thousands of men, including professional bodybuilders Ed Fury and Chris Dickerson, and film and tv stars like Sammy Jackson, Glenn Corbett, and Nick Adams, but he loved returning to Forrester, his first, and favorite, model.

In 1958, Forrester posed with  John Tristram for several openly homoerotic scenes, giving many gay men their first glimpse of same-sex desire and romance.  They were reprinted frequently during the 1960s,

In 1960 Forrester left Los Angeles and retired from modeling.  Eventually he married Barbara, and they had a son, Forrester Jr.  They lived in Rochester, Washington, near Olympia, for thirty years.

In 2009, Dennis Bell, head of the Bob Mizner Foundation, sought Forrester out for an interview.  He was surprised that he was still remembered, and gratified that he had a profound impact on gay culture, helping thousands of men come out.  He agreed to recreate some of his classic poses.

He died in 2011.

There are nude photos on Tales of West Hollywood.

Ed Fury

On January 5th, 1955,  My Little Margie  (1952-56) featured the first bodybuilder on prime time television.

Like I Love Lucy and I Married Joan in the 1950s and I Dream of Jeannie and Bewitched in the 1960s, My Little Margie was about a stable, conventional man befuddled by the madcap antics of a woman.  In this case the man was investment manager Vern Albright (rumored-to-be-gay actor Charles Farrell), and the woman his adult daughter Margie (Gale Storm).  

This episode had Margie going to work as a fashion model, getting a crush on the oblivious photographer, and trying to make him jealous by flirting with an oblivious muscleman (Ed Fury).

It promotes the two main myths about bodybuilders in the 1950s: 

1.  They are self-absorbed, shallow, and narcissistic.

2. Women do not find them attractive.

Ed Fury was a bold choice for Hercules, even more gay-coded most of his bodybuilding peers.  Born in 1928 as Edmund Holovchik, the former Mr. Muscle Beach was one of top models for such gay-vague studios as Bruce of LA and the Athletic Model Guild, and for fitness magazines as Physique Pictorial, Today's Man, Vim, and Adonis.  

He was even filmed in a posing strap for home distribution in the days before gay porn.  No full-frontal nudity, but some rear shots.

After several small roles in movies, including one of the shirtless Seabees singing "There's Nothing Like a Dame" in South Pacific (1958), he went to Italy to participate in the sword-and-sandal craze, playing Ursus, Maciste, and similar peplum heroes, often paired with fellow bodybuilders like Rod Taylor.

Then it was back to the United States for guest spots on tv series, including The Odd Couple, Colombo, The Magician, and Police Story.  He continued to work as a physique model well into his 50s, but retired from both acting and modeling during the 1980s to devote himself to quieter pursuits.

Ed has  never made a public statement about his sexual identity -- few men of his generation would even consider such a thing.  But he inspired a generation of gay men, so it doesn't really matter.

The Physique Photographs of Bruce of L.A.

Everyone's heard of Physique Pictorial, the groundbreaking magazine that displayed male semi-nudes in the desolate years before Stonewall.

But Bob Mizer wasn't the only physique photographer selling semi-nudes to gay men.  There was also the legendary Bruce of L.A.

Born Bruce Bellas in Nebraska, he was a high school chemistry teacher in Nebraska before moving to L.A. in 1947.  During the 1950s he began photographing singlet-clad muscle men, publishing first in Physique Pictorial and then his own Today's Man.  His photos were also available by mail order.

Some of his models adopt the standard bodybuilder's flex, but there are also relaxed informal poses, like this older hunk reclining on a table.

He died in 1974, but his influence lives on in the work of artists like Robert Mapplethorpe and Bruce Weber.

Doug McClure: From Physique Pictorial to The Simpsons

One of the supporting characters in the "my secret" teencom Out of This World (1987-91), about a teenage alien, was Kyle X. Applegate (Doug McClure): a bumbling, dimwitted has-been tv star.  In 1991, a bumbling, dimwitted has-been movie star began appearing on The Simpsons with the schtick "Hi, I'm Troy McClure.  You may remember me from such movies as..."

Who was this Doug McClure, and how did he get typecast as a bumbling, dimwitted has-been?

A little research reveals quite a different character:

A fitness model who appeared in the gay-vague Physique Pictorial in 1957 (here pinning Clint Eastwood).

Appearances in nearly 100 movies and tv shows, playing cowboys, detectives, and adventurers, usually in gay-subtext buddy pairs.

1. Jed Sills, partner of Don Corey (Anthony George) in the swnging 1960s detective series Checkmate (1960-62).

2. Engineering student Chuck Manning in The Lively Set (1964), who teams up with young mechanic Casey Owens (teen idol James Darren) to build a jet-powered car.  He's not interested in girls, but his sister hangs around to provide Casey with the fade-out kiss.

3. John, brother to Beau Geste (Guy Williams of Lost in Space) n the French foreign legion adventure (1966).

4. Trampas, head farm hand on the Shiloh Ranch in Wyoming run by The Virginian (James Drury) (1962-71).  This was his most famous role.  Apparently he knew how to fill out a cowboy suit, especially with a rifle handy.

5. Cash Conover, partner of 19th century secret agent Boomer Cable (William Shatner) on Barbary Coast (1975-76).

Doug continued to play cowboys, detectives, secret agents, and adventurers through the 1980s, but he never had another starring role. Maybe that's where he got the "has-been" image.

 All of that buddy-bonding fueled some substantial gay rumors, even though he was married to women five times.

See also: James Shigeta.

John Hamill: The First Nude Physique Model

Born in 1947, the boyish, good-natured John Hamill began his career as a physique model, one of the first to pose fully nude.  Sometimes he even had a partner, in explicitly homoerotic scenes aimed at the increasingly visible gay male audience.  He also appeared in both gay and heterosexual "blue movies."

But he aspired to become a serious actor, so he studied at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Arts and began appearing on stage, notably in the gay-themed Boys in the Band in 1969 (presumably as the hustler hired to become a "birthday present").

His film career began in 1970, with starring roles in the thrillers The Beast in the Cellar (not as the beast), Trog (not as the rampaging caveman), and No Blade of Grass.  He also had some guest spots on tv series such as Paul Temple, The Befrienders, and Crossroads.  

But, like many bodybuilders, especially those with a "gay reputation," John found himself stuck in minor roles as threatening bad guys or inarticulate hunks.  In Tower of Evil (1972), for example, his character is introduced, takes off his clothes, flexes his muscles and gets killed, all in about thirty seconds.

Anxious for work, he agreed to star in the sex comedy Girls Come First (1975), as an artist asked to paint nude models.  Released in both hardcore and softcore versions, it was popular enough to lead to two sequels, and parts in similar movies, like Hardcore (1977).

But nothing else.  After a two-parter on Space: 1999 in 1978, he retired from acting and became a furniture refinisher.

Being so open about sex, and so nonchalant about both male and female partners, limited John's career, but left him -- and his fans -- with many fond memories.

You can see the nude photos on Tales of West Hollywood.