Lucky Vanous: The Diet Coke Guy

Like Scott Madsen, the Soloflex Guy , and Clara Pelter, who asked "Where's the beef?", Lucky Vanous became famous in an instant.  Though the Nebraska native had been modeling and studying acting for several years, he became the talk of the town through a series of heterosexist commercials for Diet Coke: some female office workers gaze through the window at the construction site next door, where lean, muscular Lucky goes on his break, rips his shirt off, and opens a can of Diet Coke.  They become more and more aroused as he drinks.

He was not a bodybuilder, but he was lean, muscular, and hirsute, a perfect New Sensitive Man even without saying "I know how you feel."

Lucky's exercise book and video, aimed at a female audience (The Ultimate Fat-Burning Workout) appeared in a few months.  In May 1994 he took off his shirt on tv sitcom Wings.  He was a presenter at the Clio Awards (for excellence in advertising).  In December was profiled in Playgirl.

A couple of movie roles followed, plus some tv: the evening soap opera Pacific Palisades (1997), guest spots on Pensacola: Wings of Gold and Will and Grace, and finally 18 Wheels of Justice (2000-2001), about a federal agent turned trucker who helps people with their problems.

Although in real life Lucky was always gracious to his gay fans, his stage persona maintained the heterosexist "every woman's fantasy" myth, insisting that all women but no men wanted to see him with his shirt off.  So the shirt came off when the audience was mostly women, but stayed on when it was mostly men.  This promo for 18 Wheels of Justice gives you the general idea.

In 2016, mega-hunk Brock O'Hurn starred in a homage to the commercial for Icelandic Water.  Only this time there was some gay inclusivity.

See also: Brock C*ck, Part 1: From the God Squad to the Immortal Kane, with bonus Daryl McCormack and James Duval

Scott Madsen: The Soloflex Guy

Jason Bradley Jacobs: From a cowboy cruising in the shower to a cartoon Kentucky Adonis to...well, isn't that enough?

The Sonic Drive-In Guys Are Saving a Gay Kid's Life

Gregory Harrison: Not For Ladies Only

While Magnum and Buck Rogers were grunting and posing, Gregory Harrison was quietly making a name for himself on Trapper John, MD (1979-86) as Gonzo Gates, the irreverent surgeon who lived in a trailer  (don't surgeons make a steady income?) and sunned himself semi-nude in the hospital parking lot.  Lot of beefcake, some minimal buddy-bonding, and two "gay episodes":

In 1981, a swishy gay guy named Judy is hospitalized after a hate crime (they called it "gay bashing" back then). All gay men are drag queens, I get it.   But at least all drag queens aren't homicidal maniacs; Judy turns out to be nice.

And in 1985, one of Nurse Libby's old boyfriends turns out to be gay and have AIDS -- the third AIDS-centered episode on network television.

Gregory Harrison is no stranger to beefcake.  In 1973, he played one of a group of students who romp around nude in The Harrad Experiment, along with Don Johnson, and during the 1970s (and 1980s and 1990s), he was often asked to appear shirtless in his tv and movie appearances, not to mention Battle of the Network Stars. 


But in 1981 he went all the way (or as far as the censors would allow), playing an aspiring actor who becomes a stripper in For Ladies Only.  In spite of the heterosexist title, he got many gay fans and write-ups in gay magazines like Christopher Street.

Nor is he a stranger to bonding.  In North Shore (1987), he plays Chandler, an experienced surfer who lives on the North Shore of Hawaii and begins a buddy-bonding romance with Arizona transplant Rich (Matt Adler, right).  In Red River (1988), he plays Cherry Valance, who buddy-bonds with Matthew Garth (Bruce Boxleiter) during a cattle drive.

Greg has always been quick to acknowledge his gay male fans.  In an interview, he estimated that about a third of his fan emails are about his role in the gay-angst movie It's My Party (1996), in which a gay man with AIDS invites his friends to a party, after which he will commit suicide.


He has also toured as Billy Flynn in the gay favorite Chicago.

See also: Eric Roberts: A career of sleazebag killers and noble gay guys

Tim Matheson

During the 1960s, Tim Matheson voiced some of my favorite cartoon adventurers -- Jonny Quest, Sinbad Jr., Jace on Space Ghost, Young Samson -- all with strong homoerotic friendships.

I didn't actually see him on screen until Yours, Mine, and Ours (1968), about a blended family with 18 kids.   He plays 18-year old Mike, a clean-cut footballer who expresses no interest in girls -- but takes his shirt off, revealing a magnificent physique.

You didn't see shirtless teenagers much in the 1960s.  I was stunned.  And hooked.

I saw him on tv a lot during the 1970s: not a lot of shirtless shots, but lots of intense, passionate same-sex relationships.  For instance, in The Quest, which lasted for only 15 episodes in the fall of 1976, Tim and Kurt Russell play brothers who didn't grow up together, and therefore treat each other more like lovers as they travel the Old West in search of their kidnapped sister.

In The Runaway Barge (1976), Tim and Bo Hopkins, workers on a barge on the Mississippi, struggle to keep it from crashing with a load of chlorine, and end up walking into the sunset together.

 Then something changed.  In Animal House  (1978), Otter (Tim) displayed a beautifully tanned chest in a toga.

Unfortunately, he formed no strong bonds with any of the other boys of Delta House.  Instead, he spent the movie sleeping with every woman in sight, including the Dean's wife.

I continued to go to Tim's movies for a few years.  He was displayed in his underwear or nude a lot, but sometimes beefcake is not enough.

He often played horny teen slackers with little time for same-sex romance.  In Up the Creek (1984), about an intercollegiate rafting race, his Bob has three buddies (Stephen Furst, Dan Monahan, Sandy Helberg), but doesn't buddy-bond with any of them.

Or else New Sensitive Men (like Ryan O'Neal), slim and handsome, but so busy bedding women that they didn't have a lot of time for same-sex romance.

 In A Little Sex (1982), for instance, Michael (Tim Matheson) has a long-term girlfriend plus the dreamy-eyed glances of every woman in town -- but his only male friend is his brother (Edward Herrman).

Or else Ordinary Guys and their wives and kids caught up in paranormal horror.  In Impulse (1984), an earthquake in a small town gives everyone poor impulse control.  Before long, they're fighting, stealing, and having indiscriminate heterosexual sex.

What changed?  The shift from television to movies?  From teen to adult? Or did the culture change, 1980s conservatism, Ronald Reagan, mechanical bulls, "Real Men Don't Eat Quiche," making close same-sex friendships suspect?

I gave up in the mid-1980s.  Since then, Tim has been in over 60 movies  I've seen three.

Miles O'Keefe: 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.

Michael Sarrazin: In the Most Homophobic Movie of All Time?

Handsome "new sensitive man" Michael Sarrazin was a reliable source of beefcake and bulges through the 1970s; unfortunately, you had to look past an endless series of naked ladies to see him.

Born in 1940, he spent the 1960s miscast in Westerns before starring with Jane Fonda in the misnamed They Shoot Horses, Don't They (1969), which is not about shooting horses; it's about the angst-ridden, desperate lives of contestants in a Depression-era dance marathon.

He had found his niche: New Sensitive Men, quirky, sometimes amoral, sometimes criminals, who have lots of sex with The Girl en route to the denouement: Barbara Hershey in The Pursuit of Happiness (1971), Jacqueline Bisset in Believe in Me (1971), Trish Van Der Vere in Harry in Your Pocket (1973).  

Spoiler alert: in The Reincarnation of Peter Proud (1975), which was a big hit in my high school, he makes out with Jennifer O'Neal, only to discover that he's the reincarnation of her father!

By the 1980s, Michael was getting a little long in the tooth for playing quirky young men, and his projects became increasingly sleazy.  But in those days "sleaze" included "gay," so there was a bit of LGBT content:

The Seduction (1982): tv reporter is stalked by a one-night stand.

Mascara (1987): crossdressing police officer has a thing for his sister.

The Phone Call (1989): straight guy calls the wrong phone sex line and is stalked by a gay queen, in what has been called the most homophobic movies of all time.

Not a lot of buddy-bonding, with all that heterosexual sex going on, but there are some glimmers of a homoromance between Michael and Tim Henry in Eye of the Cat (1969).

I'm still going with Chuck and Buck as the most homophobic movie of all time.

Bert Convy Spends the 1970s Nude

I suppose you're wondering who this Bert Convy was, who took his clothes off on both Love Boat (6 times) and Fantasy Island (4 times)?

I'm not sure.  He seemed to just appear in the 1970s,.  He was over 40 years old, with a 20-year career as a Broadway star and pop singer, and before that as a pro baseball player, but I didn't notice until he started strutting around with a Tom Jones Afro and a leisure suit unbuttoned halfway down his smooth, muscular chest. playing slightly befuddled New Sensitive Men in sitcoms and soaps: Mary Tyler Moore, The Partridge Family, Love American Style, Charlie's Angels, Murder She Wrote, and Hotel.  

Google Images said this was him, but it might be wrong. The photo seems too recent -- Bert Convy would have been that age in the early 1960s. (It may be Steve Bond).

But not to worry, the real Bert Convy displayed his physique many during his tenure as the host of about a thousand game shows, including Password (1972), Match Game (1973-74), Tattletales (1974-77, 1982), Win Lose or Draw (1987), and Super Password (1984-89), 

In the spring of 1976, he starred in a short-lived comedy-variety series, The Late Summer Early Fall Bert Convy Show.

He appeared in lots of movies, mostly sex comedies, like Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders (1979), about...you know; Racquet (1979), about a tennis pro who beds women; and Help Wanted: Male (1982), about a career woman who wants a baby but not a husband.  More beefcake shots....

He and Burt Reynolds were best buds (imagine the confusion: "Bert came to my party, but Burt didn't.")  They starred together in the gay-subtext-heavy Semi-Tough (1977) and The Cannonball Run (1981), and produced two tv series together: Weekend Warriors and Win, Lose, or Draw.  

There were some gay rumors, but not a lot. During the 1970s, men drew gay rumors only if they were on the feminine side.  You could hang out with male buds all you wanted, and never make a dent in people's heteronormative expectations.

Besides, Bert was married throughout his career, to Anne Anderson (1959-1990), and, while he was terminally ill, to Catherine Hall (1991).

He died from a brain tumor on July 15, 1991, and was interred at Forest Lawn, among other Hollywood celebrities.

Burt Reynolds came to the funeral.

See also: Love Boat;  Burt Reynolds Naked on a Bearskin Rug

Johnathan Schaech: Playing to His Gay Fans

This is one of the iconic images of the 1990s, a bodybuilder with a Superman hairdo oiled up and flexing against an indeterminate background.

It burst onto the scene in 1994, and suddenly appeared on bedroom walls across West Hollywood.  We all thought that the model was gay, or at least aiming his biceps directly at a gay audience.

Wrong on the first count, maybe not on the second.

He was 25-year old Johnathan Schaech, a fitness model who had just broken into acting.

During the mid and late 1990s, Schaech's biceps could be seen everywhere.  Everyone in San Francisco assumed that he was gay, even when he starred in the hetero-romance How to Make an American Quilt (1995) and The Doom Generation (1995), Greg Araki's tale of a three-way romance between alienated, homophobic teenagers.

Everyone in New York assumed that he was gay, even when he starred in Welcome to Woop Woop (1997), about a con artist in a colorful town in the Australian outback, and Finding Graceland (1998). A guy who thinks he's Elvis, a girl who thinks she's Marilyn Monroe, and Las Vegas.

Plus the usual tv movies about evil boyfriends who terrorize their exes and poor boys who find love with rich women.

Finally, in 2001, he married Christina Applegate, formerly of Married...with Children, and was interviewed in The Advocate, and we discovered that he was heterosexual.  But an ally who was fully aware of his gay fans, and even played to them.

Schaech continued to work in the 2000s, appearing in a couple of movies every year, but he never managed to quite find his niche.  He was too pretty to play Man-Mountains who take out small countries with their bare hands, too buffed to play New Sensitive Men who learn to cry and care.  His roles became increasingly small, hetero-erotic, and fully-clothed.

They Shoot Divas, Don't They?
Mummy an' the Armadillo
Living Hell
Sex and Lies in Sin City
Chromeskull: Laid to Rest 2
Hidden Moon

Plus two kind-of gay roles:
Splendor (1999), about two guys in love with the same girl who decide to share

If You Only Knew (2005), in which a heterosexual guy pretends to be gay so he can share an apartment with the girl he is crushing on.

More recently, Schaech has been starring in tv series like The Client List and Ray Donovan, and become a writer/director/producer.


See also: Harry Houdini and the Gay Ghost.

Robert Redford on Gay Rights

When I was in high school, the heterosexual girls and gay boys swooned over a trio of adult actors who epitomized cool: Steve McQueen, Paul Newman, and Robert Redford.

Redford, who was already in his 40s, didn't have a particularly buffed physique, but he made up for it with a mischievous smile, a gleam in his eye, and the hint of superheroic sexual prowess.  

He came to Hollywood in 1960, and did the rounds of tv guest spots before getting his big break as a morally-dubious movie star in Inside Daisy Clover (1965).

Barefoot in the Park (1967) was the standard "uptight guy meets free spirit girl" romance that we've seen a billion times before, but for some reason it resonated with 1960s audiences, proving that Redford could play a hetero-romantic lead.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1968) was the standard "cowboys in love" romance that we've seen a billion times before, but it also resonated with 1960s audiences, proving that Redford could play gay-subtext buddy-bonding.

He spent the next decade doing both.

Hetero-romance: The Way We Were (1973), The Great Gatsby (1974), Three Days of the Condor (1975).

Gay subtext buddy-bonding: with Michael Pollard in Little Fauss and Big Halsey (1970), George Segal in The Hot Rock (1972),  Dustin Hoffman in All the President's Men (1976).

No explicit gay characters, and he claims he wasn't even aware of the gay subtexts at the time.

During the 1980s, Redford's roles became fewer, as he moved into production, fostering independent films.  He started the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, and the Sundance TV Channel.

Park City, Utah, north of Provo, the heart of Mormon homophobia?  Is Redford...um...homophobic?

He hasn't made a lot of pro-gay statements, but in 2013 he spoke in favor of marriage equality at an event sponsored by Equality Utah.  "Utah is changing," he said.  

Maybe Redford is changing, too.

See also: Michael J. Pollard, Lost Boy

Tim Robbins: New Sensitive Man

Speaking of Tim Robbins, he was one of the most recognizable faces of the 1980s, appearing on tv in Amazing Stories, Hill Street Blues, Love Boat, and Santa Barbara; in teen sex comedies, horror movies, and dramas opposite nearly every star in the business, from Elizabeth Taylor to Jodie Foster.  Although always portrayed as indefatigably hetero-horny, he enjoyed a few buddy-bonding roles:
Fraternity Vacation (1985), with gay actor Stephen Geoffries.

Tapeheads (1988) with John Cusack

The Shawshank Redemption (1994), with Morgan Freeman.

His most iconic role was in Bull Durham (1989), as ball player Nuke Laloosh, triangulating his homoerotic interest in colleague Crash (Kevin Costner) with groupie Annie Savoy (Susan Sarandon).  Plus displaying his body in his underwear, tied up by Annie.  Tim Robbins ended up marrying Susan Sarandon, in spite of his unremarkable beneath-the-belt assets.

In the 1990s and 2000s Tim was involved mostly in serious dramatic roles or sarcastic comedies, with ample nudity but not a lot of gay content: all I could find was Cradle will Rock (1999), with Orson Welles trying to provoke the censors in the 1930s by staging a gay-themed play; and Cinema Verite (2011), about the reality-tv Loud Family of the 1970s.   His characters were New Sensitive Men, occupying a liberal, progressive yet gay-free world.

But he's a gay ally in real life. In 2009, he performed a staged reading of Martin Duberman's Stonewall, about the Stonewall Riots of 1969 that marked the beginning of the Gay Rights Movement.

Richard Benjamin: Not Just About Girls

Many Boomers think of Richard Benjamin as  the quintessential New Sensitive Man, slim, amiable, affluent, slightly befuddled, and utterly obsessed with women. And his career began with many roles as men  whose lives were informed by women: the sitcom He & She (1967-68); Goodbye Columbus (1969), an adaption of the Philip Roth classic novella about alienated young Jewish heterosexuals; Diary of a Mad Housewife (1970), about a housewife who has an affair with an abusive writer; Portnoy's Complaint (1972), about a young Jewish intellectual obsessed with women.

But he quickly broke away from type.  Even Goodbye Columbus had Richard's character bonding with the hunky ex-high school football star Ron Patimkin (Michael Meyers), his girlfriend's brother.

 In The Steagle (1971), Benjamin plays a disillusioned college professor  during the Cuban Missile Crisis who roams the country, adopting different personas and flirting with both men and women along the way, before he decides that there's No Place Like Home (a "steagle" is 1960s slang for a short-lived phenomenon).

In The Last of Sheila (1973), he plays a failed screenwriter invited, along with other tarnished souls, onto a yacht for a "murder mystery game." And the stinger-- one of them might be gay! Actually, most of them have gay "skeletons in the closet" to reveal as the game turns deadly.

Plus a number of comedies and dramas with little heterosexual content: Westworld (1973), Scavenger Hunt (1979), Saturday the 14th (1981), Deconstructing Harry (1997).

Add his total lack of self-consciousness about appearing nude, and you get a pleasantly positive star for gay boys of the Boomer generation.  In spite of the girls hanging around.

Richard Gere

Along with Ryan O’Neal, Richard Gere was a poster boy for affluent, well-groomed heterosexuality, but with an added dash of provocative eroticism.  Ryan was clean-cut, Richard dangerous.  Ryan fell in love, Richard had sex.

His break-out role came in the homophobic Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977), a cautionary tale about the 1970s culture of one-night stands:. Tony (Richard Gere) dates Theresa (Diane Keaton), and stalks her after their breakup.  But she’s actually murdered by Gary (Tom Berenger),  a closeted gay man she picks up in a bar.

The full-frontal nudity in American Gigolo (1980) made him famous in gay circles.  Julian Kane (Richard Gere) is a high-priced prostitute. His clients are women, he hates “fags,” but he’ll do them if necessary.  He also has a distinctly erotic, albeit manipulative relationship with his pimp, Leon (Bill Duke), whom he ends up pushing out a window.

About that time, some right-wing nutjob (no one knows who) made the ridiculous claim that gay men often have sex with gerbils. Before you know it, several celebrities were accused of the practice, Richard Gere among them.  He has wisely said nothing.  One can imagine a Tom Cruise going to the trouble of denying such a ridiculous rumor, but not Richard Gere.

Richard has dlso done extensive buddy bonding roles, as well as playing in the gay-positive Bent on Broadway (1980); in the AIDS drama And the Band Played On (1993); and in the gay favorite Chicago (2002).

A practicing Buddhist and an advocate of liberal political causes, he is a strong gay ally.

Ryan O'Neal

Ryan O'Neal was a Hollywood presence through the 1960s, with five years as rich kid Rodney Harrington on the evening soap Peyton Place (1964-69), plus guest roles on Bachelor Father, Leave It to Beaver, My Three Sons, and Perry Mason. But it was Love Story (1970), a rich boy-poor girl romance that ends tragically, that made him the poster boy of hip heterosexism.

I never saw it, but during the early 1970s, I saw copies of the original Erich Segal novel in endless book bags, I heard Andy Williams singing the theme song every five minutes ("Where do I begin, to tell the story of how great a love can be?"), and I overheard random teenagers telling each other, "Love means never having to say you're sorry." It was awful.

Ryan went on to proclaim the supremacy of the fade-out kiss in movies pairing him with some of the most famous actresses of the era: Barbra Streisand in What's Up, Doc (1972)  and The Main Event (1979), Jacqueline Bisset in The Thief Who Came to Dinner (1973), Madeleine Kahn in Paper Moon (1973), Candace Bergen in Oliver's Story (1978).

Like Richard Gere, the New Sensitive Man was not shy about shirtless, underwear, and nude shots, giving us ample views of his smooth, lean chest and smooth, lean backside. But he was more about romance than eroticism.

And  he was hard to watch. He set the Gay Rights Movement back twenty years with Partners (1982): to solve a series of murders of gay men, the heterosexual Sergeant Benson (Ryan O'Neal) and the closeted Officer Kerwin (John Hurt) go undercover as a couple.  Benson tries to camp it up as much as possible to fit in with the flitty queens, but he keeps being overcome by disgust.

The homophobia doesn't end there. In Tough Guys Don't Dance (1987), Ryan plays a tough guy detective who trounces a gay villain.

With all the heterosexism and homophobia, it's hard to imagine that Ryan would have the time or inclination for buddy-bonding, but he has some.

Wild Rovers (1971), a buddy Western, pairs Ryan with William Holden for hugs, last minute rescues, and a tragic ending.

Barry Lyndon (1975) gives Barry (Ryan) a buddy-bonding friendship with professional gambler, the Chevalier de Baribari (Patrick Magee), with lots of hugs and French-style kissing (plus he stumbles upon two men having sex in a pond).

Ryan's career began to fade during the 1980s, as models of heterosexual masculinity moved in the direction of the man-mountain.  But he's never been out of the public eye, in a life awash with scandals and tragedies.  And, in spite of his heterosexism,  he's always been a quiet supporter of gay rights.