Adrian Zmed After Dark

On an episode of The Simpsons, the family goes to a review featuring the once-famous:
     We are the stars that you thought were dead,
     Like Bonnie Franklin and Adrian Zmed.

People who weren't watching television or going to moves during the early 1980s probably thought "I didn't think Adrian Zmed was dead, I never heard of him."  But during that brief few years, the sultry black-haired Romanian-American actor -- and his amazingly ripped physique -- was everywhere.

He sang and danced as a John Travolta clone in Grease 2 (1982), also starring Maxwell Caulfield.

He partied with Tom Hanks in Bachelor Party (1984).

He bonded with William Shatner in the police drama T.J. Hooker (1982-85).

He hosted Dance Fever

He guest starred on Bosom Buddies, Love Boat, Hotel, Glitter, and Empty Nest.

He appeared in Battle of the Network Stars (a reality series that was really an excuse to get male tv stars into speedos).  He didn't win any awards, but he got to hug Scott Baio.

His full-body speedo shots were more than enough to draw the attention of gay fans, but his characters always had a blatant interest in same-sex chums, regardless of whether they got the girl in the end.

In Grease 2, for instance, the plot revolves around an "opposites attract" between greaser Johnny (Zmed) and uptight British newcomer Michael (Maxwell Caulfield).

And, unlike most beefcake stars of the 1980s, he was aware of his gay fans, and actually played to them.  He remains a strong gay ally, like his "bosom buddy" Tom Hanks.

By the late 1980s, the Adrian Zmed train had stalled, perhaps overloaded by overexposure.  Though he has never stopped acting, the era of speedo shots is long gone.

Dane's Polar Plunge: a 365 day Lake Tahoe Challenge, with Scott Gaffney, Danish d*cks, and the n*de dudes of Notre Dame

  

Link to the n*ude dudes

I don't usually do profiles of non-actors, but this is amazing.  His name is Dane, he's a student at North Tahoe High School, and he's jumping into Lake Tahoe every day for a year.   Even on Day 190: Water temperature 39.3, air temperature 32.  That's Fahrenheit. 

 

Day 173: Gray, cloudy. Water temperature 37.3, air 33.0.  Dane walked through the snow-- barefoot! -- toward his icy plunge.

On Day 184, he brought his Dad, professional skiier Scott Gaffney Water temperature 48.5, air 55.

On Day 120, he brought the North Tahoe High School Varsity Basketball Team -- at least the ones brave enough to try. Water temperature 39 degrees, air with wind chill 19.  

The Wildflour Baking Company in Tahoe donated some donuts.  How about space heaters?

I can't imagine being interested in the aesthetics of the p*enis after all that icy plunging, but there are some guys running n*aked through the snow on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends

Plus n*de Danish dudes in the snow outside an ice cream stand. 

An ice cream stand?

More after the break.  Caution: Icy.

The Gay Plot Arc of Robbie Hobbie

 

Hollie Hobbie (2018-2021) is a Hulu series about a young girl with Big Dreams in a small town.  Who would make a tv series about the 1970s doll who wore 19th century outfits?  And more importantly, was older brother Robbie Hollie, gay-coded, like older brothers in many other teencoms?  So I went through the entire first season, fast-forwarding to Robbie's scenes.

Season 1 Episode 1: No connection to the doll, except someone dresses like her during the opening credits.  We meet Hollie's parents (Dad Evan Buliung, left), boyfriend (Hunter Dillon, below), best friends, little sister Heather (the bratty, manipulate younger sibling cliche), and Robbie (the dimwitted jock cliche).

Ep. 2: Robbie's first B plot, sneaking into a bull pen with some friends to take photographs.  He doesn't get one, so he returns later with a girl,  and accidentally lets the bull out.  It then eats the an important cucumber.

Ep 3: Robbie teaches little sister how to arm wrestle, so she can beat her frenemy and future boyfriend Levi, thus proving that girls are better than boys.  It's hard to distinguish him on fast-forward, since he looks a lot like Hollie's boyfriend.

Ep 4: Robbie tries to blame the destruction of the cucumber on Hollie's boyfriend.  It's a big mess.  Finally he comes clean.  No heterosexual interest yet, unless you count his bull pen companion.

Ep 5: As punishment for the cucumber deal, Robbie and Hollie have to build a chicken coop.  But Robbie blows it off to play football.  Hollie yells "I hope you break your leg," and he does!

Ep 6: Robbie on crutches.  He can't play football anymore, so he has lost his identity.  Dad assigns him the job of fixing a broken tractor, to teach him responsibility or something. No heterosexual interest yet, but some macho football stuff.  There are gay football players in real life, of course, but it's not a standard tv trope.

Ep 7: No centric.

Ep 8: Hollie and her boyfriend run away together.  I thought this was Canada, but it turns out to be small-town Wisconsin.  In the B plot, Robbie and Little Sister accidentally break the urn containing the ashes of their beloved pet, and somehow Dad mistakes it for brownies.

Ep 9:  Ulp -- Robbie is all lovey-dovey with Lyla, who appeared in the bull pen episode, but hasn't had any scenes with him since.   He's got a new life plan -- skip college and become  Lyla's househusband.  He proposes, and she says yes, to the consternation of the parents.  But it turns out that they were just playing a joke, to get even with the parents for pushing college so aggressively.  So, was he actually dating Lyla, or was the relationship part of the joke?

To find out, I watched the last episode she appears in, Season 3, Episode 9:  Robbie's artisanal jam has become a hit.  A company in Madison wants to hire him to start a jam line.  Little Sister Heather calls them and says he doesn't want the job,  so he won't leave town.  He is angry, of course, but she explains that she doesn't want to lose her best friend (Isn't Madison like an hour away?).  Robbie  opens up his business right there in town, so problem solved. 

Robbie and Lyla don't have any scenes together.  She has become one of Hollie's friends.  

Season 3, Episode 10.  The series finale.  Hollie is moving to Paris for a singing job.  Grandpa is getting married.  At the wedding reception, Robbie is dancing...with a guy!  It's a "blink and you miss it" shot in the final montage of the last episode. But it's there.

So...couldn't Robbie open his artisanal jam shop in West Hollywood?

"North by North": An Inuk lady, her gay bff, some paranormal, some Inuk culture, and some musclemen. With Jay's junk and a bonus n*de dude

Link to the n*de dudes 

North of North (2025) appeared without warning on my Netflix list: a woman feels stifled in her tiny village in the Artic.  I can relate to that, so let's go.

Scene 1: While showering (only shoulders visible), a young woman  named Siaja explains that she's from as far north as you've ever been.  I think that's Calgary in the Western Hemisphere, and maybe Oslo in Europe.  Then much farther north than that: Ice Cove, Nunavut.  

A quirky Canadian small town and Inuit culture?  I'm there. 

Siaja has achieved the Canadian Dream, with a husband and child.  Only now husband Ting (Kelly William, top photo) is the Golden Boy of the town, and she's only known as his wife.

First up: he gets to drive the car to the Spring Festival, while she has to haul the supplies on a lame Ski-Doo (snowmobile).

Scene 2: She drops in at Mom's very nice house -- lots of windows -- and announces that because it's a new year, she's going to apply for a job.  Mom dispproves: you're a wife and mother. That's your job.

Mom opens the store next door, which sells artisanal soap and miscellaneous stuff.  Suddenly her hookup from last night walks in, shirtless.  Siaja asks where he was in 1998 -- he could be her father!  He scrams.  

Mom criticizes her for scaring all of her hookups away.  How many hookups could she get in a town of about 2,000, with no tourist trade and the nearest neighbor 300 miles away?

Left: I think the Handsome Man is played by Jeff Roup. who shows his d*ck on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends

Scene 3: Siaja leaves her child for Mom to babysit and heads for the town headquarters, which has a restaurant, some offices, and the radio station: DJ announces the seal hunt this afternoon and the naming of the festival king and queen this evening.

A blond woman named Helen, apparently the town mayor, comes in complaining about the 14-hour days that supervising the festival takes, while other town business just sits there.  Siaja butters her up with coffee and suggests other cultural activities spread through the year.  Didn't you just hear her?  And she wants to be hired as a full-time cultural manager. 

"Nope.  You have zero work experience and no leadership skills."

"But I see life and beauty in everything!"  At that moment, a guy walks in, wanting to know where to put the fish heads.

Scene 4: While Radio Announcer Colin (Bailey Poching) and a purple-haired woman are discussing how much partying to do tonight, Siaja comes into their office and screams.  Helen didn't even look at her job proposal.

Left: Bailey Poching is gay in real life.

"Why do you want a job anyway?"

"To make our community a better place...ok, I want something of my own."  

"But Inuit culture is all about community.  Your own needs are irrelevant."

When Helen comes in to order the others to get back to work, Siaja asks for a chance.  Couldn't you get a job, like, somewhere else?   Ok, a petition to prove that the town wants a cultural director.  500 signatures -- but that's a quarter of the town! -- by tonight!

More after the break

Don Johnson and the Gay Community

Don Johnson had a close relationship with the gay community from the start.  In 1968 he dropped out of the University of Kansas to enroll in the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, and immediately landed the starring role in Fortune and Men's Eyes, a play about a teenager who is sexually assaulted in prison.  He moved to Los Angeles to play the lead in the 1971 film version, directed by famous gay actor (who became his roommate).

And lover (according to the rumor mill).  But then, if Sal Mineo really had relationships with everyone the rumor mill said he did, he would have been too tired to act.

Don also played the titular character, who grooves on both men and women in  The Magic Garden of Stanley Sweetheart (1970) -- one of the songs, "Sweet Gingerbread Man," was covered by Bobby Sherman

A boy at an experimental college, where he was naked and having sex with ladies all the time, in The Harrad Experiment (1973).  Gregory Harrison played one of his classmates, also naked and having sex all the time.

Traveling through a bleak postapocalyptic world in A Boy and His Dog (1975), who gets captured and used as a breeder in a crazy underground city where the men are mostly sterile.  It was re-envisioned in 2010 in Cartoon Network's Adventure Time. 

And so on through the 1970s, in vehicles that were sometimes gritty, sometimes surreal, but always emphasized Don's sexual desirability -- to both men and women.

As the counterculture waned, he found himself in conventional heterosexist roles in tv series like The Rookies, Streets of San Francisco, and Barnaby Jones, and tv movies like The Rebels, Revenge of the Stepford Wives, and Six Pack.  

He made something of a comeback in Miami Vice (1984-1990),about an odd-couple of vice cops making the scene with fast cars, stylish clothes, and lots of buddy-bonding.  Crockett (Don Johnson) was the good old boy who grew up in rural northern Florida and had a pet alligator named Elvis; Tubbs (Philip Michael Thomas) was the streetwise New Yorker.

The buddy-bonding  is not nearly as intense as in Starsky and Hutch decade before, and interspersed with lots of heterosexual hijinks.  But during the homophobic 1980s, it was about all you could expect.

Gemstone Episode 4.5, Continued: Kelvin crashes, the Monkey fumes, and Eli gets a wake-up call. With Stefano, Beghe, and Keaton d*ck

 

Previous: Gemstones Episode 4.5: The dirt on Vance, Big D*ck Mitch, Lori, and Teen Jesus.  With Gossip Girl's Dad and a Queen's d*ck

Link to the n*de dudes

So far in this episode, we've learned that Vance Simkins has destroyed his parents' empire by being an outdated, reactionary jerk; Lori's ex-boyfriends keep getting killed; and Kelvin's hubris is off the charts.  

Lori's Edibles: Lori and Eli want to give the siblings "some space," so they move to her house. Wait -- I thought she was living in Pigeon Forge.  If she's been living in Charleston the whole time, why hasn't she visited the Gemstones for years?

Corey meets them at the door: he dropped by to bring dinner, "Kung Pao Dynasty." Also, he left her edibles by the microwave.   Eli doesn't know what edibles are, so Miss Lori explains. Apparently he's ok with drug use now; he wasn't in earlier seasons.

Corey shakes Eli's hand and says "Have fun, you two," but as he walks away, he grimaces.  He's been killing the ex-boyfriends.

Meanwhile, Kelvin in a flamboyant costume is being photographed with the other conservatively-dressed nominees for Top Christian Man. And it's time for the Live TV Roundtable.  

The full cast list is not in the episode credits or the IMDB, but I think the conservative minister being hugged by Kelvin is Chad Darnell (top photo and left), who is gay in real life.  He works primarily in casting, but he has 21 screen credits, and a lot of theater work, including the gay-themed Love! Valour! Compassion!, Forced, and Hedwig and the Angry Inch.

Plus some gay-themed screenplays and two novels.

He's got a biopic of famous gay adult video star Joe Stefano (1968-1994) in development.

By the way, Sean Ryan Fox will finally appear as Young Corey in Episode 2.6 .

No, I am not stalling.

Back to the roundtable discussion, led by Stevie from Eastbound and Down.  First question:"Should children be taught a comprehensive overview of all major religions in school?" 

Kelvin jumps in, but doesn't answer the question.  Instead, he blathers about "I teach my followers everything good about Jesus.  The Bible can be confusing, so we translate it for modern, cutting-edge times." You're not qualified to be a Bible translator.  How about explaining passages in their historical/cultural context?  

Vance complains about "a homosexual" being nominated for the award.  "God's Word is clear on this issue."  Uh-oh, how are you on the Clobber Verses, Kelvin?

He's not good on the Clobber Verses.  "Um...um..lots of parts of the Bible are outdated." No, they don't refer to contemporary gay people at all!  Get with your queer theology.

When I was just coming out, I jointed the gay-specific Metropolitan Community Church.  Most members were recovering from Evangelical trauma, so every sermon -- every sermon -- was about how being gay is not a sin or a defect.  Sometimes there was detailed exegesis of specific Clobber Verses, sometimes just "God loves you."  

Anybody who's been gay and Christian for five minutes could respond to this very vague attack easily.  And Kelvin works with queer youth, so he must have to deal with religious trauma all the time.  But he apparently doesn't even know the basics.  Hey, Kelv Baby, some books for your library.  There are hundreds more.

 All he can think of is: "Um...the Bible...um...also forbids eating shellfish."

Vance doesn't eat shellfish. How about wearing mixed fibers?   Why haven't you stoned your sister to death for having extra-marital sex?  And sold your brother into slavery?

See how easy it is?

More after the break

Robert Conrad Dares You

We're used to thinking of Robert Conrad as a two-fisted action hero, but he originally wanted to be a singer.  During the late 1950s and early 1960s, the former professional boxer released a number of teen idol-style crooner records, but the market was overcrowded with Paul Anka, Fabian, Elvis, Frankie Avalon, Pat Boone, and nearly everyone else who could hold a tune.

Bob's records didn't sell, not even with the color shots of his impressive physique.

In 1959, Bob landed a role as Tom Lopaka, the half-Hawaiian partner of detective Tracey Steele (Anthony Eisley) on Hawaiian Eye.  Many of the cases took place on the beach, allowing Bob to strip down to a swimsuit or short-cut jeans.  The buddy-bonding was intense, and there weren't a huge number of episodes in which Tom meets a girl.


When Hawaiian Eye ended in 1963, Bob's singing career was forgotten; after starring against type in the beach movie Palm Springs Weekend (1963), he moved almost into the program that Boomers remember fondly: Wild Wild West (1965-69), a combination of the classic Western with the 1960s spy craze (other examples include Get Smart, The Secret of Boyne Castle, I Spy, and Mission: Impossible.

In the 1870s, special agents James West (Robert Conrad) and Artemus Gordon (Ross Martin) travel through the Old West on the orders of President Grant. They use disguises and weird science fiction gadgets to foil spies, mad scentists, enemy agents, rebels, and miscellaneous high-tech scalawags.

West is tied up shirtless in nearly every episode.  He usually frees himself, but sometimes Gordeon storms to the rescue.

Unfortunately, there wasn't much buddy-bonding. West and Gordon were coworkers, not buddies, and they both leered at women nearly as often as they fell in love.









Bob had found his niche: tongue-in-cheek adventure.  During the next two decades, he was never very far from a tv series: The D.A. (1971-72), Assignment Vienna (1972-73), Black Sheep Squadron (1976-78), A Man Called Sloane (1979).  Although he had time for two buddy-bonding movies with Don Stroud.

When tongue-in-cheek adventure went out of style during the early 1980s, Bob switched to comedy (Wrong is Right, Moving Violations) or drama (Assassin, Charley Hannah).  But he rarely forgot to include a shirtless scene or two.

He parodied himself in a series of commercials for Ever-Ready Batteries in the 1980s, daring the viewer to knock a battery off his shoulder (traditionally one starts fights by daring someone to knock a chip off one's shoulder).

The rumor mill suggested that he was bisexual, and during the 1950s had liaisons with some of the great closeted actors in Hollywood, such as Tab Hunter, Wally Cox, and Rock Hudson.  Bob denied the rumors, stating to the press "I'm not gay" several times.

Ethan Wacker: The former teen spy, Bizaardvark manager, and Vanderbilt fratboy looks good in a suit

 

Link to the n*de photos

I only knew three things about Ethan Wacker before beginning the research: 

1. At 5'7", he's a member of the Short Guy Brigade

2. He has an amazing physique.

3. He has a lot of male friends.  

A lot of male friends.

Actually, I'm getting tired of posting photos of Ethan and his male friends.  Let's check his biography.

Born in Connecticut in 2002, moved to South Korea and then to Hawaii.

His acting credits begin in 2006 (at the age of four!) with a video game called Papa Louie: When Pizza Attacks

More video games and animation followed, plus two episodes of the teencom KC Undercover (2015-18), a Disney Channel teencom about "an outspoken and confident technology whiz and skilled black belt" who becomes a spy.   

Ethan played the son of the Vice President of the U.S. 

Then he appeared in Hawaii Five-0, See Plum Run, Tour of Mythicality, and 63 episodes of Bizaardvark (2016-2019).  

More after the break

Donelan: It's a Gay Life

When I was in grad school in Bloomington, I was able to get copies of The Advocate at the adult bookstore.  One of my favorite features was a series of single-panel New Yorker-style cartoons, "It's a Gay Life," by Donelan,  lampooning the culture of 1970s gay neighborhoods: brunch, boyfriends, leathermen, queens, cruising, decorating, activism....

"Oh, please, girlfriend.  Isn't brunch a little too early for attitude?"

Some cartoons were about the reaction of straights, those who knew -- and were ok with it.  In a clueless, stereotyping way.

"I know a homosexual.  George knows a homosexual.  You must have so much in common.  So here we are.

Others who didn't know, and didn't want to know.

"Did your roommate just say he was going to 'freshen his makeup'?"

I was most drawn to the cartoons depicting gay men in pairs and groups.  There was a whole society out there somewhere, a place where being gay was commonplace, even expected, where straights were the interlopers and strangers.

"I'd be more impressed if you could name me one man here you haven't dated."

I wanted that world.

Gerald P. Donelan grew up in Plymouth, Massachusetts, and moved to San Francisco in the 1970s.  He published "It's a Gay Life" from 1978 to 1993.  There were two  reprints of his cartoons: Drawing on the Gay Experience (1987) and Donelan's Back (1988).  His work also appeared in Frontiers and in the Meatmen series of gay comic anthologies.

Today his work seems a bit dated, keying into feminine stereotypes a bit too much.  But in the height of the homophobic 1980s, it was a revelation.

"Tell me again the difference between eclectic and tacky."

See also: Howard Cruse.

Gemstones Episode 4.5: The dirt on Vance, Mitch, Lori, and Teen Jesus. With Gossip GIrl's Dad and and a Queen c*ock

  

Previous: Gemstones Episode 4.4: Keefe in drag, Pontius with three dicks, Jasper with one, and Casper the Friendly Ghost

Link to the nude dudes

Title: "You Shall Remember," from Deuteronomy 8.18: "You shall remember the Lord your God, for it is He who gives you the power to get wealth, that He may establish His covenant."  The Gemstones have forgotten that God made them rich so they can help people.  Tonight they'll get their comeuppance.  

The Dirt on Vance: Vance Simkins (Stephen Dorff) examines his burnt-out church, fuming, and glares at the Gemstone satellite church across the street.  Cut to a Simpkins Commercial with him and his siblings, Craig and Shay, saying: "Grace.. .Praise... Rejoice..  Salvation."

Vance calls his siblings to his office, but Shay won't come ("she wants nothing to do with you") and Craig (Gogo Lomo David) is just there for his money: their parents' estate put Vance in charge, so he has to depend on hand-outs.  Vance gives him $10,000, and tells him to make it last.

Craig criticizes Vance for running the church into the ground,destroying their parents' legacy.  He keeps trying to open new churches when they're broke, just to compete with the Gemstones: "You can't admit you're beat, can you?"  

Vance protests that he's going to win the Top Christ Following Man Award. 

"You're a straight white man," Craig digs. "Your kind don't get awards anymore. Wait -- are you straight?  Never had a girlfriend, sweetie-pie."  Enraged by the implication, Vance slaps Craig and throws him onto the desk.

Uh-oh, a church deacon saw the attack.  Vance is violent, like Uncle Peter in Season 3 and Lyle Lissons in Season 2....he's the Big Bad of the season!

Vance had some queer codes back in Season 3, when he swished around with that tiny dog.  It would make sense for him to be gay and closeted.

Baby Billy and Kelvin in Decline:  Baby Billy finishes his screenplay about a teenage Jesus and his friends, changes the title from "Teen Jesus" to "Teenjus," and snorts some cocaine.  That's the Belly of the Beast in the Gemstone universe, buddy.

Cut to Kelvin and Keefe rushing through the crowd of queer well-wishers to a party to celebrate his Top Christ Following Man nomination.  Jesse, Amber, and Judy look angry; Eli, Lori, and Gideon look happy.  Abraham looks intrigued; Pontius sneers.  Another of Jesse's kids comes out.

They begin partying.  Kelvin joins his siblings to gloat at the big turnout.  Judy sneers: "You're their little gay avatar."  Jesse: "You need to stop smelling your farts."  Translation: He's getting way too conceited about this award thing.

Lori drops by.  They criticize her for having sex with their father.  She promises to lock the door next time, and asks if they can start over and be friends again.  She's known them all their lives.  Nope, "We reject this union."  

Lori: "All y'all little c*cksuckers better put on your big boy pants and get the f*uck over it."  Hey, that's homophobic, and at a LGBTQ event!  My estimation of Lori dropped 20 points. 

She continues: "I wanted to be y'all's friend, but if you want a wicked stepmother, I can do that, too."  

The siblings interpret "stepmother" to mean that Lori and Eli got married.  They are disgusted. 

Baby Billy is Doomed. Cut to Baby Billy and Tiffany cuddling in a swing, while the Nanny cleans the pool.  He describes their life as idyllic, but it's going to get better.  They'll make a fortune with his new project, Teenjus.

The Nanny notes that she likes teen dramas like Pretty Little Liars and Gossip Girl.  She would watch it. Baby Billy yells at her.

Left: Matthew Settle, who played Rufus on "Gossip Girl" 

Tiffany suggests that Baby Billy retire so he will be around for their children growing up, but he refuses. He's got to seize this opportunity.  "I got to provide for you.  I don't know how much time I got."  Another precursor of doom.

BJ's Injury. BJ tries to make it from the toilet to his wheelchair, but fails and falls into the bathtub. Judy rushes in to help.  He complains that he can't even pee on his own. "I'm broken. I'm half a man."

Judy points out that the doctors say he will have a full recovery, but he won't believe it. When she tries to help him out of the bathtub, he angrily yells at her to go.  

Amber arrives to see how they are doing -- they're both miserable -- and to give Judy service monkey named Dr. Watson.  She works with a charity that trains service monkeys for disabled veterans.

More after the break

Viva Las Vegas: Elvis and Cesare Danova Find Each Other

Viva Las Vegas (1964) is a comedy-drama produced during the height of early-1960s cool, when Vegas still meant gambling, booze, and the Rat Pack.  And at the height of the 1960s Italian craze.  How could it go wrong?

Two racing enthusiasts, working-class country boy Lucky (Elvis Presley) and elite Italian Count Elmo Mancini (Cesare Danova) accidentally encounter each other at an auto garage.  They know each other by reputation, but have never met before.  Mancini offers Lucky a job driving his car in upcoming Las Vegas Grand Prix, and Lucky refuses.  He will drive his own car.  They will be competitors.

The association would usually end there, but not in Lucky Las Vegas. Both guys have fallen in love at first sight with a girl named Rusty (Ann-Margret), but they don't know much about her.  They decide to join forces to try to track her down.

They spend the next several days together, hitting the Vegas nightspots, ostensibly looking for Rusty, but obviously having a wonderful time without her.

Then they find her.  They are in Mancini's hotel room, getting dressed -- wait, have they been sleeping together?  -- and Elvis says it's time to say goodbye.

Only he doesn't leave.

The two "competitors" spend the rest of the movie vaguely competing over the race and the girl, but it's obvious that they don't care much who wins, as long as they can cling together like long-lost brothers.

The final scene involves a wedding, but Mancini, Lucky, and Rusty are so tightly enclinched that one is not entirely certain who is marrying whom.

The gay subtext is blatant, yet so dependent upon intonation and gesture, that one wonders if Elvis and Cesare Danova were really into each other.  Elvis has long been rumored to be bisexual.  I haven't heard a lot of gay rumors about Cesare Danova, only that he became a born-again Christian in the 1970s, and had his tombstone inscribed with "Praise the Lord."

The music is energetic, and the dance numbers are great. Ann-Margret steals the show.  Highly recommended.

David Henrie: The Wizard of Waverly Place re-wizards, but is he as gay-friendly and n*de as his costars?

Link to the n*de dudes

I thought lightning might strike twice, or rather five times. The Wizards of Waverly Place, which ran on the Disney Channel from 2007 to 2012, featured countless gay subtexts and about a dozen beefcake hunks who have gone on to a gay-positive adulthood.

Gregg Sulkin, left, displays his physique in gay magazines.

Jake T. Austin starred in the gay-friendly The Fosters.

Dan Benson runs a gay-friendly OnlyFans page, where he reviews adult products and shows his d*ck.

Selena Gomez is "mostly straight," and reveals that her character, Alex Russo, was bisexual, but the Disney censors wouldn't let them say so.

David DeLuise is a gay ally who has a n*de video online -- after the break.

So what about David Henrie, who played eldest wizard in the family, Justin Russo?

Since Wizards, he has done a lot of voice work, and had minor roles in movies: 

Lane in Paul Blart, Mall Cop

Rudy Isling -- Walt Disney's competitor -- in Walt Before Mickey.

Clean Cut Man in Cardboard Boxer, about a homeless man who is forced into cage matches.

Sebastian in This is the Year, about a teen road trip.  David also directed, and his brother Lorenzo Henrie starred.  

The Young Ronald Reagan in a 2024 biopic.  Ugh.

Six episodes of Underdeveloped, a mockumentary about inept producers.

No gay content here.

More after the break

Cory Chapman: Lots of male friends, some gay roles, a queer buddy, nude costars. So where's the beef?

  

Link to the n*de dudes

Atlanta-based actor Cory Chapman leans toward the dark, deviant, and dangerous in his acting roles.  His demo reel shows him being shot, beat up, and arrested over and over.

He first appears in the IMDB in 2012 as "Bad Guy" in Dark Child: The Short Film.

Then a teenage bully in A Love Story.

An "obnoxious egghead" in Foul Mouths: A Teenage Rage, 2013.

A bully in Hear on Evil, 2014.

A bully in Core: A Short Film about Bullying, 2014.

A robber in Hi, 2014

A thug in Better Call Saul, 2018

A stalker in Creep, 2018.

A militia man in The Righteous Gemstones, 2023

One would expect I'm Not Ashamed, 2016, to be about LGBT people, referencing Marlon Brando's famous statement: "I have had homosexual experiences, and I am not ashamed."  Actually it's about the Columbine school shooting.  

Cory has worked in some comedies and dramas, too.  He specializes in playing the white guy in movies and tv shows with an African-American cast:  Groomsman, Kita Lashon, Off the Chainz, Divide and Conquer, The Generational Gap. 

And some gay-themed projects, such as the Facebook series One Love and Boys 2 Gay, and a short about oral sex.

When I was researching Jamar Pusch, I kept complaining that his social media had no interesting photos or clips: no travel, no humor, no family and friends, just flexing and flexing and flexing.  You can only swoon over a guy's muscles and penis for so long. After awhile you're going to want to have a conversation. 

More Cory after the break