Tony Dow Beefcake, Part 2: The "Leave it to Beaver" big brother flexes, swims, sculpts, and struts with his boyfriend.

Tony Dow, who played big brother Wally to the Beaver (Jerry Mathers) on the iconic nuclear family sitcom Leave It to Beaver (1957-63),  was one of the few teen idols of the period to regularly be photographed shirtless. 

 He was already an athlete, a Junior Olympics diver, when he was cast, and during the five years of Beaver, he just kept bulking up.  He never appeared shirtless on the show itself, but he gladly obliged the teen magazines.

Afterwards he continued to act and direct, appearing on episodes of Quincy ME, Knight Rider, Love Boat, Charles in Charge, and Diagnosis Murder, but mostly in the various Beaver reboots, rehashes, sequels, and parodies. 

Later in life Tony pursued his passion for art, becoming an accomplished sculptor.  He specializes in both cityscapes and the human form.  Here's The Diver in bronze.

Gay men who saw Beaver during its original run are well past retirement age now, but generation after generation are introduced to the series through constant reruns -- you can watch it today on Roku and Peacock.  And others haven't seen the show, but they enjoy the hunkiness. 

Here Tony is wearing the same swim trunks as in the top photo, but in an exterior by the pool.

More after the break

Carl Milles: The Swedish Sculptor of Naked Men

Carl Milles (1875-1955) is the greatest sculptor of Sweden.  Although he claimed to be heterosexual, his sculptures are imbued with homoerotic motifs.

 Many of the most homoerotic are collected or reproduced in the Millesgården, an art gallery and sculpture garden in Stockholm.

1. The Sunsinger, 1926, dedicated to the poem "Song of the Sun," by Esaias Tegnér, a 19th century bishop, translator, and founder of the Gothic League, for young patriotic men. The original lacks a head and arms.  You're not supposed to be looking at the head.

2. The Little Triton (left), half very muscular man, half fish, 1916.

3.William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania, being guided by a very buffed angel, 1948.

4. Vingarne (The Wings), aka Boy with Eagle, 1908.  An interpretation of the story of Ganymede: remember that Zeus fell in love with him, and transformed into an eagle to seduce him properly, later bringing him to Olympus as his..um...cupbearer.  The first gay-themed film in Sweden was named Vingarne after this statue.

5. The Spirit of Transportation, 1952, an Indian carrying a canoe.

6. Aganippe Fountain (left), 1955, a girl being inspired by the Muses, who are all naked men.

7. The Astronomer, 1940, a naked man looking at the stars, 1940.

8. Europa and the Bull, 1942.  This time Zeus appears as a bull to seduce a woman, but in the fountain, they're surrounded by muscular naked tritons (sea gods).

More after the break

Donald De Lue and the Male Nudes of Public Art

The Boy Scout Memorial, on the Ellipse in Washington DC, gives visitors quite an eyeful.  A muscular man who has apparently just stripped is walking beside the boy scout.

He represents nothing more arcane than "American Manhood."  There's a fully-clothed woman, also, representing "American Womanhood."

It is particularly surprising because it was sculpted in 1963, when male nudity was not commonplace in public art, even with the penis covered.

The sculptor was Donald De Lue (1897-1988), who grew up in Boston and studied in Paris, like many artists of his generation.  After eleven years as assistant to sculptor Bryant Baker, he pushed out on his own, specializing in public art.

Stately,  muscular male nudes, gods and other mythological and allegorical figures.

Like this Babylonian-style frieze "Law and Justice," on the Federal Building in Philadelphia, is from 1941, just before the U.S. entered World War II.

Or The Rocket Thrower, created for the 1964 World's Fair, now at Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in Queens, New York.

Among his most famous sculptures is The Spirit of American Youth Rising from the Waves, in the American Cemetery at Normandy (1956).

















Most of his public art hides the penis, but his smaller pieces don't.  The Sun God (1937) is now at the Dallas Museum of Art.

Icarus (1934) is at the Smithsonian.

Of course, drawing artistic inspiration from the bodies of naked, muscular men doesn't necessarily mean that you are gay.  But it doesn't mean that you are straight, either.