Golden Rendevous?

Life continues to get in the way of my working on this blog, but it's always a goal of mine to get to it, trust me! In the meantime, here's a quickie. Actually a quickie in two ways! Ha ha!

During season eight of Dynasty, Jeff Colby (played by John James), having burnt through almost every available female on the show except for Krystle and Alexis, turned his attentions to Sammy Jo (played by Heather Locklear.) What was initially a ski trip with their two boys, who were cousins, started to flicker into more.

James and Locklear later found themselves on a little trip to L.A., ostensibly part-business but with time for a seaside stroll. This stroll then turned playful, then romantic.

And... before you know it they've done the deed (according to the episode, at The Beverly Hills Hotel!)

The next day, James has to leave in a hurry back to Denver to help with Blake Carrington's campaign for governor along with other interests, but Locklear speaks to him on the phone.

So why do we give a shit?  LOL  Well, it's just that this room at the "Beverly Hills Hotel" seemed to have some remarkably familiar wallpaper. In fact, it was so familiar that we just HAD to do some digging and see if it was the same as another famed boudoir...

Turns out it is practically identical to that of Miss Blanche Devereaux's on The Golden Girls! In Blanche's room (as played by Rue McClanahan), the wallpaper is cut out and formed as a mural of sorts above the hotbed of action.

She scores points, though, (or is that the wrong term when referring to something so putrid?!) for having coordinating bedding and draperies, something the "Beverly Hills Hotel" wasn't able to accomplish!

It's a toss-up which bedroom saw more action over the years, the California hotel room or the bedroom of one of Miami's most eligible middle-aged widows!

Of course, die-hard Golden Girls devotees will immediately recall the Christmas episode in which McClanahan's Blanche gave each of her three roomies a homemade present for the ages... "The Men of Blanche's Boudoir!"

As an in-joke, the calendars contained semi-clad photos of real crew members who worked on the series and Betty White, Bea Arthur and Estelle Getty weren't given the actual props to view until the filmed dress rehearsal in order to record their true, amusingly-startled reactions to the photos. This one, for example, is of two guys who wrote: "To Rue, We wanted to take the towels off for you, but we didn't know how the others would react. Sooooo use your imagination!"

Too bad John James wasn't able to "check in" to Blanche's boudoir, but in this particular episode of Dynasty, he came close!

Pairing Up

Today we have a little post featuring movie stills and publicity photos of male stars in which, with a little imagination (and that's about how much we possess! Ha ha!), a different scenario might be envisioned than the one intended... In other words, they might be unintentionally suggestive. Or, perhaps, they are completely benign and we just have a dirty mind. Or maybe the men in them are just plain handsome so we feel like sharing!

Today's poster boys, Randolph Scott and Cary Grant were featured in a notorious series of photo spreads taken during their bachelorhood in which they were seen swimming together, working out in abbreviated shorts, dining elegantly together, lounging near one another and even cooking in the kitchen (with Cary in an apron and Randy wielding a phallic bunch of celery!)

You thought I was making that one up, didn't you...?  Nope.

All just speculation? Hiding in plain sight? Best/worst kept secret in Hollywood?

We may never know the truth about them, but it's been written that when Cary was pressured into marrying and leaving his and Randy's bachelor pad, he soon became despondent, attempted suicide and was soon divorced and back there again. And later in life, in the wake of their marriages and children, these two were reportedly seen holding hands under the table at lunch, which is either the saddest or the most touching thing about their long association with one another.

Here, we find Randolph Scott in an intense stare-down with John Wayne in Pittsburgh. They were meant to be squabbling over Marlene Dietrich, but she's nowhere to be seen in this shot. They could be having a romantic dinner...!

This one, with Scott and Lex Barker from Thunder Over the Plains, is even more suggestive. It could be a dance hold! (The link for Lex this time is to a page with several color Tarzan comic book covers at the end.)

The two brooding pusses in this shot are Richard Arlen and Buddy Rogers in Wings.

Check out the dreamy intensity of this portrait from the same pairing.

As this is a WWI war drama, there's an emotional ending for the young men...

...VERY emotional!

Arlen, by the way, was a very handsome young man. Sort of a Paul Newman for the 1930s (I always wish they'd have played father and son in a movie.) He's seen here with David Newell and Kay Francis in the four-cornered circus romance Dangerous Curves. (Clara Bow rounding out the quartet.)

But with some thoughtful cropping of Ms. Francis, and the gents' matching robes, this could be another sort of lover's quarrel!

My favorite silent-era actor is delectable George O'Brien, seen here looking as timeless as ever and elbow-to-elbow with another young actor. You may recognize him as one of the most heralded in all of cinema?  Spencer Tracy.

On the right in this twosome is Henry Wilcoxon, who while having a sort of sneering quality in his face, is an actor I nonetheless found strikingly handsome in his prime. He later became an assistant and frequent supporting actor in Cecil B. DeMille movies.

Hmmm... I wonder what costars and close personal friends Cesar Romero and Tyrone Power have spied and are discussing here.

Yes, I know they're fighting and not getting comfy, but it's sort of neat to see former Tarzans Johnny Weissmuller and Buster Crabbe working together (in Captive Girl.)

Even better is this one of the two, from another movie of theirs, Swamp Fire. Even out of their loincloths they seemed to find reasons to be shirtless on celluloid!

No, this isn't a pair. Or is it? With Mickey Rooney and Eddie Bracken fighting over who gets the biggest piece of delicious figure model Ed Fury! This was part of a publicity shoot for A Slight Case of Larceny (in which I don't believe Fury even appears!)

Another awesome photo shoot - some of which has appeared on this blog before - involves Tab Hunter and John Bromfield. Here Bromfield is demonstrating his rod for Hunter.

And here Bromfield is demonstrating his other rod for the readers! What a gorgeous man he was.

Now entering the Robert Wagner wing of today's post. He's seen here making his presence known to costar Jeffrey Hunter in A Kiss Before Dying.

And here he is making his presence known to Hunter again, during a photo shoot!

In this shot (from one of his 1950s war films, perhaps The Hunters?) Wagner and a buddy are enjoying an Asian spa together.

Poolside, he's getting his exercise in with a muscular partner...

...followed by some laps not in but around the pool!

Mechanic fantasy anyone? I don't know the handsome, bearded fella under the hood, but that's Rock Hudson giving the body a hearty buff.

Hollywood's first gay adoption? No... just Broken Arrow star John Lupton showing off his new baby daughter to costar Michael Ansara.

Skipping ahead to longtime friends Robert Redford and Paul Newman, costars of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Sting. For a while, there were murmurings about them costarring a third time in a film based upon "The Front Runner," all about a track coach who has a sexual relationship with his star runner! Newman, who'd bought the option, let it lapse when he ran into script (and casting plausibility) issues.

My Two Dads. In retrospect, they sorta look like the type of two dads we see more often these days!

Who knows what hairy stuff was going on in the woods with Joe Namath and his (unidentified) friend...? Gotta love the '70s and '80s when men could go shirtless (not to mention hairy) and few batted an eye.

The End!

End Quote

It's that time. We've finally burned all the way through the alphabet of the book we've been sharing with celebrity quotes about themselves and one another. We're going out with a bang this time with 20 pictures instead of the usual 12 to 15. We hope you enjoy and we'll be back soon with more classic movie and television fun.

"The closest thing we've had to me lately is John Travolta. Whether he'll want to work hard enough on his dancing I don't know. Travolta moves well, but the facts of dancing life mean that you have to work very hard to keep up to the level you're already at." - GENE KELLY "He's not a dancer. What he did in those dance scenes was very attractive but he is basically not a dancer. I was dancing like that years ago, you know. Disco is just jitterbug." - FRED ASTAIRE  Two cinematic dance legends weighing in on JOHN TRAVOLTA.

"Maybe the major thing is how sensual he is. And how sexy, too. The sensitivity and the sexuality are very strong. It's as if he has every dichotomy-masculinity, femininity, refinement, crudity. You see him, you fall in love a little bit." LILY TOMLIN waxing enthusiastically about her costar JOHN TRAVOLTA in the decidedly un-sexy Moment By Moment.

"That Valentino was certainly a very splendid fellow. And his unique glamour was not entirely due to the fact that he was unhampered by banal dialogue. Modern dialogue is not always banal, and the screen hero who could match Valentino's posturing technique with an equally polished vocal technique has a perfectly fair chance of becoming his romantic peer. It was his magnetism and dignity that assured him a peak of magnificent isolation." - JAMES MASON on RUDOLPH VALENTINO

"Jon agonizes his way toward every decision; what his next movie should be; whether to go out to lunch. He's a good, tortured person." - JANE FONDA on her Coming Home costar JON VOIGHT (the film having netted them each both a Golden Globe and an Oscar.)

"The experience of working with him was unlike any I had in more than 50 pictures. He was so painstaking and slow that I would lose all sense of time, hypnotized by the man's relentless perfectionism." - GLORIA SWANSON on her Queen Kelly director (and, later, Sunset Boulevard costar) ERICH VON STROHEIM

"He was the unqualified front runner-the most generous man I've ever met. And he had such a lovely light sense of humor. I consider it a privilege to have worked with him." - JULIE ANDREWS on her Hawaii costar MAX VON SYDOW

"He wasn't as clever as Spence, but a brilliant actor nonetheless, bigger than life in his performance-and often when he didn't have to be." - KATHARINE HEPBURN on her Rooster Cogburn costar JOHN WAYNE

"I certainly would have given anything to have worked with John Wayne. He's the most attractive man who ever walked the earth, I think." BETTE DAVIS on JOHN WAYNE in 1974.

"I could never feel much sympathy for Cheeta the chimp-who was really rather queer, I'm afraid. Didn't like the girls at all. But he adored Johnny Weismuller and was terribly jealous of me." - MAUREEN O'SULLIVAN on CHEETA and JOHNNY WEISMULLER, her costars in several Tarzan movies.

"I have never met anyone so badly behaved." - JAMES MASON on The Last of Sheila costar RAQUEL WELCH

"Tuesday was a dream to work with. She seemed to have an instinct for how to act a scene. I also noticed she seemed to be heading for serious trouble. ...it was apparent stardom was well within her grasp, but she conducted herself in a manner that made you think she was just another Hollywood joke-and I followed her career-it was as though she were some dizzy blonde who had no idea about what she was doing." - DANNY KAYE on his The Five Pennies costar TUESDAY WELD

"You cannot battle an elephant. Orson was such a big man in every way that no one could stand up to him. On the first day...at 4 o'clock, he strode in, followed by his agent, a dwarf, his valet and a whole entourage. Approaching us, he said, 'All right, everybody turn to page eight.' And we did it (though he was not the director.)" - JOAN FONTAINE on her Jane Eyre costar ORSON WELLES

"During The Magnificent Ambersons, Orson Welles, drunk on Joe Cotton's Machiavellian martinis, secretly sending his chauffeur homes and pleading no transport, would I drive him? Gad, what a drive. I prayed for a policeman. Six feet four, 250 pounds and what seemed like six hands in my shirt." - ANNE BAXTER on costar ORSON WELLES

"I've learned everything from her. Well, not everything, but almost everything. She knows so much. Her insight is so true. Her timing so perfect, her grasp of a situation so right." - CARY GRANT on MAE WEST, with whom he worked in I'm No Angel and She Done Him Wrong.

"We went down to her house for rehearsals... And she was always in a sort of pale beige negligee with a train about twenty feet long. That's how we rehearsed every day. And when we'd stop for a breather, we'd sit and talk. She was just plain and simply a sweet old lady, who told me marvelous stories about her life." - ROCK HUDSON on MAE WEST, with whom he performed "Baby, It's Cold Outside" at the 30th Annual Academy Awards ceremony in 1958 (when West was 65.)

"They [the acting school] were trying to mold Robin into a standardized Juilliard product-Kevin Kline is the perfect example of it-but Robin was too special, too original, to be that." - CHRISTOPHER REEVE on ROBIN WILLIAMS

"Look, Debra is 21 years younger than I am. She has very different interests and different ways of looking at life. Just because you work intimately with someone for three or four months on a film doesn't mean there's any breeding ground for friendship. I don't think there was much of one. She loved to sit in her trailer in her combat boots and miniskirt, listening to real loud rock 'n' roll. Right there, I mean, what am I going to do that for?" - SHIRLEY MACLAINE on her Terms of Endearment costar DEBRA WINGER

"Joanne always made it her business to hold back her career while Paul was on the up and up. And that girl is one helluva talented actress. But she knew what side her bread was buttered on and let Paul become the superstar of the family. The result? They're still happily married today." - SHELLEY WINTERS on JOANNE WOODWARD (and PAUL NEWMAN)

"She was and is the only actress I really dislike. She was sickeningly sweet, a pure phony. Her two faces sent me home angry and crying several times." - VIRGINIA FIELD on LORETTA YOUNG, with whom she worked in Ladies in Love, Eternally Yours and The Perfect Marriage.

"If you want a place in the sun you have to expect a few blisters." - LORETTA YOUNG