Are You Ready for the Summer?

Yes, Memorial Day Weekend is upon us and that means one big thing in The Underworld, the official opening of all the swimming pools!  Yay!  We like to celebrate and commemorate the occasion around here with a parade... of famous men in swimsuits (anytime possible, a Speedo!) Okay, so the cover photo isn't of famous folk (no clue who they are or where they are), but can you really quibble about that when examining the blistering hotness?! Today's post title comes from the opening credits song of the Bill Murray summer camp comedy Meatballs (1979) and we are always ready for summer! As promised, we've reemerged from our hiatus long enough to curate this phenomenon, so grab your binoculars or your shades and let's get this procession underway!

Toweling off while resting on the diving board is none other than a young Fred MacMurray, eons before My Three Sons.

Just look at that face and dreamy head full of curls!

John Payne is, as one of my regular readers once pointed out in a comment, "the gift that keeps on giving!"

Boy, I'd love to have seen the rest of Burt Lancaster's little white suit. Did you know that Burt made his film debut at age thirty-five?!

We adore Lex Barker and adore this shot of him on the beach!

Vic Damone, singer and sometimes-actor, is not known for his beefcake-y physique...

...but this second shot of his legs convinced me to include him here.

We've had photos here before of young Lawrence Tierney (later the hulking, bald baddie of movies like Reservoir Dogs, 1992, and others) in the 1946 mystery Step by Step, but recently we actually got to see it!

It's a charming little B-movie with the added bonus of not only Anne Jeffreys, but extended sequences of Tierney in an abbreviated pair of swim trunks.

And, doggie lover that I am, there's even the delight of his having a canine costar (who, if it isn't Terry, the Cairn terrier of Wizard of Oz fame, is just as talented!)

This little known film, You Can't Ration Love (1944), examines the lack of available college boys in the U.S. during WWII, but some of what was left looked to be choice!

In 1956's Revenge of the Creature, John Agar (ex-husband of Shirley Temple) sports a trim swimsuit. (That's humpy John Bromfield on the ground and we'll spy more of him in a minute!)

We can't see too much of Fernando Lamas' suit here in Dangerous When Wet (1953), but I have one more of him coming up, too. Costar Esther Williams later became his wife, but not until sixteen years after this! At this point, he and Lana Turner were heavily involved.

In 1956's An Affair to Remember, we don't get a decent look at Cary Grant's shipboard swimsuit, but thanks to this wardrobe test, we do now!

Ah... Here's the dreamy John Bromfield again, this time in Easy to Love (1953) with Esther Williams. He is indeed easy to love. We heartily approve of the view in Ms. Williams' vanity table mirror, by the way!

I do believe costar Van Johnson also has fun looking Mr. Bromfield over, be it in the eye or anyplace else!

Here's an interesting 1930s-style suit in a 1960s film. We love the way it hugs the buns when wet. Recognize the slim gent swimming in a cavern with Shirley MacLaine?

Why, it's beauteous Frenchman Alain Delon in The Yellow Rolls-Royce (1964.)

It takes quite a guy to make these old-fashioned type suits look hot, but he accomplishes the task with ease.

Mr. Cory (1957) had mountain resort busboy Tony Curtis canoodling with the wealthy debutante Martha Hyer in a vividly-patterned suit.

And here is Mr. Marvelous again, Fernando Lamas, in a skin tight suit. I think I detect some airbrushing on the part of the studio photographers in order to take this portrait from an R to a PG! Tales of Lamas' scene-stealing member from the Broadway production of Ethel Merman's Happy Hunting always make me chuckle.

Most of us have seen the eye-opening photo of Tab Hunter and John Bromfield serving up a meal while below deck on a boat, but how many of you are familiar with this other shot? JB should have had his initials flip-flopped on that suit in order to give Tab the right idea! LOL

Here is Tab with one of his favorite studio-arranged date-mates, Lori Nelson.

Years later, Mr. Hunter still had it goin' on!

Former Mae West squeeze-mate, later the husband of Miss Jayne Mansfield, bodybuilder Mickey Hargitay (yes, Mariska's dad!)

There are plenty of shots of Mr. Steve Cochran on this site in clingy trunks and, though he isn't IN them this time, we get to see him selecting a (starched?!) set from Merle Oberon's collection in Of Love and Desire (1963),a must-see film!

Many of my readers have a strong affection for Mr. John Saxon, so I was only to happy to come upon these shots of him and include them here today.

Rossano Brazzi (of South Pacific, 1958, fame) has a nearly scandalous bikini in this shot. Yum!

If this shot of Elke Sommer and drop-dead gorgeous Rik Battaglia is any indication, the 1961 Richard Todd film Why Bother to Knock needs to be viewed as soon as humanly possible!

Best known for The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1964-1968), David McCallum also did plenty of movie work and was the husband of Jill Ireland before she took up with Charles Bronson.

Blond cutie Doug McClure scored a hit with The Virginian (1962-1971) and parlayed that into moderate movie success.

We have always loved Gary Conway of Land of the Giants (1968-1970.)

Certainly not known for his beefcake credentials, here we see a glimpse of funnyman Dick Van Dyke in a form-fitting pair of trunks.

We really enjoyed a recent viewing of the 1959 movie Island of Lost Women, which costarred Jeff Richards and John Smith as crash-landed pilots who have their eye on three luscious young ladies, yet who also spend a fair amount of time palling around shirtless.

In Poseidon's Underworld, this movie would have started and stopped with the pilots eking out and idyllic life on the island without any pesky ladies around!

Richards' career was short-lived, but he certainly brought the beefcake! Smith also ran into career trauma, but at least had the hit series Laramie (1959-1963) to make ends meet.

These photos are not of very high quality because he appears mostly in long-shot, but the 1965 drug rehab drama Synanon had a sequence featuring Chuck Connors frolicking on the beach with Stella Stevens' son while clad in a black Speedo-ish suit.

Pesky kid got his feet in the way...

Connors was terribly lean, like bacon or jerky, but wore this suit well.

He also took time out between takes to enjoy some basketball, adding only a cap to the outfit.

We can never look away for long when the aforementioned Alain Delon is shucked down. Neither can his comely costar in this film still, apparently!

The deliriously pretty actor is seen here in the final moments of 1960's Purple Noon (aka Plein soleil), later remade as The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999) with Matt Damon in the role.

Delon looked great in these classic striped trunks.

But it's those eyes that we really can never forget!

During a not-so-long-ago jaunt to Lexington, Kentucky, I happened to catch a 1967 episode of The Monkees on a local TV station. Bobby Sherman was decked out with golden-sprayed hair and a couple of hooty swimsuits.

He played a beach movie teen idol, aptly named Frankie Catalina!

Watching from the sidelines was Monkee Peter Tork, whose own trunks were showing some torque in them!

Check out the scant swimsuit that yummy Peter Brown is wearing in this shot.

One of Doris Day's less-successful later movies was 1967's Caprice, but I don't think we can hold Richard Harris' clingy swimsuit accountable for that!

We certainly like Italian hunk Giuliano Gemma's choice of swimwear in this magazine layout. Gemma has enjoyed a long career in his homeland with occasional forays into English-language movies. One of his earliest gigs was playing Stephen Boyd's newest Roman playmate in 1959's Ben-Hur.

Oh, baby! (and we mean Tom Jones, not the kid!)

This is Harry Baer (why has no one chosen that as a porno name? LOL) in Rainer Werner Fassbinder's 1973 German movie Jail Bait.

No one famous, but I had to include this delicious ad for The Speedo!

Another one. I'm sold!

Someone who really enjoyed the sun and surf once he relocated here was ballet star and actor Mikhail Baryshnikov.

During a post a while back about Jack Scalia, viewers responded positively to his High Performance costar Rick Edwards, who was a top model before turning to acting.

My goodness, look at the skimpy bikini that Farrah Fawcett's Sunburn (1979) costar Robin Clarke is almost wearing. 

T.J. Hooker (1982-1985) costar Adrian Zmed could frequently be found in photos (or sometimes even on the show) in a Speedo.

Terry Lester, the original Jack Abbott on The Young and the Restless, heads to the backyard for some sun in this scene.

Sorry, but daytime (and most anytime) was just more fun back then...

Beach Boy founding member Brian Wilson dons a Speedo for this latter-day photo.

Soap star Steve Bond was never shy about his body (perhaps from playing a loincloth-clad child opposite Mike Henry in his movie debut Tarzan and the Jungle Boy, 1968), but then again, he had no reason to be!

Hmmm... 1980s stars Christopher Atkins and Matt Lattanzi share a moment of sun and surf.

Atkins made viewers sit up and take notice when he played a swim instructor from 1983-1984 on Dallas (and bedded down with J.R.'s wife Sue Ellen!)

Of course, many of us prefer when he swam wearing absolutely nothing, as in 1980's The Blue Lagoon!

Parker Stevenson takes part in one of the legendary Battle of the Network Stars broadcasts.

Also battling it out (a battle of the bulge?) are Byron Cherry and Bruce Boxleitner during a 1982 installment of the venerable series of specials.

As promised a while back, here's an unexpected favorite among Underworld visitors, Mark Gastineau, soaking up the sun in a skimpy Speedo.

This gentleman (Matt Craven?) is from the movie Meatballs (1979), a counselor taking part in summer camp athletic competitions. 

Singer-actor Rex Smith takes the plunge in a Speedo.

This series of pics is from the 1984 sex comedy Hardbodies. My apologies in advance that each glimpse of this bodybuilder in the eensy-weensy bikini seems to be offset by the most obnoxious woman ever captured on camera!

She's annoying enough here, but it gets worse.

Told ya so! But how else to show you the guy...?

In the same movie, '70s and '80s actor Gary Wood has an extended scene on the beach in a black Speedo. 

For a slightly older man, he's hangin' tough.

His character in the movie is jerk, but he does get some comeuppance.

What seems like fun, a bunch of babes smearing him down with honey, turns icky when they next cover him in feathers. But, again, it's all done while he's in a Speedo. We love the '80s.

Here we find Mario Lopez getting just the right helping hand from the real swimming Olympian during his portrayal in the biographical 1997 TV-movie Breaking the Surface: The Greg Louganis Story.

Years later, an even more "ripped" Lopez aped Christopher Atkins' Blue Lagoon look for a magazine spread. 

The 2000 film Before Night Falls starred the divine Javier Bardem as a gay Cuban novelist and poet who runs into trouble. In this shot, we see him meeting a scantily-clad swimmer out on a set of rocks.

The swimmer turns out to be straight, but it isn't the end of the fun swimsuits.

Bardem's pal Andrea Di Stefano trots around in a very abbreviated swimsuit!

I was born too late...

Back on the beach, we see Bardem is wearing his own clingy l'il suit.

Like, really clingy.

Bardem is one of the few contemporary leading men who I have any sort of interest in. (Another one who really melts my butter is Jean Dujardin of The Artist, 2011.)

Here's one last glimpse of Bardem in a teeny bikini. This section of the film is loaded with 'em.

This last photo is of a newly-popular star who I have yet to see in any movie or TV show, but I had to include it! Take a really close look at this snap of Twilight Saga actor Kellan Lutz!

The End!