Terrycloth Time!

We've done a couple of towel tributes over the years, but it's been a while since our last one. So here we go again with a hopelessly random selection of famous folk wearing only a towel. As we compile all these pictures, it can be hard to find ones not yet posted, but I did manage to unroll a few. I have a very bad habit of saving pictures and then forgetting who it is in them or where the picture is from! For example, I have no clue who the men are in this cover pic or what movie the shot is from! I presume it's a 1950s sport-oriented film. If I ever recover the title, I'll edit the post accordingly. Now let's whip through more of the same...

1940s and '50s leading man Robert Sterling dries off after a refreshing spritz in the shower.

Victor Mature, the muscle-bound star of Samson and Delilah (1949) and other colorful films is on the deck of a boat in his teensy towel.

Here is Mature again, only younger and leaner. Was yachting in a towel a thing??

One more shot of Mr. Mature, this time enjoying a sauna. A quick Google Image Search ought to bring up an even more revealing picture of this actor in repose, on his side reading a book.

Burt Lancaster (during filming of The Leopard, 1963, I believe) gets a helping hand with a towel.

Bodybuilding actor William Smith, of Laredo and Rich Man, Poor Man fame, flexes his many muscles wearing only a towel.

This is 1950s character actor Jerome Thor, who eventually became a frequent supporting player in several Charles Bronson movies.

Steve McQueen, the King of Cool, chats up a crew member while on location for 1972's The Getaway.

John Ritter in his 1980 comedy Hero at Large. You can make out a hint of the briefs he's wearing underneath his towel...

I know you'll hate me for this one! LOL  Walter Matthau in the hit comedy film House Calls (1978.)

Wayne Rogers is protecting his jewels from an aggravated Lee Marvin in Pocket Money (1972), with Paul Newman in back.

Cary Grant and Jim Hutton enjoy some of the perks Tokyo has to offer in Walk Don't Run (1966.)

In Ben-Hur (1959), Stephen Boyd has his spa time interrupted in order to do business with Hugh Griffith. His friend in back seems disappointed.

I went through a period a year or two ago with screencaps from various gladiator movies. In this one, Revolt of the Praetorians (1964), Piero Lulli is having a massage that gets interrupted by Richard Harrison.

As Lulli gets up, the sheet (not exactly a towel, but, hey, I set the rules around here! LOL) rides way up and we get a glimpse of the skimpy undies that he is wearing underneath.

Richard Harrison, by the way, was a very handsome muscleman who carved out a decent career in Italian sword & sandal flicks and westerns in the 1960s after a slow-going Hollywood career.

Happily for us, he saw fit to pose in a towel on occasion.

Here he is in living color. He might have had a swimsuit on here, but we can dream...

This unusual-looking scene is from the WWII adventure movie Operation Crossbow (1965) in which agent George Peppard is taking in some UV rays among members of the "master race" before being found out.

Even with his dark goggles on, you ought to be able to recognize this brawny actor from The Liquidator (1965.)

Yes, it's the hunky Rod Taylor.

You surely recognize the iconic Yul Brynner, draped in a towel for a movie scene. We were pleasantly surprised to check this movie out in its entirety and can report that he has an extended sequence in this vein.

In 1969's The File of the Golden Goose, Brynner is trying to track down an enemy of his and in order to do it, he has to patronize a series of bathhouses! So we see him experiencing various places, roaming around and eying all the men in case they turn out to be his prey...

This is the color depiction of the first black & white shot of him above. Better in color, yes?

At the third one, he (who is by now squeaky clean!) exits a hot bath...

...and thinks he may have finally spotted the man he's after.

He continues his search through the labyrinthine bathhouse.

He eventually hit pay dirt and sees the man he's searching for.

The gent in question is Charles Gray, who you might recall from several 1960s spy films including the James Bond flicks You Only Live Twice (1967) and Diamonds Are Forever (1972.)

I doubt there was ever a time when we saw more of Mr. Gray!

See what I mean?

Gray also played the on-screen narrator of The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975.)

Here we find Milo O'Shea in the midst of an examination in the film Ulysses (1967.)

Again, I really doubt that there is another instance in which we see this much of Mr. O'Shea...!

Not exactly beefcake... You might recall O'Shea as Buddy O'Roarke, an alleged army buddy of Rose's late husband on a 1987 episode of The Golden Girls.

This good-looking gentleman is Guiliano Gemma, an Italian hunk of the 1960s.

He had two scenes in only a towel during The Bastard (1968.)

This one is the less-revealing of the two, but I include it for the same of completion.

This one involved more skin (and not just from his female bedmate.)

See what I'm talkin' about? He was a good looking man. Trivia tidbit. His brother in the film is played by Klaus Kinski. Cast as his mother was Miss Joan Crawford (!), but she took a hike prior to the start of filing and was replaced by Rita Hayworth!!

A far burlier towel scene now from Semi-Tough (1977.) Brian Dennehy (sporting a sweaty jockstrap on his head!) can only get his towel halfway around his waist!

One pressing question is... if Dennehy is still wearing his own jockstrap under his towel, then WHOSE does he have on his head?!

In 1984's Dreamscape, a young Dennis Quaid visits a clinic for evaluation of psychic abilities. He's greeted by a fellow subject just as he's emerged from the shower.

It's entirely possible that Quaid eschewed the briefs and other obscurements that so many actors employ during scenes like this and truly was naked under his towel.

We'll leave this whole impromptu saxophone playing thing alone...! Concentrate on the draping of Quaid's towel instead.

This next sequence was added the day after I first posted this after a recommendation in the comments (and why wait for years until I do another towel post?!) It's Quaid again in Innerspace (1987.) This is actually a sheet, but - again - I'm not going to quibble! Quaid plays a scientist who - after a drunken brawl and a night with Meg Ryan - implores his gal not to leave in a taxi that she's secretly called.

He kicks the taxi door shut so that he can have a moment to talk with her before she runs off.

This whole discussion takes place on a San Francisco street while the taxi driver impatiently waits.

He implores her not to leave, but she's having none of it.

As she finally enters the taxi, Quaid tries to get her to sympathize with his crumbled toes after kicking the door shut. He's pressed against the door which she's just closed.

And when the taxi takes off, it takes his bed sheet with it!

Even though Quaid was in terrific shape, I'm not 100% sure this is he. It may have been a double simply for the danger involved in the stunt. The person's hair and build don't seem precisely the same as Quaid's. But it's still a highlight of the movie in any case!

A TV towel moment. This is Barney Miller's Hal Linden being caught unawares in only a bath towel during a stakeout in a season one episode.

It took the efforts of a loyal friend and true, a devoted diver from Poseidon's Underworld, to remind me who this was and where it was from. This is Ron Hajak, in early moments from the 1983 miniseries V. He played the boyfriend of Faye Grant, who winds up heavily involved in the events of the alien invasion story line.

Who recognizes this tan, brawny back?

Why it's none other than the handsome, hairy Gil Gerard in his series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.

After being frozen in suspended animation for several centuries, he needed a nice hot bath.

As the series progressed (and his waistline expanded) we got to see less and less of Mr. Gerard's chest.

Here we find Bo Hopkins in a season one episode of Dynasty.

As Matthew Blaisdel, the husband of mentally-troubled Claudia, he's trying to rekindle some feelings between them upon her return from an institution.

Hopkins departed the series after the initial season, but made an ill-advised return later on, briefly holding all the Carringtons hostage after Adam & Dana's wedding.

In The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982), Burt Reynolds is actually wearing a bedspread, but we're not going to quibble about it...

The song he and Dolly Parton perform here isn't in the original stage play.

Mario Van Peebles strutted his stuff wearing only a towel in this movie. Recall the movie?

It was, believe it or not, Clint Eastwood's Heartbreak Ridge (1986.)

I could be wrong, but I don't think this scene with Margaret Whitton and Corbin Bernsen made it into the final cut of Major League (1989?) At least I wasn't able to locate it during a recent scan of the film.

I've mentioned along the way the use or non-use of underthings during towel scenes. Ed Harris famously left no questions about that in this iconic moment from Swing Shift (1984) with Goldie Hawn. (Rated PG, thankyouverymuch!)

Which brings us to The End!