Duke Kahanamoku: A Life Devoted to Surfing and Men

Born in 1890, Duke Kahanamoku was "the fastest swimmer alive," who popularized the sport of surfing, and to a great extent popularized Hawaii.  He won gold medals for swimming at the Olympics in 1912 and 1920, and a silver in 1924 (Johnny Weissmuller won the gold).

In 1925, he won even more international fame when he rescued eight drowning men from a sinking ship off Newport Beach, California, using only his surfboard.

He divided his time between Honolulu and Hollywood, where he appeared in 14 movies, playing a lifeguard, an Indian chief, an Arab, a pirate, and a "devil-ape," most notably as a Pacific Island chief in Mister Roberts (1955).  Later in life he appeared in the surfing documentaries Free and Easy (1967) and Surfari (1967).  He died in 1968.

He married Nadine Alexander rather late in life, at age 50. Although they apparently enjoyed ballroom dancing together, he spent most of his time with men, and surrounded himself with both Hollywood hunks and Speedo-clad beach boys.

He knew all of the athletes and beefcake stars of the day, including Buster Crabbe (top center), Wallace Beery, and Tyrone Power.  He was a particularly close friend of fellow Olympian and 1930s Tarzan Johnny Weissmuller (left, the one with the bulge).

The punk group The Queers has a song about him:

It ain't the waves you catch
It ain't the drugs you do
You'll never be as cool as Duke Kahanamoku

More conventionally, he has been honored with a statue in Waikiki (where the Oahu Gay Surfing Club meets) and a postage stamp.

See also: Jack London and the Gay Surfers.

10 Forgotten Musclemen of Movie Serials

Between 1936 and 1955, you didn't just go to a movie; you went to a whole evening's entertainment, with cartoons, newsreels, two features, and a serial -- a cliffhanging, 12-15 chapter adventure, Western, or science fiction series designed to fill the seats week after week as audiences wondered "How will the hero get out of this jam?"

Three main studios, Columbia, Republic, and Universal, churned out dozens of serials every year, so they needed lots of action heroes.  Some became famous later, in feature films and on tv, and others faded away quickly, but they all offered buddy-bonding and occasional glimpses of biceps and bulges.  Here are the top 10 musclemen of the movie serials:

1. Buster Crabbe may have died in 1983, but his fame -- and exceptional physique -- live on. He was a beefcake staple for 30 years, playing Tarzan and Tarzan clones (1933), cowboys Red Barry and Billy the Kid, and futuristic space heroes Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon.  Lots of scripts called for him to get his shirt ripped off.

2. Herman Brix competed in the Olympics as Bruce Bennett, then gave Buster Crabbe some competition with the serials The New Adventures of Tarzan (1935) and Tarzan and the Green Goddess (1938).  He also stripped down to play Kioga in Hawk of the Wilderness (1938).

3. Former college athlete Charles Starrett was best known for the Durango Kid series, but he also got torn out of his clothes in The Mask of Fu Manchu (1932), to be tortured and turned into a zombie (left).

4. Gordon Jones (left) died in 1963, so he isn't well known to the Boomer generation, but in his day he was a well known face and physique.  Catch his exposed biceps in an early version of The Green Hornet in the 1941 serial.

5. Kane Richmond played the adult mentor/boyfriend to teenage Frankie Darro in a series of 1930s "Thrill-o-Ramas," plus some Charlie Chan mysteries, Westerns, and beefcake-heavy boxing movies.   His main serial was the superheroic Spy Smasher (1942).  He retired to open a hair salon.

6. The rugged Tom Tyler had a long career in Westerns, but flexed his muscles as two comic superheroes brought to life in movie serials: The Adventures of Captain Marvel (1941) and The Phanton (1943)

7. Gerald Mohr played a pulp detective named The Lone Wolf (1946, 1947) and narrated the first season of The Lone Ranger series on tv (1949-50). 

8. Speaking of The Lone Ranger, before Clayton Moore became identified with the Masked Man (1949-1957), he had a long career in movies and serials, mostly Westerns, naturally.

9. Kirk Alyn never disrobed on camera, but his muscular frame was displayed in a Superman costume in the only serials about the original superhero, Superman (1948) and Atom Man v. Superman (1950).

10. Jock Mahoney played a rather long-in-the-tooth Tarzan in Tarzan Goes to India (1962), but he also starred in some serials, such as Cody of the Pony Express (1950) and Roar of the Iron Horse (1951).  

Wild Boy: The Gay Jungle Boy of 1950s Comics

There were many variations of the Tarzan mythos during the middle years of the 20th century, but one of the most fondly remembered by the first generation of Baby Boomers was Wild Boy, Prince of the Jungle.

He had a short run, appearing in 8 issues of a  Ziff-Davis series (1950-1952), which oddly starts with 10.  Then St. John took over the title, renamed it Wild Boy of the Congo, and published 6 issues (#9-#15), in 1953.  That's it.

But what he lacked in longevity, Wild Boy made up for in gay potential.

His origin story: the young American boy David Clyde goes to the Congo with his uncle, who hires evil native to kill him.  He escape and grows up in the jungle, but speaks a stilted "me, Tarzan" patois.

He has two animal companions, a panther (Daro) and a monkey (Kimba), and a native boyfriend, Keeto (who speaks the same patois.)

Artists vary in their interpretation of Wild Boy: should he be a little kid or nearly an adult?  And just how feminine should his wavy hair, lipstick, and eye liner get?

But he's definitely a gay icon. He displays no interest in women, but he rescues and hugs Keeto every five minutes.

The comics are hilarious today for their stereotypes of the white Western colonial master and the "childlike" natives.

Hint: the good ones wear Western-style clothes, and the bad ones wear loincloths.

Here he uses the old chestnut "I will make the sun disappear!" to avoid execution by an evil tribe.  How corny can you get?

But at least he's holding hands with Keeto.

Tarzan Time

It's spring, time for high school and college hunks from all over the country to put on a loincloth and dreadlocks and go vine-swinging in their local productions of Tarzan: The Musical.

1. Monterey High, California.  That's a gigantic loincloth.  I guess they didn't want any accidents.

2. Like what happened with this Tarzan from Dixie High (in St. George, Utah, not in the South).  Fortunately he was wearing an under-loincloth.

3. Rockford University, Illinois.  "Loincloth" is the first word I learned through reading, back when I was five or so, and my parents bought me an abridged Tarzan at the supermarket.  It said that Tarzan was "naked," so he killed a leopard and made a "loincloth" from its skin.

4. This Sterling, Illinois Tarzan seems quite proud of his physique.

5. Palo Alto Dinner Theater, California.  That crouching pose is commonly used for posters.

6.  Springfield, Oregon New Hope Christian College.  Same pose, bigger biceps.

7. Trinity High School, probably the one in Louisville, Kentucky.  I understand painting on abs, but painting on pecs?

8. Clearfield Area Junior-Senior High School, Hyde, Pennsylvania. Nice to see a Tarzan with a little bulk.  Apparently you can get pie in the jungle.

9.  Bangs High School, Bangs, Texas. No dreads, thank God.

10.  Newark High School, New Jersey.  Newark is 50% black and 36% Hispanic.  What are the odds that they would cast a white boy?

Here's  what he looks like as a civilian.  An ordinary high school drama club kid transformed by the magic of the stage into a superhero.

Eddie Cantor: The Craziest Reason for Gay Rumors

One of the cartoons I saw on Captain Ernie's Cartoon Showboat as a kid in the 1960s was Billboard Frolics (1935), which spoofed contemporary radio stars.  I didn't recognize any of them at the time, of course, but I was intrigued by a big-eyed, big-eared man who clapped his hands in a feminine fashion and sang:

Merrily we roll along, Rubinoff and me; when he plays his fiddle, I just go on a spree!
It's a cinch that every time I go on the air, I just look around and find old Rubinoff there.

This guy obviously had a crush on a violinist named Rubinoff!

Years later, when I was in college, an episode of Matinee at the Bijou featured the same guy, mincing and rolling his eyes as he sang "Making Whoopee," a cynical look at marriage: women snare their "victims" to get free room and board, and men spend the rest of their lives trying desperately to escape (Johnny Weissmuller pantomimed the unhappy "victim").

Who was this guy who had a crush on Rubinoff and disapproved of heterosexual marriage?

His name was Eddie Cantor (1892-1964), known as "Banjo Eyes" for his mincing, eye-rolling song-and-dance routines.  He got his start in Vaudeville, then moved into Broadway musical reviews, and had his own radio programs in the 1930s and 1940s (Violinist David Rubinoff was a frequent guest).

Cantor became a film star with Kid Boots (1926), and went on to Whoopee (1930), Roman Scandals (1933), Ali Baba Goes to Town (1937), and many others.

He had a reasonably good physique for the 1930s (see top photo), but he was no muscleman, so he didn't provide any beefcake in his films.  However, he was often paired with muscular men, such as Paul Gregory (left) in Whoopee.

He never could resist peeking at pecs.

He probably wasn't gay, but his feminine mannerisms certainly code him as "queer."

And he was the subject of gay rumors for the craziest reason: he was the father of five daughters.  Thus drawing thirty years of gossip, speculation, jokes, and ridicule.

Why wasn't he "man" enough to have a son?  Was he gay?

Um...even in the 1930s, people realized that it doesn't work that way.

Cantor turned the gossip around, and made his lack of "virility" a running gag on his radio program.

See also: Burns and Allen: Not the Marrying Kind

Tarzan Also-Rans

Most people prefer Johnny Weissmuller's Tarzan.  In 12 films (1932-1948), the former Olympic swimmer embued Edgar Rice Burroughs' creation with a savage innocence borrowed directly from Rousseau.

Others prefer  Mike Henry's suave 1960s James Bond-style Tarzan, Denny Miller's beach boy, Ron Ely's lanky environmentalist, or Miles O'Keeffe's New Sensitive Tarzan of the 1980s.  But there have been many others.  Twenty men have played Tarzan since Elmo Lincoln in 1918.  All provided ample beefcake, but some were better than others at evoking homoromantic subtexts:

1. Buster Crabbe, better known as Flash Gordon, played an exceptionally buffed Ape Man in a 1933 movie serial.  He invented the Tarzan yell, and fell in love with a girl named Mary.

2. Herman Brix, who changed his name to Bruce Bennett so he wouldn't sound German,  competed with Weissmuller in two movies, The New Adventures of Tarzan (1935) and Tarzan and the Green Goddess (1938).  His Tarzan was cultured, sophisticated, and spoke proper English.  He rescued girls, but never fell in love with them.

3. Lex Barker took the mantle from the aging Weissmuller and played the Lord of the Jungle five times (1949-1953).  He had Jane at his side just as often as his predecessor.

4. Gordon Scott, who had an amazingly v-shaped torso, played Tarzan six times (1955-1960), with a "Me Tarzan" patois that sounded very odd coming from an immaculately coiffed 1950s head. He was uninterested in heterosexual romance most of the time, but never met a man who wasn't planning to stab him in the back.

5. Jock Mahoney, at age 44, became the oldest Tarzan in Tarzan Goes to India (1962) and Tarzan's Three Challenges (1963).  He doesn't have a girlfriend, but in Three Challenges he gets a sidekick, the young Thai prince Kashi (Ricky Der).

6. Greystoke: the Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (1984) was an attempt to provide a realistic view of the Ape Man mythos.  Though this was the era of the man-mountains, Christopher Lambert was not particularly massive, because the Ape Man's diet would not have been good enough for bulking up.  He had romantic relationships with both Jane (Andie McDowell) and Philippe (Ian Holm)

7. Joe Lara starred in Tarzan in Manhattan (1989), with Jane as a cab driver, and Tarzan: The Epic Adventures (1996-97), with no Jane.

8. Wolf Larson (left) became the second TV Tarzan in the French-Canadian production (1991-94), and the only one to have a teen sidekick (played by Sean Roberge). Jane (Lydie Denier) became a French environmental scientist.

9.  The last live-action Tarzan on the big screen was played by Casper Van Dien in 1998.  He's engaged to Jane Porter.

10. In 2003-4, a WB series transformed Jane Porter  into a NYPD detective, and Tarzan (Travis Fimmel) into her industrialist boyfriend. Sounds awful.

Can You Ever Have Too Many Tarzans?

Of course not.  The musical may be schmaltzy and uber-heterosexist, but it gives dozens of local hunks a chance to show off their pecs and abs.

Here are some of the Tarzans who swung across the stage during the last year.

1. Northridge High School, Utah.

2. Palo Alto Community Players.

3.Somewhere in France.

4. A Helena, Montana high school Tarzan without the dreadlocks.

5. Vorheesville High School in New York. A Tarzan who hasn't shaved, quite an anomaly.

6. Stratford High.  Where'd he get the 1980s hairstyle?

7. A black Tarzan at Goodbody High School in Tallahassee.

8.Painted-on abs in Marietta, Georgia.

Buster Crabbe and Johnny Weissmuller: Duelling Tarzans

In 1931, MGM was auditioning musclemen with exceptional swimming ability for a new movie about Tarzan, the Edgar Rice Burroughs pulp hero.  It would be a big deal, the first Tarzan talkie, with real location shots.

Two Olympic gold medalists auditioned: 23-year old Buster Crabbe and 27 year old Johnny Weissmuller.  Weissmuller won, and starred in Tarzan the Ape Man (1932), one of the top box office draws of the year.

Apparently being muscular and bulgeworthy was not a consideration.

Undaunted, Buster was cast as the Tarzan clone Kaspa the Lion Man in King of the Jungle (1933).

And Tarzan the Fearless (1933), which sank like a stone and was quickly forgotten.

Johnny continued his juggernaut in Tarzan and his Mate (1934), Tarzan Escapes (1936), and Tarzan Finds a Son! (1939), 12 movies in all, becoming the iconic Tarzan for generations of moviegoers, finally retiring to become Jungle Jim in 1948.  Watch his Cannibal Attack (1954)  for some major gay subtexts.

He doesn't have a lot of gay rumors, though some people suggested that when his movie son, Johnny Sheffield, grew up, they became an item.

Buster had a much more versatile career, playing many action heroes, including Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers, and many Western heroes, including Billy the Kid and Captain Gallant of the Foreign Legion (1955-57).  He even played another Tarzan clone at the age of 44, Thunda, in the movie serial King of the Congo (1952). 

He has more gay rumors than Johnny.  In Full Service, the tell-all memoir of a Hollywood hustler, he's listed as one of Scotty Bowers' clients.

Close friends in real life, Buster and Johnny competed for a girl in the non-jungle drama Swamp Fire (1946), set in the Louisiana bayou.

A New Sensitive Tarzan

Miles O'Keeffe graduated from the University of the South with a degree in psychology, and worked for a year as a prison counselor, before heading for Hollywood, hoping to make it big as an actor.

He did.  The biggest.

Tarzan, the Ape Man (1981), the first Tarzan movie in over a decade, was an attempt to revitalize the Tarzan myth for the 1980s generation.  It starred the breasts of Bo Derek, a heterosexual sex symbol from 10 (1979).

 The plot was about Jane (Bo Derek) and her breasts traveling to Africa on a scientific expedition, where they meet, civilize, and have sex with the Ape Man (Miles O'Keeffe).  Though superbly muscular, Miles' Tarzan was not a man-mountain; he was a romance novel hero, a New Sensitive Man, desirable more for his tenderness than his muscles.

I don't remember him speaking, not even a "Me Tarzan" grunt.

There was no gay subtext.

Bo won the Golden Raspberry for the Worst Actress of the year, but Tarzan was a box office success, making more money than, Excalibur, The Great Muppet Caper, or An American Werewolf in London.

Miles disliked his Tarzan character, and spent the next decade trying to live him down.  I haven't seen any of his later movies, but apparently he played sword-and-sorcery heroes Ator (1982, 1984, 1987), and the Lone Runner (1986), the Medieval hero Sir Gawain (1984), and some man-mountains rescuing buddies from Southeast Asian warlords (1987, 1988, 1990).

No gay characters, but between 1999 and 2001, he appeared six times on So Graham Norton, a late-night talk show hosted by the gay British comedian.

See also: The Tarzan Who Might Have Been.