Alan Thicke and his "Unusually Thicke" Family

Alan Thicke, who died on December 13th, was best known as the conservative psychiatrist dad on the Reagan Era warmedy Growing Pains (1985-1992), but he was most at ease as a mc.

He got his start as a talk show host, with The Alan Thicke Show (1980-82), renamed Thicke of the Night (1983-84), and through his career he hosted many specials, from the Emmies and the Golden Globes to The Barry Gibb Love and Hope Festival, and narrated many documentaries, from When Mom and Dad Break Up to How Canada Invented Hollywood.

Most recently he starred in a family reality series, Unusually Thicke (2014-2015), along with his wife, his sons and their spouses, and celebrity guest stars like David Hasselhof, Bill Maher, John Stamos, Lance Bass....

And his nephew Creighton Thicke-Rattray (second from left), a college swimming star.













Handsome but not muscular, Alan was a more of a lady's man than a gay fave rave.  He did get a photo shoot in Playgirl.   No nude shots.

And you could see a bulge here and there, leading to lots of jokes about just how thick Alan was.

Today we might make the same speculation about his sons.

Brennan (born 1974) briefly followed his father into show biz. As a child star, he voiced Scott Tracker in the cartoon MASK (1985-85) and Dennis in Dennis the Menace (1986-88).  He now runs a nonprofit marijuana dispensary in California and works for his wife's wedding dress business, Dolly Couture.

Robin (born 1977) is a singer/songwriter who has written and produced several R&B hits, such as "Sex Therapy."  He is best friends with gay singer Usher.

He has obviously inherited his father's looks and...um...other things.

Carter (born 1997) has appeared with his father in Celebrity Wife Swap, Celebrity Family Feud, Unusually Thicke, and the movie It's Not My Fault and I Don' Care Anymore (2015).

He is active in social media, where he has expressed strong support of the LGBT community.

See also: Growing Pains

Kirk Douglas and his Show Biz Dynasty

Hollywood legend Kirk Douglas celebrated his 100th birthday on December 9th.  He's had a career that spanned six decades.  In the 1950s and 1960s he often starred in beefcake-heavy movies as Ulysses (1954), 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954), The Vikings (1958), and Spartacus (1960).

His four sons and grandsons have followed in his footsteps.

Michael (born 1944) was a New Sensitive Man of the 1970s, starring in The Streets of San Francisco (1972-77), Romancing the Stone (1984), and The Jewel of the Nile (1985) before moving on to roles as middle-aged businessmen, cops, and lawyers.  He's played gay characters several times, notably as Liberace (2013).

Joel (born 1947) is a film producer, mostly working on productions with his father and brother.

Peter (left, born 1955) is a tv producer with credits such as The Final Countdown (1980) and Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983)

Eric (1958-2004) was an actor and comedian.  He died of an accidental drug overdose.

Michael's son Cameron (born 1978)  has appeared in four films, including It Runs in the Family (2003).  He spent five years in prison for drug dealing.  Released in 2016, he is anxious to continue his acting career.

Here are two more Douglases.  I don't know if they fit into the family or not.

Ryan

Jason

Slapsie Maxie and Mad Max: Boxers with a Hint of Lavender

I've heard the phrase Slapsie Maxie many times, usually applied in derision to a guy who fights with open-hand slaps rather than closed-fist punches.   It's supposed to suggest that you're a sissy, potentially gay. But only recently did I discover that the phrase originated with a potential landsman.

Born in 1907, Jewish boxer Maxie Rosenbloom (left) had a weak, open-glove punching style that earned him the nickname "Slapsie Maxie."

It was effective: he won 222 of his 298 fights.  But he was hit in the head so often that he lost some motor functioning and reasoning skills, becoming what they called "punch drunk."  

Forced into retirement in 1937, Slapsie Maxie began a new career in the movies, playing "himself" or other big, tough,  slow-witted, "punch drunk" characters.

He also capitalized on the association of "slapping" with effeminancy, playing characters with "a touch of lavender," such as a powder puff salesman in The Boogie Man Will Get You (1942),  a gangster named "Trixie Belle" in Here Comes Kelly (1943), or a Hopalong Cassidy parody named Skipalong Rosenbloom (1951).  

The humor came from seeing someone big and tough who might be gay, or who was too "stupid" to realize that his acts were gender-transgressive.

 In real life, he was married for a few years (1937-45), but he seemed to prefer the company of men, such as trainer and manager Frank Bachmann (left).  And he was not averse to gender-transgressions: apparently a young Davis Hopper saw him in drag at the premiere of Dodge City (1939).

Slapsie Maxie also opened a popular nightclub, Slapsie Maxie's, and made a dent in radio and on tv, playing "himself" in an ongoing role on The Fred Allen Show, and appearing on episodes of The Munsters, I Dream of Jeannie, and The Donna Reed Show.

In 1950, he teamed up with his lifelong friend, another boxer-turned-actor, Max Baer (known as Mad Max, top photo and left), playing the "stooge" who bedevils "straight man" Baer.  They starred "as themselves" in four comedy shorts and toured as the comedy team "The Two Maxies."

They remained close friends until Baer's death in 1959.  Slapsie Maxie died in 1976.

Max Baer's son, Max Baer Jr. (born in 1937) made his own splash in Hollywood as Jethro Bodine, dimwitted backwood Adonis on The Beverly Hillbillies (1962-71).  Later he contributed to gay history by producing Ode to Billy Joe (1976), starring Robby Benson as a gay teenager who commits suicide.

The Top 12 Hunks of "Star Wars"

Star Wars, the science fiction franchise about political machinations and mystic knights in "a galaxy far, far away," began as a one-shot movie in 1977.  It has since blossomed into seven movies (with two more in the works), tv series, and a universe-full of tie-ins -- plus a remarkable amount of beefcake.  Here are the top 10 beefcake stars of the Star Wars movies.

The First Trilogy

1. In which two jedi warriors intervene into a trade dispute on a distant planet and meanwhile meet Annakin Skywalker, a boy with special jedi powers.  He grows into an impestuous teenager  (played by Hayden Chistiansen, left), intervenes into an attempted galactic secession, and eventually goes over to the Dark Side, becoming the evil Darth Vader.

2. Liam Neeson as Qui-Gon Jinn, one of the jedi warriors who mentors Annakin Skywalker.  The other is Obi Wan Kenobi, played by Ewan McGregor, who didn't make the list.

3. Ahmed Best  as Jar-Jar Binks, the grotesque comic relief character.  Although Jar-Jar is computer generated, Ahmed provided the the voice, and the character's presence and movements for the other actors to play against.

4. Hugh Quarshie as Captain Panaka, the captain of the queen's guard.















The Second Trilogy

5. In which young, impetuous Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) joins the rebellion against the evil Galactic Empire, run by the evil Darth Vader, and helps destroy the super-weapon called the Death Star.   Luke eventually discovers that Darth Vader is his father, loses a hand, and destroys the Empire.

6. Harrison Ford as Han Solo,a rogue spaceship captain who grudgingly helps Luke.

7. David Prowse as Darth Vader.  He's always in a black suit and wearing a mask, so we never see him.  James Earl Jones provides the voice.  When he's finally unmasked, Sebastian Shaw provides the face.  Still, there's a muscular former bodybuilder in that Darth Vader suit.

8. Billy Dee Williams as Lando Carissian, a wealthy benefactor to the resistance.

9. The Third Trilogy, in which a new group of rebels arise, called the First Order, but this time they're the bad guys.  They're run by Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), who happens to be the son of Princess Leia and Han Solo from the previous trilogy.  Only one movie has appeared to date.














10. John Boyega as Finn, a reformed stormtrooper who joins forces with the Resistance (a paramilitary group dedicated to squashing the First Order).

11. Oscar Isaac as Poe Dameron, a resistance fighter who buddy bonds with Finn.

12. Domhnall Gleeson as General Hux, one of the First Order warriors.