Everyman, I will go with thee and be thy guide.
In your most need I'll be by your side.
2. Bruce Lee. He died in 1973, but his movies were playing constantly on Kung Fu Theater, and everybody's older brother had his beefcake poster on his bedroom wall.
3. Michael Forest played a god of masculine beauty (literally the God Apollo) on an episode of Star Trek which I saw sometime in the 1970s.
5, David Naughton. The cutest guy of the Disco Era showed us his dick and butt in in American Werewolf in London (1981). Plus he also gave us a strong gay subtext in spite of the 1980s homophobia.
7. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The 1980s start and end with Arnold, who single-handedly brought bodybuilding into the mainstream and made it respectable.
9. John Amos. Gordy the Weatherman on Mary Tyler Moore, a warrior in a Conan rip-off that we all saw, and my gym buddy.
1. Johnny Sheffield played Bomba the Jungle Boy on Tarzan Theater every Saturday afternoon when there wasn't a game. I never actually made it through a whole movie -- they were dreadfully heterosexist. But there was always time for those gleaming black-and-white muscles, especially when he was tied up.
2. Bruce Lee. He died in 1973, but his movies were playing constantly on Kung Fu Theater, and everybody's older brother had his beefcake poster on his bedroom wall.
3. Michael Forest played a god of masculine beauty (literally the God Apollo) on an episode of Star Trek which I saw sometime in the 1970s.
4. Denny Miller. Moments of gay promise as a surfer and a jungle man on Gilligan's Island.
5, David Naughton. The cutest guy of the Disco Era showed us his dick and butt in in American Werewolf in London (1981). Plus he also gave us a strong gay subtext in spite of the 1980s homophobia.
6. Yukio Mishima. It wasn't hard to find gay-themed books in the early 1980s. Just look for "evil" or "hidden" in the title. So I found Confessions of a Mask, with Japanese novelist Yukio Mishima's obsession with male muscles, sex, and death.
7. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The 1980s start and end with Arnold, who single-handedly brought bodybuilding into the mainstream and made it respectable.
8. Sylvester Stallone gave him a little help with his grunting, sweat-soaked Rambo and Rocky. We saw his dick in The Italian Stallion, a recast of his early porn movie.
9. John Amos. Gordy the Weatherman on Mary Tyler Moore, a warrior in a Conan rip-off that we all saw, and my gym buddy.
10. Lou Ferrigno, who played a muscular green Hulk against Bill Bixby's David Banner, dropped by often when I was working at Muscle & Fitness. Did I mention our hookup?
More after the break