James Royce Edwards

If you've been anywhere near a muscle magazine in the last ten years, you know fitness model and personal trainer James Royce Edwards (left).

But he is also an accomplished singer, dancer, and actor.  Of course, his theatrical roles tend to emphasize his physique.

Early in his career, when he was still doing regional theater, he starred in several Disney plays, including Tarzan, The Little Mermaid, and Aladdin.  

Plus The Little Shop of Horrors, Grease, Footloose, Bye Bye Birdie, The Rocky Horror Picture Show Live (as Rocky, naturally), Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (as both Joseph and the Pharaoh), and Miss Saigon.

Off-Broadway, he's starred in the boy-band comedy Altar Boyz (which has a gay altar boy), Wanda's World, Ty Belvedere, and Matthew Passion (which juxtaposes the death of Christ recounted in the Book of Matthew with the murder of gay college student Matthew Shepherd).

And he's starred on Broadway or in national tours of Hairspray, Mamma Mia, Pippin, All Shook Up, Les Miserables, and How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

Top photo: he poses in underwear with Michael Jason Blaine (his stage son Theo) in Pippin.

When there are no gay texts, he ensures that there are gay subtexts.  Here's a "Brokeback Mountain" scene from Pippin.

You can also see James on tv in True Blood, Passions, and in the movie Star Child.