Top Ten Anniversary: Favorite Movie Hunks

Fix it, Jesus, we're at it again. This seventh Top Ten list to celebrate a decade of Poseidon's Underworld is comprised of those handsome gents of the cinema who've made our heart go pitter-patter over the years. Like every list here, it was tough to pare down and only reflects my own personal, particular taste. If you happened to miss it, also check out our TV Hunks list from a short while back. Now, in alphabetical order by first name, we herald the heart-breakers...

ALAIN DELON - Like so many of the men in this list, it's the eyes that really do it. But Mr. D. had more than that. He was seductive, dangerous and capable of being both innocent and threatening. He also professed his bisexuality without giving a shit who cared about it. (So no one was really safe from his considerable charms! Ha ha!) Crazily enough, my first exposure to him was in The Concorde... Airport '79 (1979), but but it was in earlier films like Purple Noon (1960) - a must!, The Leopard (1963) and The Yellow Rolls-Royce (1964) that his dreamy looks won me over. He was also handsome in crap like Texas Across the River (1966) and many other films, including lots made in his native France.  

FRANCO NERO -- We just can't get past his glorious face in Camelot (1967.) You'd think that with Joshua Logan (who gave us all those humpy Seabees in South Pacific, 1958) at the helm, there would have been more flesh from Franco. Sadly, for us, he waited until just two years ago to go full monty! But in his day there were few as gloriously handsome. There's something so rewarding, too, about the fact that he and Vanessa Redgrave are back together after a long separation. I like happy endings, though, even outside a massage parlor. Ha ha! (I've never once had a massage, for the record!) His gorgeous visage graced anything from sci-fi in his early days to spaghetti westerns whose brown settings made his blue eyes pop. See also Querelle (1982), in which he's a navy lieutenant obsessed with Brad Davis!

HUGH O'BRIAN -- Hugh-baby did a lot of TV and is likely best known as the title figure in The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp, but he was also a busy movie actor in the 1950s and '60s. For our part, he will forever be seared in our minds for Love Has Many Faces (1965), in which he played a scantily-glad gigolo in Acapulco. So very slim in his early years (where he often played threatening looking Indians), we like it best when he filled out a little and grew into his features a bit better. There's also the delightfully campy Ten Little Indians (1965.) In the 1970s, it was back to TV for the most part, but since we worship him mostly for a movie, it's in this list that he lands.

JAMES FRANCISCUS -- One of Jane Fonda's early playthings, he also did quite a bit of TV, but starred in Youngblood Hawke (1964) and the fun The Valley of Gwangi (1969.) The big fun came, however, with Beneath the Planet of the Apes in which he spends the better part of the film in a barely-there piece of torn animal hide! He certainly outdid Mr. Charlton Heston when it came to that particular attribute. Even though he played a heel, we also love the fact that he was among the volcano victims in Irwin Allen's final big screen outing When Time Ran Out... (1980), this not long after working in the Canadian disaster flick City on Fire (1979.)

JEFFREY HUNTER -- I guess it was about twenty years ago that someone online turned me towards the charms of Mr. Hunter and I never looked back! Such a dreamy face and a highly underrated actor (his frequent 20th Century Fox costar Robert Wagner received a bigger build-up.) Not to be sacrilegious, but he even managed to make Jesus sort of hot in King of Kings (1961!)  No Man is an Island (1962) has him shipwrecked and rugged looking. Of all things it was the 1968 Bob Hope movie, The Private Navy of Sgt. O'Farrell which got my attention because the clean-cut Hunter appeared in a brief Adam and Eve segment (with Phyllis Diller!)

JOHN GAVIN -- My God, what a hunk. Look at his lips! Whether is be coming to the defense of Vera Miles in Psycho (1960) or Doris Day in Midnight Lace (1960) or romancing Lana Turner in Imitation of Life (1959) or Susan Hayward in Back Street (1961), Mr. Gavin seemed to handsome to be true... And he (mostly!) kept his clothes on in those movies. In Spartacus (1960), he portrayed the world's most delectable Julius Caesar wrapped in a towel! Then there is the later Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967) - close to his last gasp as a male lead - in which he acted as a handsome foil for Julie Andrews and Mary Tyler Moore.  Accused of woodenness for much of his career, he typically comes off better now against stars who are acting, acting, acting... especially on the new widescreen HDTVs.

LEX BARKER -- While he certainly was a good Tarzan, at least in the early movies, I was never much on Johnny Weissmuller, but his replacement, Lex Barker, is another story. In his five Tarzan movies my eyes are riveted to him at all times. And his vintage comic book covers (in color) are yummy to behold. After leaving Hollywood when he couldn't escape the typecasting or be taken seriously for decent roles, Barker developed a highly-successful foreign career, working for several top Italian directors and headlining a popular series of German westerns that made him a highly-prized star there.

PAUL NEWMAN -- Mr. Newman was world-renowned for his piercing blue eyes (and even in the golden-hued center portrait you can see their luminous power!), but his lips are also pretty enticing in some of these pics. He could have been content to stay another run-of-the-mill, handsome Hollywood lead, but he was always trying to prove himself and work on projects of high quality (though he undeniably missed on that score when he starred in When Time Ran Out..., 1980!) Naturally, our first encounter with him was in The Towering Inferno (1974) when I was but seven and I did take notice of him even then in a rust-colored towel, but later I was able to enjoy all his other films, from the dull to the unforgettable, and he was almost always watchable in them.

STEVE REEVES - Sometimes we'll be looking through photos of Steve Reeves and just keep having our breath taken away. Not only did he have a stunning physique, but that FACE with it's strong chin and glowing blue eyes...! The photo of men in their Grecian-style swimwear is from The Giant of Marathon (1959), chock-a-block with handsome men. The best thing about Reeves is that he was very much against steroids and believed in natural, healthy bodybuilding. (Me too... LOL! But I keep building my body in a different way.)

TAB HUNTER - Sun-kissed until golden and oh so handsome. Mr. Hunter was highly adept at playing wholesome American young men, though was haunted all along by the fact that one wrong whisper about his sexual orientation could bring his very successful career to a standstill. He made it over that hump, but then was felled by changing tastes in general by the movie-going public. Another of several men in this list whose acting talent was held in dubious regard, he did prove himself more than once to be more than a pretty face. And what a pretty face!

BONUS PICS!

The eyes have it...!

This is a slightly different pose from the photo above featuring Mr. Nero. He's even more arresting in color.

This is the time frame where I felt Mr. O'Brian really began to look extra handsome.

Check out the hypnotically beautiful blue eyes of Mr. Newman. They got so much attention he used to become highly frustrated and try to de-emphasize them. He once quipped that his epitaph would read: "Here lies Paul Newman, who died a failure because his eyes turned brown."

Though they certainly weren't a happy couple on screen, to my mind no movie couple was ever more extraordinarily beautiful together than Paul Newman and Elizabeth Taylor in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958.)

"Joey, do you like gladiator movies?" - Captain Oveur in Airplane! (1980) Um... I do NOW! I love Mr. Reeves' get-up in Hercules Unchained (1959) as well as that sexy beard! (And, no, I don't mean Sylva Koscina! Ha ha!)

Yes, please...

Now this is way too skinny for me, but look at the waist he achieved as a young bodybuilding champion...!

The fresh, sunny, good looks of Mr. Hunter.

And that's the end!

Still Quoting....!

"When I worked on The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (1976), Vanessa Redgrave tried to convert me to a form of communism, Trotskyism, whatever the hell it is. Talented broad, but everyone ducked behind a camera when she came around. I asked her, 'Vanessa can you shoot a pistol?' 'Why?' 'Well, when the revolution comes...' 'No, no,' she interrupted. 'Someone else will do that.' Some Trotskyite. She travels by Rolls Royce." - ROBERT DUVALL on VANESSA REDGRAVE

"Then, I thought to myself, 'Darn it, maybe I can't do what Vanessa Redgrave can, but can Vanessa Redgrave do what I can do? Who's kidding who here? - RAQUEL WELCH on VANESSA REDGRAVE

"What seemed like such a nice, simple, artless performance in Superman (1978) was the finest kind of acting. Reeve's timing-and humor-has to be just about perfect to make the character come off." - director SIDNEY LUMET on CHRISTOPHER REEVE (who he directed in Deathtrap (1982.)

"It was my father who told me I should develop my body seeing as how I wasn't born with much of a brain an' it was the only thing I had to fall back on. Then I saw Steve Reeves an' I thought, 'Jesus, anybody can go to school an' become a lawyer, but I wanna be able to pull down a temple, shift a bridge, take on a whole Roman army. ...That's a man to me.'" - SYLVESTER STALLONE on STEVE REEVES

"It's the man's tremendous wit that just keeps coming across. Listen, there's no acting style. Most people just play themselves. Spencer Tracy used to say to me after a scene, 'Did I ham that one up?' If I said yes, he'd say, 'Okay, let's do it again.' There's that same honesty in Burt Reynolds. He's a throwback to the old school." - MYRNA LOY on BURT REYNOLDS (whose mother she played in The End, 1978.)

"He is the one the ladies like to dance with and their husbands like to drink with. He is the larger-than-life actor of our times. He is gifted, talented, naughty-but nice." - FRANK SINATRA on BURT REYNOLDS (and in whose Cannonball Run II, 1982, he appeared.)

"Burt has a quality that nobody else has. He's funny, sexy, glib, likeable and still very macho. But Burt tries to be all things to all people... He thinks that unless he's doing...intense dramatic work-then he's not an actor. But I don't think he's comfortable with that kind of intense emotional revealing. He doesn't like to reveal himself that way in life, yet he's mad at himself because he can't do that on the screen." SALLY FIELD (one-time romantic partner and costar in Smokey and the Bandit, 1977, The End, 1978, Hooper, 1978, and Smokey and the Bandit II, 1980) on BURT REYNOLDS in 1985.)

"She's one of the reasons I left show business... We'd give her a new scene, and she couldn't remember the lines. She couldn't sing and, surprisingly, she couldn't do the dances. And all through the horror of it all she was smiling and grinning and unreal. There's no denying her appeal to the public. That's what makes her so dangerous. She almost smiled me into bankruptcy." - PAUL GREGORY (producer of the 1959 musical The Pink Jungle, which closed prior to its scheduled 1960 Broadway opening and involved at least seven Actors Equity motions) on GINGER ROGERS

"Don't let her fool you. Tangle with her and she'll shingle your attic." BOB HOPE on JANE RUSSELL (his costar in The Paleface, 1948, and Son of Paleface, 1952.)

"...One of the best actors alive. But my opinion of him as an actor is much higher than my opinion of him as a man." - JOHN HUSTON on GEORGE C. SCOTT (who he directed three times in The List of Adrian Messenger, 1963, The Last Run, 1971, and The Bible: In the Beginning, 1966, the last of which included a booze-fueled relationship with Ava Gardner in which Scott reportedly beat her to the point of hospitalization.)

"But everything [on High, Wide and Handsome, 1937] became a little bit brighter when I got to know Randolph Scott, one of the finest men in Hollywood... Now a retired millionaire, he's still as handsome as he was in 1937, totally charming and loads of fun." DOROTHY LAMOUR on RANDOLPH SCOTT

"Randy Scott is a complete anachronism. He's a gentleman. And so far, he's the only one I've met in this business full of self-promoting sons-of-bitches." - director MICHAEL CURTIZ on RANDOLPH SCOTT (who he directed in Virginia City, 1940.)

"I think his mother had gained such an incredible influence over him that he virtually abdicated his own rights to any individual personality... Finally, he had to invade other bodies to register at all. He had to inhabit, he was like a ghoul, he had to feast off somebody else! But he did it so well, it became an art. He was not a genius, Sellers, he was a freak." - SPIKE MILLIGAN on PETER SELLERS (his frequent stage, television and movie cohort.)

"Talk about unprofessional rat finks." - BILLY WILDER on PETER SELLERS (who Wilder directed, uncredited, in Casino Royale, 1967.)

"Norma, who I have always like and got along with, was at notorious loggerheads with Joan [Crawford.] You see, she was treated as Queen of the Lot because of her marriage to the boss, Irving Thalberg. Joan had made a lot of money for the company, and I imagine that's what annoyed both of them; it was a competition of who was really the Queen of the Lot." ROSALIND RUSSELL on NORMA SHEARER and JOAN CRAWFORD (all three stars of The Women, 1939.)

"And you can tell Miss Shearer that I didn't get where I am on my ass." - JOAN CRAWFORD on NORMA SHEARER (to the press.)

A Labor (Day) of Love

Today is Labor Day in the U.S., the last day that most swimming pools are open until next Memorial Day in May. Naturally, we love the water and love summer, so it is with much sadness that we have to say goodbye to pool season. But we may as well go out with a bang, right?? So let's take a look at some male celebrities who are workin' a swimsuit. As usual, there will be a whole gamut of types, so hopefully you'll find a favorite or two! (And thanks also to our cover boy today, Mr. Burt Reynolds.)

Recognize this man? This was my generation and the one before it's answer to Michael Phelps, the handsome and athletic Olympian Mark Spitz.

Truly one of the most beautiful men ever created, and one who was frequently displayed in next to nothing on, is all-natural bodybuilder and sword 'n sandal actor Steve Reeves, seen here sunning his flawless physique.

Here, we see Mr. Reeves in the company of a slew of fellow bodybuilders during the production of Athena (1954) – He's the one being pinned back.

Costar Debbie Reynolds steps in to compare biceps with the guys. Is this an embarrassment of riches or WHAT?

While we're in the past, let's take a peek at some other old time stars in their swimwear... Here we see wonderful movie villain (and occasional good guy) Warren William in a snappy belted suit. He was so often covered up in his movies, it's rare to see him out of a suit (and in decent shape, too!)

Randolph Scott and his roommate Cary Grant pose on the diving board for a photo spread on their everyday life together. Grant has the peculiar distinction of having socks on, but the bigger question is: if the socks are on his feet, then what does he have in the front of that swimsuit?!?

Crooner and actor (such as in 1945's State Fair) Dick Haymes frolics in the back yard with his cute children (two of the six kids he had amongst his many wives.)

A very focused and determined James Cagney prepares to do a back-flip.

Alan Ladd (during the filming of The Great Gatsby, 1949) is shown talking to Macdonald Carey during a poolside scene.

Steve Cochran (star of the recently profiled movie The Beat Generation, 1959) is shown with some clinging seaweed, clinging Lita Milan and a clinging swimsuit in I, Mobster (1958), which has suddenly become a must-see movie for me!

We can't see too much of Cochran's Generation costar Ray Danton here, but what we can make out looks rather inviting...

Contrary film actor Edmund Purdom is shown sharing a hammock with wife of one year Linda Christian.

Tab Hunter takes part in some poolside tomfoolery with a couple of friends. Shame about those socks.

Here we see Sal Mineo (in the company of Terry Moore) taking a stroll on the beach.

Former Disney star Tommy Kirk is shown cavorting with a bevy of bikini-clad gals in one of his beach-set movies (though in real life, his tastes ran the same way mine do!)

Another teen sensation, Frankie Avalon, is seen here on the deck of a boat in I'll Take Sweden (1965.)

I wanted to include that color shot above, but he makes a somewhat better impression standing up, as shown here!

One of my faithful readers sent in this shot of French star Alain Delon about to dive into The Swimming Pool (1969.)

Next, we take a dip into the Charlton Heston wing of this swimwear exhibit. Mr H., a one-time artists model, often swam and took in the sun wearing abbreviated trunks.

The star of many historical epics was contemporary when it came to swimsuits.

This dotted one seems to have been a favorite of his.

When you spend a fair amount of time in loincloths and rags, you have to keep that tan going!

Another actor who wore a loincloth in at least one movie (Zardoz, 1974) is Sean Connery, seen here with then-wife Diane Cilento in some snugly-fitting swimtrunks.

His immediate successor as James Bond (in On Her Majesty's Secret Service, 1969) was male model-turned-actor George Lazenby, sporting a Speedo at the beach.

The villain in Secret Service was Telly Savalas, enjoying a swim in a Speedo of his own. See how I made that segue? ;-)

Speedos for breakfast?? It looks that way for actor Tony Franciosa in this cereal commercial.

Of course I cackle at the box of Grape Nuts being in such close proximity as Mr. F.'s own...

In The Producers (1967), when auditions were in full swing for the lead in the movie's deliberately awful musical “Springtime for Hitler,” one of the actors slithered down to these briefs. (Maybe not a swimsuit, but when have I ever been picky?!)

In The Gay Deceivers (1969) Laurence Casey plays gay to avoid the draft, but takes a stroll and a swim with his girlfriend.

Check out this good-looking, swimsuit-wearing couple: Granite-like Charles Bronson and his wife Jill Ireland.

Miles O'Keefe got a short-lived burst of major publicity when he played the title character in 1981's Tarzan, the Ape Man opposite Bo Derek. His loincloth was probably the most abbreviated to that time except perhaps for the one Johnny Weissmuller wore in the very first pre-Code film.

Another scantily-clad movie actor was Christopher Atkins in The Blue Lagoon (1980), who even went naked a time or two.

Not to be outdone (though when it came to the movie's lasting fame, he was) was Eight is Enough's Willie Ames in Paradise (1982), a Lagoon ripoff, in which he put forth a nude swimming scene.

The Speedo was still going strong on actor Paul Land in 1983's Spring Break (and be sure not to miss the extra to the left of him's revealing shorts!)

Mr. Land did commit one cardinal sin of the Speedo, however, which was to have a thatch of body hair on his inner thighs along the leg holes.  Ya gotta prune a little bit!

Let's turn the dial now to some TV actors. We'll call this first part the Robert Culp Wing. Culp was the star (along with Bill Cosby) of I Spy (1965 – 1968) and sometimes had occasion on the globe-trotting show to show off some very fun and tiny swim trunks.

Just look at the series of shots depicted here (again, brought to my attention by a faithful Underworld reader!)

In this montage, we almost get a bit of butt crack from him as he emerges from the water. (And note the dark brown jock strap they had Mr. Cosby in!)

This suit screams the 1960s (and I wish I could have been there to experience them firsthand.)

This next trio of shots are of a Speedo-clad Mr. Culp working on a dolly shot in which the camera will be pulled backwards away from him along the platform he's walking on.

So much goes on out of frame in TV or movies that we rarely, if ever, take time to think about when watching.

Here's a more close-up view. Culp, by the way. went “full monty” in a 1973 film called A Name for Evil if you ever come across it.

Actor John Saxon appeared in the 1973 TV-movie Linda with Stella Stevens and showed off his humpy physique. This entire movie is on youtube.com if you ever want to see it. (Which reminds me, it may soon be time to hop into the vintage TVMovie Time Tunnel again!)

If you are of a certain age, you are doubtlessly aware of the extraordinary beauty and hunkitude of this next guy, Voyagers' Jon-Erik Hexum, seen in a swimsuit photo payout with The Fall Guy's Heather Thomas.

I loved both of these people when I was a kid, though my mother saw Thomas as a car show that was in town and thought she seemed “hard.” LOL Maybe so... (Incidentally, Thomas has just stepped before the cameras again after a fifteen-year hiatus, in a warm, fuzzy, family-oriented opus called Girltrash: All Night Long!) 

When Hexum died in 1984, his replacement on the series he was then starring on (Cover Up) was Antony Hamilton, shown here in a Speedo.

Hamilton's life ended far too early as well when AIDS claimed him in 1995 at only age forty-two.

Soap opera fans might feel themselves getting into a lather over these next two men. Doug Sheehan worked on General Hospital from 1978 to 1982 before moving to primetime on Knots Landing from 1983 to 1987.

Peter Reckell caused a sensation on Days of Our Lives from 1983 to 1987 before leaving and coming back from 1990 to 1992.

he came back a third time, ironically his longest stay, from 1995 to 2012.

Do those pictures remind you of anything? They ought to put you in the mind of Battle of the Network Stars if you're old enough to recall that series of specials which pitted actors and actresses from NBC, CBS and ABC against each other in various sporting events. (Thankfully, two or three of the events meant that the men were shoehorned into Speedo bathing suits!)

Since this was my FAVORITE PROGRAM EVER as a kid and I happen to have collected a fair amount of pictures from it, we'll end this post with them. What a shame we couldn't get a better look at Gary Sandy (of WKRP in Cincinnati, 1978-1982), an actor famous for his tight pants, rowing a kayak in the lower right corner of this montage.

This shot is likely from another occasion (you can usually spot Battle pics from the distinctively colorful, solid-design swimsuits), but I'm tossing it on the pile anyway. Lorenzo Lamas of Falcon Crest (1981-1990.) Lamas appeared in every one of Crest's 227 episodes.

Preparing for a swimming relay is B.J. And the Bear's Greg Evigan. He starred in that show from 1978 to 1981.

Here's another shot of Evigan (and, again, I'm thinking this is from another occasion, due to the style - and size! - of suit.)

Frequent team captain Robert Conrad (of Baa Baa Black Sheep, 1976-1978) takes a breather with an unfortunately-located can of Coke.

Tom Selleck of Magnum P.I. (1980-1988) is wearing one of the ghastly rust-colored, velour warm-up jackets over his Speedo.

This is Daniel J. Travanti, star of Hill St. Blues from 1981 to 1987.

Dynasty's John James towels off after a swim. James was one of only two cast members to stay with the show (departing only to spend two seasons on its spin-off The Colbys, 1985-1987) through its entire run from 1981 to 1989.

Mark Harmon (of Flamingo Road, 1980-1982, and St. Elsewhere, 1983-1986) is pointing eastward.

And here is Vega$ (1978-1981) star Robert Urich.

Fans of Andrew Stevens are in for a treat now. First we have this shot of him in his official ABC warm-up jacket and swimsuit. He was costarring on Code Red (1981-1982) at the time.

Now we get a glimpse of him after a moist ride in the kayak relay race.

About to dive into the water for the swimming relay, his li'l trunks are becoming quite the eye (and mouth?) openers. Ha!

I always try to save the best for last and so here I give you young Andrew Stevens alongside the incredibly gorgeous Sam J. Jones, his Code Red costar. And these two together ought to get anyone's alarms blaring! I hope you had a wonderful weekend and enjoyed this Labor Day special.