#retro beefcake

Born on this day: pioneering homoerotic filmmaker, photographer and undisputed “filth elder” James Bidgood (28 March 1933 – 31 January 2022). His crowning achievement is Pink Narcissus (1971), which I’ll always associate with London’s long-defunct, much-missed Scala Cinema. It’s one of the essential homoerotic classicks (sic) of underground cinema (alongside Jean Genet’s Un chant d’amour (1950), Kenneth Anger’s Scorpio Rising (1963) and Andy Warhol’s My Hustler (1965)) all homosexualists should see at least once. Simultaneously avant-garde and kitsch, for Bidgood Pink Narcissus represented an obsessive labour of love: shot on 8mm on a shoe-string budget, seven years in production (from 1963 to 1970), all filmed entirely within the confines of his own compact Manhattan apartment (even the “exterior” street scenes). The hot neon shocking pink and blue-hued photography is exquisite (it seemingly heavily influenced the camp sensibility of French pop art duo Pierre et Gilles). Pink Narcissus ensures Bidgood artistic immortality. (Pink Narcissus has recently undergone a 4k restoration, so it should look more gorgeous – and closer to Bidgood’s vision – than ever before). Pictured: the photo “Apache” by James Bidgood, circa 1964-1966. The model: Tommy Coombs.

Born on this day: the great outsider Swiss photographer and aficionado of firm male flesh Karlheinz Weinberger (10 June 1921 – 10 December 2006). He specialized in documenting rockabilly and motorcycle gang subcultures in the sixties and seventies, taking smoldering homoerotic portraits of sullen leather-clad thugs posed like defiant peacocks. It was reading John Waters’ garrulous praise that turned me on to Weinberger’s work, and I am eternally grateful. One regret: I wish I’d snapped up Rebel Youth (the 2011 coffee table book compiling Weinberger’s photography) when it first came out. It’s slipped out of print since and copies now go for over £100 on eBay! Pictured: Weinberger’s 1958 portrait of an impossibly handsome Italian gas station attendant. He looks like a Mediterranean Rory Calhoun – and that knowing smirk implies he’s offering more than petrol! If you’re curious to delve deeper, following the official Karlheinz Weinberger Instagram page is a must.

Pop culture theorist Camille Paglia rhapsodising about Marlon Brando (3 April 1924 – 1 July 2004) in 1991, who was born 102 years ago today. I particularly love Brando’s performances in the 1953 juvenile delinquent / motorcycle gang flick The Wild One, opposite Anna Magnani in the underrated Tennessee Williams film adaptation The Fugitive Kind (1960) and perhaps best of all, the twisted Southern gothic Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967). Pictured: smouldering young Brando photographed by Carl Van Vechten in December 1948. (That bomber jacket is perfection!).

Born on this day 96 years ago: that wondrous physical specimen, 1950s beefcake Adonis Ed Fury (né Rupert Edmund Holovchik, 6 June 1928 - 24 February 2023). Fury also occasionally acted (his filmography includes Abbott and Costello Go to Mars (1953) and Wild Women of Wongo (1958)). He’s also one of the bevy of semi-nude muscle men who cavort in tiny flesh-coloured shorts with Jane Russell in her “Ain’t There Anyone Here for Love?” musical number in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953). Later, he triumphantly transitioned to Italian “sword and sandal” or “peplum” gladiator films like Colossus and The Amazon Queen (1960) and Ursus (1961). Fury also, of course, posed “undraped” for male pinup photographers like Bruce of LA and Bob Mizer of Athletic Model Guild.

Born 100 years ago today in Regina, Saskatchewan: much-loved deadpan Canadian actor Leslie Nielsen (11 February 1926 – 28 November 2010). Here is strapping young Nielsen long before he triumphantly embraced comedy in Airplane! and The Naked Gun later in his career and was still playing serious dramatic roles. As you can see, he was prime beefcake!

Born on this day 102 years ago: pioneering homoerotic photographer, filmmaker, founder of Athletic Model Guild studio and Physique Pictorial magazine, “the Cecil B DeMille of the posing pouch” Bob Mizer (Robert Henry Mizer, 27 March 1922 – 12 May 1992). All these decades later, Mizer’s beautiful, joyous and life-affirming vintage beefcake pin-ups celebrating firm male flesh are STILL widely censored on the internet. (Don’t fall for the faux “progressive” pinkwashing done by the likes of Facebook, Instagram and Tumblr). Last year I visited “A Hard Man is Good to Find!” (billed as “a bold new exhibition charting over 60 years of queer photography of the male physique”) at The Photographer’s Gallery here in London. It featured an actual posing pouch from Athletic Model Guild, sewn by Mizer’s mother, displayed in a glass vitrine. It was like witnessing a sacred religious artifact - like the shroud of Turin! (I took a photo which I really should post sometime!). Pictured: a “safe for social media” shot by Mizer, 1982.

Born 100 years ago today in Budapest: Mr Universe 1955 Miklós “Mickey” Hargitay (6 January 1926 – 14 September 2006). In mid-twentieth century Hollywood, Hargitay and his glorious sex-kitten-gone-berserk wife Jayne Mansfield (pictured) represented the quintessential garish publicity-crazed show business couple (and I say that with love. Their only possible rivals were hard-drinking, jet-setting hedonists Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton who came later). Even before their 1958 marriage, the duo’s tumultuous on-and-off relationship would play out within the flashbulbs of international paparazzi. Hargitay and Mansfield would have three children together (Mariska’s biological father was actually singer Nelson Sardelli, but let’s not open that can of worms here; for all intents and purposes, she was Hargitay’s daughter), perform together on film and onstage in Las Vegas before ultimately divorcing in 1964. (It must be noted that after his turbulent years with Mansfield, Hargitay happily remarried - to Ellen Siano - in 1967 and lived quietly with this third and final wife until his death aged 80).

Born on this day 85 years ago: luscious, pouting rock’n’roll heartthrob and "British Elvis" Billy Fury (real name: Ronald Wycherley, 17 April 1940 - 28 January 1983). I’m such a keen Fury devotee I’ve even been known to suffer through Play It Cool (1962), the virtually unwatchable cheap’n’cheerful rock’n’roll musical he starred in (think of it as his “Elvis movie”). As an actor, Fury (doomed to die aged just 42 from a heart condition) is merely adequate and visibly uncomfortable onscreen, but so moody and exquisitely photogenic it scarcely matters. (Like Presley, in his close-ups Fury clearly favours heavy mascara and eyeliner. For the record, I’ve never watched his follow-up movie, I’ve Gotta Horse (1965). The title doesn’t inspire confidence). Fury was arguably the most talented protégé of outrageous manager / impresario / Svengali Larry Parnes, who specialized in plucking cute unknowns out of obscurity and transforming them into teen idols in the early days of British rock’n’roll. (Parnes loved rechristening his stable of male starlets with showbiz names like Tommy Steele, Marty Wilde, Vince Eager, Dickie Pride, Johnny Gentle and Duffy Power. Author Jon Savage investigates Parnes’ career extensively in his mammoth 2024 book The Secret Public: How LGBTQ Performers Shaped Popular Culture (1955 - 1979). For anyone unfamiliar with his music, The Sound of Fury (1960) is his magnum opus. It represents the closest a UK artist came to capturing the grit of American rockabilly. But I also love Fury’s lush, soaring romantic pop ballads like “Last Night Was Made for Love” and “Halfway to Paradise”.