Steve Antin: radical gay representation and beefcake, from "The Last American Virgin" to "Girlicious." With lots of bulges and butts

Steve Antin's bio on the Internet Movie Database claims that he "broke all the girls' hearts" in The Last American Virgin (1982).  Same old story: gay people don't exist, so all girls and no boys swooned over his character.

Spoiler alert: Steve is gay.  

Born in 1958, Steve broke into film playing the Jesse whose girl Rick Springfield longs for in "Jesse's Girl" (1981).  Next came The Last American Virgin (1982).  In his first major screen appearance, he plays high schooler Rick, who has sex with dozens of girls, like "every high school boy" in the 1980s -- except for his his buddy Gary (Lawrence Monoson, below), the "last American virgin."  So he and a third buddy, David (Joe Rubbo), strive to get Gary laid.  

This is not the typical 1980s "sex with girls is the meaning of life" teen comedy. Horndog Rick gets Diane pregnant and dumps her, so Virgin Gary pays for the abortion and falls in love with her, but Diane dumps him!  Then Gary dumps Rick and drives off in tears. Rather a downbeat ending. 

But there's a obvious gay subtext relationship between Gary and Rick: Gary seems to like Diane only because Rick was intimate with her.

And there's a lot of beefcake.  Far more semi-naked male bodies than female bodies.  Muscle hunks in their underwear. Jocks stripped down in the locker room. Steve with a boner (left).

There is even a penis size contest, with the boys gleefully evaluating packages while their classmates parade by naked.

When was the last time heterosexual male teenagers were so happy to gaze at a row of naked men?

You might almost think that this movie with a gay star had a gay audience in mind.

Steve went on to play some teenagers on tv, the spoiled rich kid/horndog in The Goonies (1985), and some action/adventure and dramatic roles, all heterosexual.  But when he became the boyfriend of mogul David Geffen, he got some gay-positive roles.

He wrote, produced, and starred in the dramedy Inside Monkey Zetterland (1992), as a retired child actor turned screenwriter who lives with his overbearing mother and wacky/sad relatives.  He's straight, but he is friends with a gay man (Rupert Everett) and a lesbian posing as a married couple.  They are plotting to bomb an insurance agency that is denying coverage to people who are HIV positive. 

It's My Party (1996), although extremely downbeat, was a classic of gay representation.  Nick (Eric Roberts) is dying of AIDS, with only a few days of mental awareness left, so he decides to kill himself.  His family and friends come to his "going-away party," including ex-boyfriend Brandon (1980s tv hunk Gregory Harrison).  Steve plays one of their friends.  Christopher Atkins, one of my friends in Los Angeles, also appears.

Brian To appears nude.

Bonus butts after the break

A date with Kris (who may not be Jeremy Renner's boyfriend) leads to Christopher Atkins' dick

When I was living in West Hollywood in the mid-1990s, my friend Infinite Chazz began dating Kris, a 19-year old baby-faced ginger boy who had been in Los Angeles less than a year, but had already been in some movies and tv shows.

I'm not implying that he was Kristoffer Winters, who would go on to play Zilbor in Dude, Where's My Car (2000) and Clayton Gallagher in Shameless (2011-2012), and who is reputedly the boyfriend of  Jeremy Renner.

This Kris, whoever he was, soon broke up with Infinite Chazz, but we all stayed friends, as one does in gay communities. 

Kris had just landed his first starring role, in what turned out to be a very bad Smokey and the Bandits rip-off called Smoke n Lightnin, about two auto mechanics named, naturally, Smoke and Lightnin (no g), who get involved in a caper involving car chases and girls.

"It's not exactly King Lear," he admitted, "But it could lead to bigger things.  And you'll never guess who my costar is -- Christopher Atkins!  I had such a crush on him when I was a kid!"

We all had a crush on Christopher Atkins when he played a boy growing up on a desert island in The Blue Lagoon (1980) -- a thoroughly heterosexist movie famous for several nude frontal shots of the tanned young actor.

More movies with frontal nudity followed, notably A Night in Heaven (1983), about a male stripper, plus a story arc on Dallas (1983-84).

Christopher's star had waned a bit -- now he appeared mostly in sleazy, low-budget productions like Mortuary Academy and Bandit Goes Country. -- and Smoke and Lightnin.  But what actor wouldn't jump at the chance to work with such an iconic star?

And maybe get a glimpse of the most famous penis of the decade.

It was a low budget movie -- three weeks of shooting at a real auto repair shop in the San Fernando Valley and a house in Mission Viejo, and then off to Florida for two weeks of shooting the Miami locations and car-chase stunts.

One day Kris invited me out to lunch, and to meet Christopher.  I was sort of disappointed -- I didn't expect the lithe, tanned teenager of Blue Lagoon, but the cragginess, long hair, and moustache was a bit too redneck.  If I saw Christopher walking toward me on a dark street, I'd be worried about a gay-bashing.

But he turned out to be very friendly, very gay-positive.  He knew about Infinite Chazz -- even about the nickname "Infinite" -- and asked about the date of Christopher Street West, our Pride Festival, as if he intended to come.

More after the break

Ewan McGregor: Are there penises in all of his movies, or in just most of them?

 

There are lots of famous penises among Hollywood stars.  Among the old guard, Milton Berle's comes to mind, although there aren't any actual photos of it.  Rob Lowe accidentally gave us a glimpse of his, fully aroused.  Christopher Atkins displayed his several times, on screen and off.  But Ewan McGregor wins the prize for displaying his on screen all the time.

I've seen a lot of his movies.  Some I liked, some I hated: 1. Trainspotting (1996)

2. The Pillow Book (1997)
3. Velvet Goldmine (1998) was good.
4. Star Wars: The Phantom Menace (1999) and its sequels, where he plays a young, gay Obi-Wan Kenobi.
5. I walked out of Moulin Rouge (2000) when they started singing 20th century songs in 19th century Paris.

6. Scenes of a Sexual Nature (2003): He appears for five seconds.

7. Doctor Sleep

8. Halston (2021)

But one thing you can always count on.  There will be a penis. 

Usually his.

More dicks after the break

Christopher Atkins: Nude photos of my West Hollywood friend and 1980s gay icon (who never played a gay role)

 

I met Christopher Atkins a few times when I lived in California: my friend was starring with him in a Smokey and the Bandits rip-off.  

Recently we became facebook friends. Well, me and 3,800 other people.  But I'm one of the few who responds to his posts.

"Come on, Christopher, it's big, but not big enough to write your entire name and a heart on." (I didn't really say that.)

Christopher was one of the first actors to go full frontal on the big screen.  Several times.Here he shows off in his iconic but immensely heterosexist Blue Lagoon (1980).  At the time, he hated performing nude.

In A Night in Heaven (1983), he played a male stripper at a ladies-only club. 

In real life Christopher has been a gay ally since the start of his career.  While other actors were insisting that only women enjoyed looking at their physique, he was happily discussing his appeal to gay fans in magazines like The Advocate.

More after the break