Poseidon Quickies: It's Really Cole in Here Today!

A few years ago I made a passing remark that I doubted I would ever be doing a tribute to Dennis Cole and there was a hearty round of disappointed sighs as a result! I don't know if I changed my perception of him or if I am running out of people (!) or if I just wanted an excuse to inject a little tan, blond hunkitude into the blog to celebrate recently passing the 12-year mark (on August 24th.) I never had anything against Mr. Cole, he just had not, for whatever reason, risen to the top level of my celebrity obsessions. But I was recently looking him over and thought I would share some photos of him with you today.

Born on July 19th, 1940 in Detroit, Michigan, Cole was the son of two alcoholic parents. (His father eventually committed suicide after the couple had divorced.) He sought escape in athletic pursuits and developed a strong, lean physique. Later, after moving to Los Angeles, Cole's body would be his first step on the way to notoriety.

Cole supplemented his income by posing in almost nothing for famed homoerotic photographer Bob Mizer.

The young man appeared in Physique Pictorial magazine. He also began to earn money as an extra in movies. In 1961, he was seen a young man attending a dance in The Comancheros. Married in 1960 and father to a boy the following year, it was time to make it for real.

Things began to come together for Cole in 1965 when he won a role on the daytime serial Paradise Bay, which starred Keith Andes and Marion Ross. His hair, almost white blond from the California sun, was darkened for the part.

It was with this same darkened hair color that Cole won his next role after the serial folded. In 1966, he costarred with Howard Duff on The Felony Squad. The series premiered in black & white.

Squad, which ran until 1969, eventually shifted to color and Cole reverted to his towhead of blond locks.

Cole swung from Squad right into a new prime-time series called Bracken's World, all about the inner turmoils of a fictional Hollywood studio. Seen with him here is Linda Harrison (known best as Nova from Planet of the Apes, 1968.) Note the way her dress echoes the pattern of the tree bark next to her!

Handsome Cole played not an actor on the show, but a stuntman. The series underwent creative tweaks (and the departure of its star Eleanor Parker) causing its cancellation after a season and a half. It remains, however, a sought-after collectors' item due to the people involved in it and the fashionable era in which it was made.

Ever able to land a job on TV, Cole next costarred with Rod Taylor in Bearcats!

The title referred to their vehicle, a Stutz Bearcat, while the adventuresome story took place prior to WWI. Unable to sustain a consistent audience, it was canned after 14 episodes.

Now in the early-'70s and with a few short-lived TV series under his mod belt, Cole tried a new tack with his career...

He starred in the Broadway romp All the Girls Came Out to Play in 1972.

In it, he played a composer living with a buddy named Angel. When neighbors hear him referring to his roommate as "Angel" they mistake the pair for homosexuals. This causes a stir in the apartment complex, but also leads to Cole seducing several nearby wives! His bare chest looming over some snug trousers couldn't help the piece play beyond a handful of performances.

Despite this setback, Cole epitomized the bronze California stud, with clingy polyester pants, gold necklace and shirts open to the waist. He was a busy guest star on multiple TV series like The Streets of San Francisco, Barnaby Jones, Police Story and Medical Center.

During a guest spot on Charlie's Angels, Cole (who'd gotten divorced in 1965) met and fell for Jaclyn Smith. The telegenic couple dated for over a year before walking down the aisle in 1978.

Most of the wildly popular Angels experienced severe marital difficulty while on the show and Smith was no exception. This magazine cover (trumpeting Jaclyn Smith "and her husband") illustrates the way Cole was paling career-wise next to his spouse.

By 1981, their wedded bliss was completely over. His career limping along, he tried yet another shift to reignite it.

In 1980, the hit daytime drama The Young and the Restless expanded to an hour. Popular hunk John McCook, who played Lance Prentiss, exited the show and Cole was hired to take his place in the Y&R firmament.

Though Cole's participation received plenty of promotion, his stint there was over by 1982.

Cole appeared as a guest on many 1980s series such as Fantasy Island, The Fall Guy, Trapper John, M.D., The A-Team and Simon & Simon. He also took starring parts in straight-to-video action flicks which did nothing to raise his position in Tinseltown. But he was soon to be dealt an even more horrible blow from which there was little chance of fully recovering.

In 1991, Cole's only son Joe, who was a sometime actor and a roadie with the band Hole, was living with his close pal Henry Rollins. One night, the two were held up and as Rollins attempted an escape, Joe Cole was fatally shot at close range in the face. It was a crushing experience for Rollins, but a near-crippling one for Cole.

He landed the James Garner role in the national tour of Victor/Victoria, which starred Toni Tennille, but received little to no promotion or publicity for it. In an unfortunate turn of events, he sustained an injury during the tour which took years from which to recover and called for several surgeries. I was in the second row of this show when it came to Cincinnati and it was interesting to see him (and her), but he had by then receded from the screen and his acting career was nearing its halt.

He married for a third time in 2004 and was working in Florida real estate, generally outside the world of show business, but unfortunately had slid into a period of heavy drinking. A DUI arrest in 2007 put his name in the headlines for a brief while again and this last marriage dissolved in 2008. In 2009, Mr. Cole died of liver failure at only age 69.

The fresh-faced youth who'd made a splash in L.A. had faded from the limelight. But he remains an object of interest for many lovers of classic TV. Part of the reason is his early physique pictorials, but there was also a memorable 1977 spread in the magazine Ultra.

Cole was shown showering, exercising and applying aftershave, wearing revealing white bottoms or sometimes even less than that! These tennis shorts show off plenty...

...but a little dark tint over the pic makes things even more obvious. I recently saw Mr. Cole in a season two episode of Medical Center and he was just plain striking to behold... all golden skin, pale hair and while teeth. Time (and gravity) are rarely kind to hunks of that type, and he surely dealt with some significant disappointments and tragedy along the way. Hopefully he also knew of the pleasure he provided to many fans as well.

The End!

Fourth of July Picnic Baskets

I had to dissuade myself from calling this one "Yankee Noodle Dandy!" Ha ha!  Yes, friends. It's time for another collection of bulge photos. I've amassed a pretty hefty number of them since we last visited this hot topic a year and a half ago. There's a huge variety of people and pics here and, in the interest of time, I'm going to have to mostly refrain from my usual method of posting them in either general chronological order or in distinct groupings. If I try to do that, the post won't go up until August the crazy way things have been going around here! So you'll just have to consider it a "grab bag" and wonder which subject is up next in the rotation. (There are nearly 100 photos this time, some montages!) Our cover boy this time is singer Andy Gibb in some snug leather pants. Have a bang this July 4th!

Tony Randall vibrates away some unwanted flab (where?! I see slab, but no flab...)

The always delectable Dack Rambo bursts forth in some clingy trousers.

Burt Lancaster was dressed (left!) in his uniform for From Here to Eternity, the role in which we found him to be the most irresistible ever.

Gardner McKay was hot for a while on Adventures in Paradise, though he often looked like he could use a heavily caffeinated cup of coffee. But they may have gotten the "paradise" part right!

Vince Edwards, prior to playing Ben Casey, was chiefly known for roles in movies that showed off his burly, muscular physique, including Island Women among others.

When it comes to Scott Brady in Untamed Frontier, well, let's just say that the frontier wasn't the only thing untamed (as you'll see.)

Keep your eyes peeled for this one on TCM or other channels!

Mr. B was a pistol-packer. And a brief glance at the still photos from his career show that he seems to be an unsung actor of more variety and depth (and looks) than he's been given credit for.

Those who only know the craggy (and often cranky) Sterling Hayden might be surprised to know that for a time he was considered by many to be Hollywood's most beautiful man.

Look, it's Dick Nick Adams (with Deborah Walley) in The Young Lovers.

Lean and lanky Hugh O'Brian.

Boxer and sometimes actor Jerry Quarry, weighing in on the topic at hand.

Young Marshall Thompson during the filming of Gallant Bess.

Speaking of Thompson, he had the balls (yes, I went there! Ha ha!) to costar in a sitcom called Angel, opposite Belgian actress Annie Fargue.  Comic situations arose from her cultural and language confusions after having moved with him to America from France.

Cliff Robertson (center) might be coming to attention in this shot from The Devil's Brigade?

Singing actor Harve Presnell (of The Unsinkable Molly Brown and Paint Your Wagon.)

French superstar Jean-Paul Belmondo

Bodybuilding actor William Smith during his days on Laredo.

Mr. Travolta, showing off his love of aviation (and then some...)

Nick Nolte during The Deep.

Gil Gerard as Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.  That's Vera Miles on the right. (And Gil Jr. to the right as well - his left! - LOL)

Gerald McRaney and Jameson Parker during Simon & Simon. No wonder Mrs. McRaney (Delta Burke) is content to remain home most of these days!

Kevin Costner in Field of Dreams.

Now entering the Chad Everett wing of this display.

Hanging chad indeed.

Everett and his Medical Center scrubs were the stuff of dreams to many a 1960 and '70s gay boy.

We like his fashion sense off screen, too!

This is Henry Capps from the TV-movie western The Proud and the Damned. We don't always go in for long underwear, but he does make a case for it here!

Here's what he looks like up close.

The same movie features Peter Ford (son of Glenn Ford and Eleanor Powell), who looks to have inherited some of his father's "talent." He's lurking in the darkened background of these otherwise revealing shots, so I provided a face pic to go with.

Here we find John Beck (and his stick) in Three in the Attic.

He was a real cutie in his day and ought to have enjoyed a bigger career than he did.

One of Michael Biehn's earliest parts came in the TV-movie Fire in the Sky (seen here with Cindy Eilbacher.)

Time was, nearly every young man wore jeans like this versus the baggier styles that came in later.

Ahhh the '70s.

In Confessions of a Pop Performer, Robin Askwith finds himself stripped down to these red briefs...

...and is the unknowing object of prying eyes looking through a two-way mirror. Askwith is nude or nearly so throughout all four of the Confessions of movies.

Hmmmm... If we'd realized that there was a scene like this in The Power (with Michael Rennie, George Hamilton and their scantily-clad friend), we might have watched it when it used to air on TNT all the time!

I know some of you will hate me for these next shots, but I'm something of a completist and when I see it, I have to share it! Mickey Rooney, preening in the mirror for Pulp.

Louis B. Mayer was probably rolling in his grave over this display!

Hey, it was good enough for Ava Gardner and the seven wives who came after her! LOL

Ole! We now move on to The Bullfighter and the Lady, a movie that starred (blond!) Robert Stack, though he's not shown in these snaps. We see costar Gilbert Roland (at right wearing the darker fabric over his arm) and, on topic, the bullfighter standing between Roland and his friend.

The movie contained several real bullfighters, who are noted for their extremely fitted pants.

Roland, whose slacks are far looser (probably by order of the censor!) nonetheless put on a little show of their own.

John Heard seems to be putting up a tent during Chilly Scenes of Winter (opposite Mary Beth Hurt.)

As kids we all flocked to see Zapped! with Scott Baio (with Felice Schachter.)

As adults, we catch things we might have missed the first time.

You might recall Martin Hewitt from his showy role in Endless Love. He later popped up in Killer Party with some deliciously distressed jeans, though the cameraman made it difficult to get a good look at them most of the time.

Our favorite segment of the spaghetti western Man of the East (starring Terence Hill) comes when he dons these clingy tights and does some outdoor calisthenics.

Clark Gable shows us on which side his bread is buttered in his final film, The Misfits (with Marilyn Monroe.)

During a lengthy military induction sequence, Alice's Restaurant features a bonanza of young men parading through the hallways and inspection rooms.

These shots of Gene Hackman (from Night Moves) are intended to be seen through the window of a welder's helmet and are in fairly long shot.

It is nonetheless clear that Hackman has some moves of his own. (Like most bulge shots, this scene is better viewed in action than still photos, but we do what we can with what we've got.)

Dennis Quaid sports some form-fitting jeans in the movie Dreamscape.

In the movie Stunts, Ray Sharkey is caught having a romantic encounter in the back of his truck.

He emerges from under the covers in some rather startling briefs! And the bed is discovered to be a waterbed (as could only have happened in the '70s...!)

Catalina Caper featured dethroned Disney star Tommy Kirk and his tall, blond sidekick Brian Cutler.

For much of the running time, Cutler sports this lovingly adherent pair of blue swim trunks.

They certainly make the rather silly shenanigans of the plot more palatable to sit through.

We do miss these type of 1960s bathing suits. Cutler later sported darker blond hair along with a mustache as the male lead on the Saturday morning series "Isis."

Also seen in the same movie (in the center) is Michael Blodgett, who seemed to always be shucking his clothes in the 1960s and '70s.

This cutie patootie is a young actor named Rian Garrick, who only enjoyed an unfairly brief period of employability in the late-'50s and mid-'60s. The movie is Edge of Eternity.

At one point, his thoroughly soused character falls into a swimming pool and his helped out by sheriff Cornel Wilde.

Even Wilde seems to be as fixated as we are on Garrick's clingy wet pants as he steps out of the water!

One of the perks of watching Sally Field's TV series Gidget is the scenes on the beach, featuring hunky young men in those inimitable trunks of the day.

Though this falls into Mickey Rooney territory, I could hardly believe my eyes one day while on the treadmill as guest star Herb Voland arrived at Field's towel with a tray of food, squatted down and allowed the lining of his abbreviated swimsuit to peer out to the camera's all-seeing eye!

More in line with our audiences' tastes was guest star Martin Milner, emerging from the surf in a flimsy pair of white shorts. (My apologies for the blurriness of these images. If I can ever upgrade them, I will.)

Milner appeared in episode 3 as Kahuna. (No clue why he wasn't called "The Big" Kahuna.)

In his younger days, Milner frequently did scenes in limited clothing (such as The Private Lives of Adam and Eve.)

Over the winter, we went through a spate of watching every available episode of Ghost Story (aka Circle of Fear) and this one with John Ireland was (as is often the case with him) an eye opener.

Not to be outdone, though, was Rory Calhoun, who costarred in an episode with Janet Leigh.

Ol' Rory hangs low to an almost science fiction level, which could be why Janet starts an affair with him in the episode.

This is character actor Ed Lauter in a shot from his guest appearance on The Oregon Trail.

Robert Urich of Vega$ could often be counted on for some tight jeans.

There was a bit of a bugle battle in this scene taking place in a gym...

..though Urich handily wins.

I remember this era of denim well and can even recall people lying down to zip his or her jeans up!

No bulge in this particular photo (from the Lindsay Wagner TV-movie The Two Worlds of Jennie Logan), but I wanted you to get a head-on glimpse of Marc Singer since my other shots of him are in profile.

At an outdoor reception, he sports some revealing britches.

It does make Wagner's trip back in time a tad more pleasurable.

The crotchery on display here belongs to James Darren on The Time Tunnel.

The young hero is being restrained (and his pants are being strained!)

Years later on Fantasy Island, albeit in less constraining trousers, Darren was still showing his stuff (fellow guest Paul Burke is on the right.)

We've reported here many times on the pleasures of Fantasy Island, but you haven't seen anything yet!

First, though, we're going to clean up some other remaining photos, such as this one of Ryan O'Neal in the sequel to Love Story, Oliver's Story. O'Neal doesn't seem to be wearing underwear at any point in this movie (or if he is, it's featherweight.)

Again, it's hard to capture in motion, but in this extended jogging scene (with Candice Bergen), O'Neal has some attention-getting friction going on in his pants.

Later, we have what could be corona showing through his khakis...

Another person (unlikely as it may seem!) to show corona was the Geico caveman during one of those in an unending series of ads.

This sort of image is typically absent from today's advertising and it's surprising that it made its way to the airwaves (do we still have airwaves? LOL)

The undisputed king of bulges in today's world, though, is Mad Men's John Hamm

Matthew Fox (of Lost) makes a run for it.

Now back to Fantasy Island as we round third, headed for home. Hmmm, actually since this is Joe Namath, I should have chosen a football reference over a baseball one...

This isn't the great quality pic of Broadway Joe on the show, but if you get the chance to see it in motion sometime, all will be made clear.

The big finish, in any case, comes courtesy of another guest star, Dennis Cole, who could very frequently be counted on for VPL on 1970s television.

Seen here with fellow guest Marcia Strassman, he's serving up carnival corndog without the breading!

As the couple's date progresses, he continues to reveal his (un)hidden talents.

Only Dennis could make a mere walk across the street into a fantasy more prominent than any of the ones featured on the show...

We'll say it again, we do miss the '70s...

So with that, Roddy McDowall and I bid you adieu until next time!