Showing posts with label soap opera. Show all posts
Showing posts with label soap opera. Show all posts

Dakota Taylor: Prom kings, soap studs, model, and ghost. Plus Justin Berfield, Justin Kirk, and the problems of searching for Dakota's cock pics



In Ghosts Episode 1.17 (2020), Jay and Samantha, the owners of the heavily-haunted Woodstone Mansion, meet mean girl ghost Stephanie.  In 1987, she and her prom date Tad (Dakota Taylor) were parking on the estate, when a serial killer murdered her. She has unfinished business, so she is stuck on there (but only appears once a year, on the anniversary of her death).  We assume that Tad was murdered, too, but "sucked off" to the afterlife right away.






Until Episode 4.20, when he re-appears as a middle-aged man (played by Justin Kirk, below) using the tragedy in his mayoral campaign: he announces that he bravely tried  to protect Stephanie, but was knocked out.

"Bull hockey!" Stephanie exclaims.  "He ran away like a little coward."

So of course Jay and Sam have to call him out with "I know what you did 37 years ago!"

But some of the other ghosts observed the attack, and corroborate Tad's story.  It turns out that Stephanie just wants to "get even" because Tad started dating her best friend shortly after the murder.  










Dakota Taylor (the teenage Tad) is extremely cute, and a brief internet search revealed this photo of two guys on a date.  He must have played gay  characters.  




Plus there are some very revealing modeling photos.  Maybe there are cock shots out there as well.   











Dakota grew up in Grimsby, Ontario, near Niagara Falls.  He graduated from the Blessed Trinity Catholic School in 2017, and then studied at the Toronto Academy of Acting and York University.  His first on-screen roles came in 2017: a World War I soldier in an  episode of Canada: The Story of Us, and a teenage drug addict in an episode of Teens 101. 

He seems to specialize in proms:

Homekilling Queen (2019): Whitney will stop at nothing to be elected Homecoming Queen. Dakota plays a cute boy that she uses to catfish her chief rival, Natasha.



 

Fear Street: Prom Queen (2021).  Same plot.  Dakota plays the boyfriend of one of the contenders. Dale Whitby plays another.

Left: This is who you get when you search on Dale Whitby.  Not him.  Not that I mind.

More after the break.  Caution: Explicit.

Joe Davidson: The gladiator, surfer, soap stud, and gator poacher doesn't mind if you check out his d*ck. With bonus Thomas Jane and Takaya butt


In Spartacus: House of Ashur Episode 1.1, Gladiator Logus (Joe Davidson) insults the dwarf trio Brothers Ferox: "My cock stands larger threats!" They promptly eviscerate him.

During the filming, Joe hooked up with (or buddied up with) the probably gay Mikey Thompson (Musicus).  Plus a brief internet search revealed this photo from the soap Neighbours: Joe's character apparently has a boyfriend.









Plus there are no girls and a lot of guys on his social media posts.  That's enough for more extensive research to determine if Joe is gay in real life, has played gay characters, or both.  Hopefully both.  

Born around 1992 or 1993, Joe grew up on Australia's ritzy Gold Coast, around Brisbane, and began on-screen acting in some teen series:

A diver in an episode of H2O: Just Add Water (2010), about three teenager girls who turn into mermaids (with Luke Mitchell as their human ally).

A swimmer in SLIDE (2011): A Melbourne girl moves to Brisbane and finds the requisite allies, crushes, and enemies, including a gay-ish boyfriend.



A surfer boy in Mako Mermaids (2013), with those three teenage mermaids up to new antics.  A merman (Chai Hanson) is added to the cast.

Joe also meets a mermaid while grieving over his dead father in Glass Tunnel (2013).  


Plus he worked at Warner Brothers Movie World, a theme park in Queensland, playing characters like Edward Scissorhands and Fred from Scooby Doo.











After graduating from the "prestigious three-year program" at Actors Central Australia in Sydney, Joe was cast in his first major role, playing Cassius Grady in the soap opera Neighbours (2017-2018).   He appears as a muscular mystery man at a Guy Fawkes Day party on the same night that the evil Hamish Roche is murdered.  Hamish's son Tyler is the chief suspect.

Left: the OMG Blog thinks that this is a photo of Cassius, but Neighbours never had frontal nudity.

Cassius goes on to save Tyler's girlfriend from a capsized boat, start dating her, rescue a kidnapped baby, get a job as a gardener, and finally admit that he was the one who murdered Hamish (gasp) because he is the evil guy's long-estranged son (double gasp). 

Um...Cassius was straight, buddy. 

Maybe there are some gay roles in his later work?





Stranded (2018): A British soldier is stranded with a lady.  They smooch in the water. 

Abandoned (2018).  What do you think?

Sons of Summer (2023):  A surfer brings his buds on a trip to the Gold Coast town where his dad was murdered, and runs afoul of murderous drug dealers.  He's got a girlfriend.


Anyone But You (2023); Ben (Glen Powell) and Bea don't like each other, but Bea's sister is marrying Ben's friend Pete's sister, and for some reason they have to pretend to be a couple at the wedding.  Joe plays the current boyfriend of Ben's ex girlfriend, who dumps him for Bea's ex-boyfriend. It's based on Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing, so you've got to expect some partner switching. 

In this scene, Joe shows his butt to demonstrate that he's much hotter than Ben.

He shows his dick, too (after the break).

Lucas Brazzini, the obviously gay teen angst star from Brazil. How is he similar to Asher Angel? With a lot of teen angst d*cks

 


I was thinking of doing a profile of Asher Angel, whose Jonah  became the first canonical gay character on the Disney Channel in 2019, when he and his gay-subtext buddy Cyrus hold hands in the series finale of Andi Mack (2019).  Later he came out as bi.

Just holding hands?  Kelvin and Keefe did that in "Righteous Gemstones" Season 2, right after the sex scene, and fans continued to argue that they were straight buddies. 



But it turns out that I already reviewed Andi Mack.  How about Brazilian actor Lucas Burgatti, who the teen idol website names as "similar" to Asher Angel?  Presumably he played a gay character or is gay in real life. 






Plus he has an impossibly buffed physique, and his Instagram photos are all about men.

Lots of men.

Hugging and kissing men.





And doing that weird duck-face thing where you suck in your cheeks and push out your lips as far as possible to look like duck beaks. My research indicates that the duck-face has a long history -- primates do it -- but most recently it is being used to imitate female social media influencers, who were trying to demonstrate how the lipstick they were promoting looked.  So when men do it, it's a femme/gay thing?




What about Lucas' very, very heavily publicized relationship with Sophia Valverde in 2019, when they were both starring in the teen soap As Aventuras de Poliana?  It was mostly illustrated with photos of the two hugging while doing the duck-face, or Lucas kissing Sophia's cheek or the side of her head -- anywhere but her mouth.  I get it, buddy --  I was roped into a lot of dates with girls back in high school, and I always tried to avoid that gross kiss on the mouth.   

So obviously gay in real life.  Next, "Has he played any gay characters?"




Lucas is best known for hundreds of episodes of As Aventuras de Poliana (2018-2020) and its sequel, Poliana Moça (2020-22), "Poliana the Girl,"  with Sophia Valverde as the hapless orphan making friends and getting crushes on boys.  She has to choose between bad boy Eric  (Lucas) and poor-but-honest Joao (Igor Jansen).  




No gay characters.  Fans suggest a romance with Bento (Davi Campolongo), a "cultured, intelligent" boy who uses crutches and hides his piano-playing talent "out of shame."   But it would be purely subtextual.

More after the break. Caution: Explicit.

Max Ehrich: Disney Channel dancer, Dome hacker, gay soap opera teen -- wait, is that a different actor? At least the d*ck is really his


When Max Ehrich (try to type that without adding an "l") appeared on the celebrity penis website, I did some preliminary research, and found that he is gay in real life, dating Connor Paolo, and he played a gay teen on The Young and the Restless.  

So this will be my third profile of a gay soap opera teen.   

Max played Fenmore Baldwin, son of Michael Baldwin and Lauren Fenmore, born in 2006, but turned into a teenager when he took over the role (2012-15).  

Most of his plotline involved drugs:  becoming addicted, stealing drugs from the hospital and spending a month in prison, overdosing and going to rehab.  He was blackmailed into spiking the punch at a party, so everyone would lose consciousness, and Detective Mark Harding (Chris McKenna) could murder Austin, who was having an affair with his niece Summer, and frame her.  


Also Fen is crushing on Summer, so she talks him into a variety of misdeeds, including cyberbullying  Jamie Vernon (not for being gay).  Then, when she starts crushing on Jamie, Fen frames him for theft, is accused of pushing him off the roof, and bullies him into a suicide attempt.
















Next Fen's drug dealer, Carmine (Marco Dapper, left), who also happens to be having an affair with his mother, is murdered, and Fen thinks that he did it...

Wait, back up: a crush on Summer?  What happened?  Where is the gay plotline? 


Maybe they meant some other project.  Max begins his career as a Nickelodeon-Disney Channel boy, playing a dancer in High School Musical 3 and Shake It Up, Carly's boyfriend in an episode of ICarly, and CJ's older brother, who gets two girlfriends, in nine episodes of 100 Things to Do Before High School.


In Under the Dome (2013-15), an impenetrable alien dome is lowered over a stereotypic small town. Among the stranded visitors are a lesbian couple, a murderer, and  in Season 2, computer hacker Hunter May (Max).  He gets a girlfriend.

American Princess (2019-20): a mis-titled comedy featuring a girl who abandons her wealthy lifestyle to work at a Renaissance faire.  Max plays her boyfriend. 

Southern Gospel (2023): A "rock n roll star" realizes his childhood dream of becoming a preacher.  Ugh.

It's based on the real-life  Dr. Gary Smith,  who founded the City of Life Church in Kissimmee, Florida. Ugh. 


A Cowboy Christmas Romance
(2023): A standard Christmas romcom: lady with a high-pressure career in the Big City spends the holidays in a small town, where she finds love with a cowboy (Adam Senn).  

I don't know which of these guys, if either, is Adam, but Max plays her brother.  The plot synopses on Wikipedia and Decider don't state whether he is gay or not, but presumably not, or there would be massive headlines eveywhere. 

More after the break

Finn Carr: The "Alexa & Katie" kid grows up, swims, flexes, does drag, and plays a gay-subtext soap opera teen.


Alexa & Katie (2018-20) was a Netflix sitcom (actually a drama with jokes) about two high school buddies: Alexa, who tries to hide having cancer so no one will treat her differently, and Katie, who is wearing a wig in solidarity.  Plots involve joining the basketball team, competing over boys, befriending other kids with cancer, and so on.  

Ricky Garcia and Liam Attridge, members of the band Forever in Your Mind, play gay-subtext buddies Cameron and Steve.  

This is a profile of the kid in the middle, Finn Carr.




Left: A random nude dude to tide you over.






Finn started his career in modeling -- you can see him here in an "Own the School Year Like a Hero" campaign for Wal-Mart. There's also a giant banner over his head.

He  played Wilbur, son of single dad Owen (Michael McMillan) and grandson of single mom Joy (Jane Leeves of Frasier) on Hot in Cleveland (2014)

The young version of special agent and genius Spencer Reid (Matthew Gray Gubler) on Criminal Minds (2016).

Lewis Gladstone, son of Joey Gladstone (David Coulier) and member of a sibling singing group called Gladstone Four on Fuller House (2016-17).


Katie's little brother on Alexa & Katie: a video game addict, aware of Alexa's secret and fine with kids who have cancer.  Here he's trying out drag with his tv sister's wig.  He goes into full drag later.

After Alexa, he played Derek Fox-Lubiner, two episode boyfriend of Millicent, dealing with the disapproval of her stepfather Freddie (Nathan Kress)  on ICarly (2022).

Brian,, the debate team opponent, crush, and boyfriend of demonic guardian Scary (a girl) on Pretty Freekin Scary (2023).  

 


And then he suddenly grew up.

Well, almost.  As of this writing, Finn is a week from his 17th birthday.  


And rather built, as you can see from the interplay of muscles in this rock-climbing photo.

More after the break

"Hollyoakes" tackles trans bullying, with teen bodybuilder and ant Dan Hough as the bully. Plus bonus n*de twinks

 


In the spring of 2024, the British soap Hollyoakes featured a storyline where Tony Hutchinson (Nick Pickard) and his estranged wife Diane discover that 14 years ago a drunken midwife switched the babies, so their biological child was raised by someone else, who has since died, so.....welcome to the family, Rose! 





Rose was played by Ava Webster, but after he comes out as transgender and changes his name to Ro, the part was taken over by trans actor Leo Cole, seen here with his recast siblings, Brook Debbio and Alex Fletcher. 

Tony already had a gay son who was murdered, a daughter who died of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, and a daughter by the wife of his kidnapped best friend, who was then murdered.  Diane had an affair with Tony's father while he was kidnapped, was a murder suspect, and saw her "we were on a break" boyfriend murderd. So a son who was transitioning?  Not a problem.

Tony's girlfriend Marie and her two adult sons were perfectly accepting of the new member of their family, but not her youngest son, Arlo (Dan Hough).  


Dan Hough began to play Arlo in March 2024, and spent his first season in a standard soap opera plotline (for Hollyoakes), being kidnapped by his half-brother (Tyler Conti), re-kidnapped by his Dad (Andrew Dowbiggin, left), re-kidnapped again, sedated,  murdered (and in a big reveal, found to be alive after all), and returned to his Mother.   His next season involved bullying.

He grew jealous when Ro befriended a girl he liked.  He tried to force Ro to do his homework, and when his future stepbrother refused, attacked.  Ro pulled a knife to defend himself, but accidentally stabbed his deaf friend Oscar, leading to his arrest. 




Arlo began a course of violent attacks, transphobic insults, and cyberbullying, with suggestions that he self-harm-- while being perfectly polite around the parents. This causes Ro to fall into a deep depression, drink heavily, skip classes, and stay away from social events.

Hollyoakes changed its logo to the colors of the Trans Pride Flag for episodes that aired during Britain's Mental Health Awareness Week, 12-18 May, 2025.  An online friend suggested that Ro join a trans youth support group.  He set out, but changed his mind and announced that he was going to end his life.  After some searches by his frantic parents and Marie and audience suspense, he turned out to be fine: he called the real-life National LGBTQ+ Helpline  (with the number displayed at the end of the episode),  talked to a trans counselor,  and wants to go on living.

Not coincidentally, the episode aired shortly after Britain's Supreme Court determined that the 2010 Equality Act did not apply to trans people, and the Health Secretary announced a ban on puberty blockers for trans youth under age 18.  Trans rights are under attack in Britain nearly as virulently as in the U.S.

What about Arlo?  When his role in the bullying came out, Mom Marie interrogated him.  He claimed that he didn't hate trans people, he was retaliating for Dad Tony's abuse.  That turned out to be a lie, so he admitted that he hated Ro because "he has everything, and I have nothing."  . 

This was Arlo's last appearance on Hollyoaks, but Ro is a continuing character.   



I wanted to researched these boys who have had such a positive impact on LGBT youth in Britain. There's not much out there on Leo Cole: he's from Manchester, came out as trans at age 12, has an older brother, and is into motorbiking.  This is his first on-screen acting role.




There is quite a lot about Dan Hough (Arlo).  He was been nominated for the TV Times Favourite Young Actor Award and the Inside Soaps Best Young Performer Award (for Hollyoakes), and the London Film Critics Young Performer of the Year Award (for Speak No Evil).  -- all  in the same month!  And...wait, what's he doing with a bodybuilder's physique at age...ten?

More after the break

Steve Bond: Tarzan costar turned Playgirl model turned soap hunk, all in the steamy 1970s.

 The October 1975 issue of Playgirl featured several nude photos of model/actor Steve Bond.  They quickly became the most famous male nude photos in the world (not counting those of Christopher George)

Not because he was a man-mountain -- no bodybuilder, he had the tight, pleasantly muscled physique of a New Sensitive Man.

Not because of his size beneath the equator, though he was huge.

Because of the contrast.



The last time anyone had seen Steve Bond, the 14-year old Israeli actor, born Schlomo Goldberg, was making his screen debut: he played Erik in a Tarzan movie (1968) with Mike Henry.

Seven years makes a big difference.

After one or two more guest roles, Steve went back home to Israel, finished high school, and completed his mandatory military service.  Now he was in L.A. again, ready to hit the big time.  The nude photos came at a moment of desperation, when he was flat broke


Unfortunately, posing in your birthday suit was still controversial in 1975, and Steve found it difficult getting the attention of casting directors. During the next decade, he played some street toughs, some sexploitation studs, a Chippendales dancer, and a forest ranger investigating some teen murders (in The Prey, 1984). 











He showed his butt a lot, but only when he was sexing naked ladies.












Finally, hoping that the nude pictures were long forgotten, he landed one of the defining roles of his career, redneck Jimmy Lee Holt on General Hospital (1983-87).

No such luck.  In 1985, an eagle-eyed editor at Playgirl discovered the old photos, and reprinted them.  Steve was devastated.  What would happen when the General Hospital producers found out?  Would he be fired? 

Answer after the break

Jasper Keen: From the high desert to the Big Island to a BFA, with some gay and guy-hugging roles and a hung bro

 


I was watching the first episode of Duster on MAX (I guess back to HBO now), a sort of homage to 1970s blacksploitation movies, with Josh Holloway of Lost bicker-flirting with the Get Christie Love-type Nina (who is not credited in the cast list).  While the Crime Boss is congratulating his staff on their latest caper, the long-haired, limp-wristed, femme-ringed Sean criticizes his coworker: "You're telling me you've never had fondue?  That sh*t is clutch!"




An obviously gay guy employed by a crime family in the 1970s?  He only appears in that one scene in an episode cluttered with Duster grinning as he is drooled over by endless scantily-clad women, all of whom have either had the most incredible experience of their life with him or are looking forward to one tonight, if he can squeeze them into his schedule. 

But one scene is enough.  I had to research the actor, to see if he is gay in real life.

His name is Jasper Keen.  When he's fully clothed, he's not much to look at - those long, gaunt "rodent boy" faces are a major turn-off -- but check out those biceps and washboard abs.  



Jasper spent his early childhood Cuyamungua, New Mexico, about 15 miles north of Santa Fe,  helping his parents "fix up properties in the high desert."


In fourth grade he moved with his parents to the Big Island of Hawaii, to live off the grid on a coffee farm, "working the fully off-grid eleven acres of jungle."  (he was home schooled).

He returned for high school enrolled at the  New Mexico School of the Arts.  Before graduating, he was in about 20 plays, from Into the Woods to Little Shop of Horrors.  He received the National Young Arts Award for theater in 2015.

Next Jasper enrolled at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, where he appeared in the gay-themed Spring Awakening and Cascarones.  He graduated with a BFA in Acting in 2020. 

He also took an Introduction to Shakespeare class in the Orkney Islands, which resulted in roles of Oberon in A Midsummer Night's Dream and Iago in Othello.


His on-screen acting begins in North Carolina, with the shorts Child's Play, Loser, Interstate 80, and Running, which has a gay theme: a man (Jim Boemio) goes for a run and ruminates on lost relationships, including one with Jasper.

Guest spots on tv followed, including episodes of Walker (2021) and Big Sky (2022).

A minor role in How to Blow Up a Pipeline (2022): Some environmental activists, including Lukas Gage, Marcus Scribner, and gay actor Forrest Goodluck, plan to blow up a pipeline. 

More after the break