Lance Kerwin: The Golden Boy of the 1970s offers gay promise for about five years, then vanishes to Hawaii and fundamentalism

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Dan Shor: Tron, Star Trek, an Excellent Adventure, the South Pacific, and the Butt that Changed the World.

Sometime during the days of Blockbuster Video, we rented Strange Behavior (1981), mainly because the cover blurb said something about Galesburg, Illinois, which is near the Quad Cities. 

We weren't aware that it was written by a gay man (Bill Condon), it stars a gay man (Dan Shor), and it features something that would change movies forever.

It's got a silly plot about a crazed college professor named Dr. Le Sange (Dr. Blood), who mind-controls the town teenagers into blood-crazed monsters.

No Galesburg sites are appear mentioned; Apparently they just picked a random town in the Midwest so there would be cornfields and stereotyped farm folk. It was actually filmed in New Zealand.

The focus character is named Pete Brady, which no doubt caused a lot of eye-rolls and derisive laughs in 1981: Viewers would instantly think of the kid from The Brady Bunch (Christopher Knight, who grew up into a muscle hunk.)

This photo teases a gay-subtext buddy bond between focus character Pete Brady (har har) and Oliver (Marc McClure), but the movie is actually heteronormative, with boy-girl romance all the way down.  

I'd rather date Marc McClure, loveable nerd Jimmy Olsen in Superman (1978).

 And Dan Shor, the guy who plays Pete, is not handsome. He's got a long face, a Romanesque nose, and a lantern jaw.

But none of that is important.

What's important is a scene early in the movie where Pete Brady (har har) and his father (not Mike Brady, darn it) have just gotten up in the morning.  Pete approaches him to discuss something.  Naked.  He then moves toward the shower.  We get an extended shot of his butt.

 

It wasn't the first nude butt on film, but it was the first extended butt shot that wasn't for a comedic purpose.

There is no other nudity, male or female, in the film, not even a shirtless shot.  What was the directorial decision to film Dan Shor nude?

In an interview, Dan said that it was a political act, an acknowledgement of gay potential in the homophobic 1980s. It disrupted the heterosexual male gaze and paved the way for movies to present images of male beauty.

"And it sealed my popularity in West Hollywood," Dan joked.  Or maybe he wasn't joking.

Born in New York in 1956, Dan Shor studied acting in England, then moved to Hollywood, where he landed small parts in some serious, "artistic" movies: Young Studs in an adaption of James T. Farrell's Studs Lonigan (1979).

Enoch Emery in an adaption of Flannery O'Conner's Wise Blood (1979).

Eric in the After-School Special The Boy Who Drank Too Much (1980), starring Scott Baio as an alcoholic teenager named Buff Saunders (Buff?).

More after the break

Willie Aames: Charles in Charge's Buddy goes to Paradise, shows his willie, becomes Bibleman and a platinum-selling writer

 

According to his IMBD biography, Willie Aaames is an award winning, Platinum-selling writer and producer/director and a 6-star cruise ship director. How does a book go platinum?

But he's best known for showing the world his dick.

He started appearing on screen at the age of 11, with guest spots in The Courtship of Eddie's Father, The Odd Couple, Adam's Rib, Adam-12, and The Waltons.

A starring role in Swiss Family Robinson (1975-76), which adds paranormal peril to the ill-fated island.

120 episodes of the sappy drama Eight is Enough (1977-81), as Tommy Bradford, the second-to-youngest son,  whose shtick was being hetero-horny, sneaking into the girls' locker room and so on, until he got his girlfriend pregnant and married her.

This led to the dreadful Zapped! (1982), with the nerd Barney (Scott Baio) getting telekinetic powers, and apparently using them to look up girls' skirts.  Willie played his horny best friend.

And Charles in Charge (1982-90), as Buddy, the bodybuilding best buddy of the college student turned male nanny.  His dialogue consisted of "Charles!  There's this party tonight, with GIRLS!!!  We can meet GIRLS!!!,", and Charles responding, "I can't go, I have to stay home and watch these two teenage girls, one of whom is my age, so why she needs a nanny is beyond me.  I think I'll just walk around in a towel."

The nudity came in Paradise (1982), a knockoff of Blue Lagoon, with none of the scintillating dialogue or intriguing plot (ok, I'm joking.  Blue Lagoon didn't have those things, either.)

But you did get to see Willie's willie.

I'm not usually into butts, but he has some nice pulchritude, and the penis isn't bad

More dick after the break.