Tom Berklund: Bodybuilder and "Modern Family" cop stars in gay tragedies, poses nude, but what's with all the lady friends?

 

We've finished Modern Family, but I forgot to research a bodybuilder who appeared in Episode 10.5, "Good Grief" (2018): as the family gathers for Halloween, Jay gets the word that his ex-wife DeeDee (Shelly Long) has died.  Dressed in wacky costumes, the children and grandchildren try to process their grief in different ways. Phil and Cam drive into West Hollywood for a convoluted reason, and get stuck in the Halloween parade.  As they are honking, a cop tells them to give the horn a rest.  The parade will be over soon.  Then he swishes off in his very tight chaps.

Phil: "I don't get to this part of town often.  That's not a real cop, right?"

I was annoyed that Phil says "this part of town": West Hollywood is a separate city.  But I wanted to see more of the hot cop, Tom Berklund, and his tight chaps.

I checked his Instagram first: "Real estate developer, bodybuilder, spiritual growth."  That's not an occupation, buddy.

 Some nice muscle shots, but the mixed signals made it impossible to tell if he is gay or not. 

"Had a great time with Sarah and Teddy," a lady and a dog.  You're dating a lady, got it.

"Dinner and theater night out with my famous friend" Ryan Hadad, a queer disabled playwright.  Is it a date or a friend hang?

"Ali, Joey, and me."  Ali and Joey are a woman and a baby.  So is this your wife and son?  

"Post dinner sunset stroll with the one and only Tucker Breder," an actor whose Instagram is private, but he poses with a woman on Soundcloud.  Now you're dating a straight guy?

"Charlie got the lead in Once Upon a High School."  Posing with a woman and teenage boy.  But if this is your wife and son, who's Ali and the baby?   

Heck with it.  Let's look at his biceps and bulge, and see if he's been in any gay-themed movies.

Tom was born in Middleton, Wisconsin, 15 minutes from Madison, and got his BFA from the University of Michigan.  He then moved to New York, where he won the part of Gregory Gardner in the 2006 revival of A Chorus Line.  

In his monologue, Gregory talks about getting an erection in class, and realizing that he was gay.  Not a bad start.

Tom has 25 acting credits, but mostly parts like Dancer, Gym Attendant, Spin Instructor, and Sexy Santa (above, on Ray Donovan).  I found a few gay roles:

More after the break

"Angels in America": A tearjerker about AIDS, Mormon angels, and some 1950s guy. With dicks and butts to keep your spirits up

 

Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes, won numerous awards during its run at the Mark Taper Forum and then on Broadway.  I saw it in 1997.  Well, the first 300 hours, anyway -- it's divided into two parts, Millenial Approaches and Perestroika, each requiring superhuman endurance and thinking about butts and cocks to sit through.  

Very, very depressing: people dying have never been my idea of entertainment, and this dude is dying of AIDS, very slowly, with all of the symptoms displayed in graphic detail.  Meanwhile he thinks he's a Mormon prophet and turns straight, having sex with a female angel with multiple breasts and vaginas, and this guy named Roy Cohn is dying of AIDS, too, and an elderly lady in a 1950s outfit is comforting him although she hates him.

Are we supposed to recognize these people?

Plus the names are bizarre and off-putting, and you never know what's really happening and what's an AIDS fever dream, and people are dying.  Help!

Ok, very slowly, let's try to get through this mishmash of obscure history, with illustrations of actors from the tv miniseries that appeared in 2003:

Part 1: Millenial Approaches. Not the year 2000, the 1000 year reign of Christ on Earth.

1. New York, of course, in the 1980s. the Jewish Louis, played by Ben Shenkman, discovers that his Mormon boyfriend Prior -- prior to what? --  has AIDS, and dumps him.

Prior is played by Justin Kirk, top two photos.  He will have delusions of becoming a Mormon prophet.

2. Prior is comforted in the hospital by an ex-drag queen nurse named Belize.

3. Meanwhile, Joe Pitt (Patrick Wilson, butt and dick left), conservative Republican Mormon politician in Boyfriend Louis's office, becomes interested in him, which causes friction with his crazy wife and conservative mother, and causes him to dream about meeting Prophet Prior. 

Republican Joe comes out to his mom, who travels to New York to coddle him, and to his wife, who flees from the house and believes that she is in Antartica.  Then he starts dating Boyfriend Louis.

4. Joe's boss is Roy Cohn.  Yes, that Roy Cohn, played by Al Pacino.  I had never heard of him at the time, but he was one of the instigators of the Red Scare in the 1950s.  He was gay in real life, but closeted and homophobic. 

In the play, he  claims that he is dying of liver cancer, but actually it's AIDS.  

The elderly lady who is comforting him, although she hates him, is Ethel Rosenberg.  In 1953, Roy prosecuted Ethel and her husband Julius as Soviet spies, and got them the death penalty.  They were widely presumed innocent, being railroaded because they were Jewish. 

5. Prophet Prior has a lot of disturbing fever dreams.  He meets his ancestors, also named Prior, and a Mormon angel with several breasts and vaginas, who has sex with him and tells him to prepare for the Great Work.

Left: Simon Callow, one of the prior Priors

The first play ends there.  Sort of a cliff hanger, innit?

Perestroika after the break