The Toweling Inferno!

We are building a bonfire of beefcake today, all of famous gents either using or wearing a towel! Hard to believe it's been almost three years since we first settled on this topic for a photo essay and we've been gathering more kindling ever since, resulting in quite a pile of photos. Here's hoping that you find yourself wrapped up in this post and spot something to enjoy from the available selections! (If you didn't know, our cover boy today is the late John Ritter of Three's Company.) Now let's unroll the pics...

Here we find Bob Hope, along with a gaggle of towel-clad buddies, in the 1941 Army comedy Caught in the Draft.

1940s & '50s Latin Lover Ricardo Montalban, known for his impressive physique which he held on to even later in his life.

The 1946 musical comedy No Leave, No Love, co-starred close pals Van Johnson and Keenan Wynn. Here we find Wynn freshly removed from a sudsy bath wearing only a towel (and his cap!)

In From Here to Eternity (1953), Burt Lancaster surveys the bunks of his men on the way to a shower.

The highly-athletic Lancaster was in great shape for most of his movie-acting career (which, remarkably, didn't even begin until he was already thirty-five!)  

Hindsight is 20/20! For me, his single sexiest and most handsome on-screen moment ever is the one in which he greets his commanding officer's wife (and future lover of his) at her door while the rain bears down on him.

Lancaster's frequent movie co-star Kirk Douglas is seen wearing a towel in the Broadway production of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, the movie of which he was unable to star in due to his age by then.

This still from 1955's Picnic finds William Holden and Cliff Robertson changing out of swimsuits in a cozy dressing room as Kim Novak and Susan Strasberg converse on the other side of the divider.

This shot of Rory Calhoun and friend enjoying a sauna looks more modern than the 1915 setting of The Treasure of Pancho Villa (1955.)

Here is Don Murray in 1956's Bus Stop just after a particularly hyperactive bath. He's wearing long underwear and just using a towel, but I include this for obvious reasons.

As he continues to dry off, the figure-hugging drawers give one an idea of what his behind looks like naked.

The handsome actor would later star in the first couple of years of Knots Landing as Michele Lee's stalwart husband.

Eli Wallach plays a rather unbalanced gangster doing away with one of his enemies in the sauna in The Lineup (1958.)

It doesn't matter how many times we see it, in photo or film form, Spartacus (1960) with John Gavin in a towel is rapturous!

Oh to have been an extra on that set...! Knowing Stanley Kubrick, it probably took for ever to shoot.

King of Kings (1961) had a steam room sequence as well, though not nearly as "hot."

Hurd Hatfield...

...and the deliciously malevolent Frank Thring!

This movie has some wonderful moments in it, but for beefcake value, Spartacus wins.

Funnyman Phil Silvers is seen here in (I think?) Forty Pounds of Trouble (1962.)

Here, Tony Curtis is wrapped up in Forty Pounds of Trouble for sure.

Charlton Heston is given the once over by a physician while wearing the teensiest of towels.

Singer Robert Goulet costars with Robert Morse in Honeymoon Hotel (1964.)

Stephen Boyd takes time out from his massage to read the trade papers in the campy screamfest The Oscar (1966.)

TV cowboys Gary Clarke and Doug McClure horse around during The Virginian.

Robert Fuller (of Laramie, on the right) has some fun with a friend of his in the locker room of someplace.

Look at how handsome Steve Forrest was as a young man!

Roger Moore strikes a slinky pose in this poolside shot.

Here's a fun promotional ad for Las Vegas entertainer and recording star Bobby Vinton.

You can only barely see the towel in this pinup of singer and TV actor Bobby Sherman.

Christopher Jones is sporting a trim little towel in the 1968 sex comedy Three in the Attic (seen here with Judy Pace.)

Michael Caine receives a hands-on approach in Deadfall (1968.)

Most of us have seen Alan Bates in even less than this, but here he is with a skimpy towel in The Fixer (1968.)

Not sure which film this is with Ian Holm (?) Anyone?

Tom Courtenay is situated in a busy steam room in the spy drama A Dandy in Aspic (1968.)

Luscious Hugh O'Brian has a steam in Strategy of Terror (1969), a movie that just shot up on our "must see" list thanks to this!

Hair-lovers rejoice! Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970) offers up some simian steamers. LOL

Jack Nicholson emerges from one of several showers he takes in Carnal Knowledge (1971.)

Truly naked in the scene under his towel, he was in the midst of a period of personal nudism that lasted for many months.

Alan Arkin seems agitated about something in Last of the Red Hot Lovers (1971.)

A mustache-free Sean Connery is shown in The Anderson Tapes (1971.)

Here he is again in a prison sequence from the same movie (and to the right of him, Christopher Walken in an early role.)

We know you could probably have lived without a towel-clad Mickey Rooney in Pulp (1972), but we present it as entree to one of his earlier screen appearances...

Rooney, back from real life service in WWII, returned to theater screens in the boxing drama Killer McCoy (1947.) He's seen here poking out from the shower after a match.

This is a shot of his face at the time.

He scurries out of the shower and begins toweling down, hopping up on the table for a soothing pat down from one of his trainers.

Truly nude under the towel, Rooney doesn't seem to be aware that his rear flank is in danger of being exposed.

Sure enough, in this Production Code Era movie, the side of his bare ass is shown to the camera! 

A tad too late to prevent it, the trainer finally notices and scrambles to cover up the star's assets...

A front glimpse of Rooney's in-shape physique at the time (and this is probably the most you'll ever see or read about Mr. Rooney at one time on this site! I've got nothin' agin' 'im, but he's not my usual type of favorite male movie star.)

Paul Newman is about to take a shower when he discovers a surprise visitor (young Melanie Griffith) in his motel room in The Drowning Pool (1975), a sequel to Harper (1966.)

Newman had done plenty of towel scenes in movies prior to this. Fifty at the time of this one, he was less impressive sitting down, but still cut a pretty fine figure while standing.

Eighteen year-old Griffith (who Newman gets to whack across the face) would later team up with him again in 1993's Nobody's Fool.

Ryan O'Neal seems to be making sure everything is where it ought to be in this locker room portrait.

Jack Nicholson is back in a towel once more, this time in The Passenger (1975.)

Allow me to introduce one of the luckiest bathing attendants imaginable; the young lady soothing the beaten-up muscles of James Caan and John Beck in Rollerball (1975.)

Again, you almost have to search for the towel, but it's there on Treat Williams in The Ritz (1976.)

Jeff Daniels is wearing only a towel in this scene with Debra Winger from 1983's Terms of Endearment.

Recognize Geoffrey Scott, once of Dynasty, but then briefly the star of the HBO sitcom 1st & Ten?

Ted McGinley (aka one of my reasons for living) is looking good in a pink bath towel during one of his episodes of The Love Boat (1984-1987.)

Also in a pink towel is Breathless' (1983) Richard Gere.

Tom Selleck has a Speedo under his towel (and is getting a helping hand removing it!) during this installment of Battle of the Network Stars.

Likewise Greg Evigan has just covered up his Speedo with a towel at another gathering of the Network Stars.

Ken Wahl looks to have been interrupted mid-shave in this towel shot.

A customary portrait of action star Jean-Claude Van Damme.

You know how often I pay tribute to the heavy metal band Iron Maiden...  LOL  But, you know me! If I have it, I have to share it at some point, so here it is.

Gary Wood of Hardbodies (1984), who recently figured into our annual Memorial Day swimwear post, now falls into the towel category.

Here he is again, looking over which shirt to wear for some of the movie's shenanigans.

Soap star Steve Burton, best known for a lengthy run on General Hospital .

David Boreanaz of Angel (1999-2004) and Bones (2005-2015.)

Johnny Depp

Action star of movies and TV series such as Walker, Texas Ranger (1993-2001)

Adrian Pasdar in 1990's Torn Apart.

David Chokachi, probably my favorite of the lifeguards on Baywatch (1995-1999), though I never watched the show.

Recent Oscar-winner Jared Leto. What's with the skimpy undies (?) strung on the clothesline?

Chris Hemsworth of Thor (2011) and its sequels exchanges his hammer and cape for a pool towel.

Rob Morrow finds himself in quite a fix in Private Resort (1985.)

He's managed to accidentally share an enraged Hector Elizondo's bath!

Paul Hogan was a brief smash as Crocodile Dundee (1986.)

We're finishing up with Spring Break (1983), showcasing a cramped motel bathroom shared by four young men.

The one on the far right (Steve Bassett) is on the toilet, by the way!

Perry Lang, fresh out of the shower and toweling off, decides it would be fun to flash his ass at the others...

He seems to be enjoying himself. I'll say that!

The End!