"The Other Two" Episode 3.8: The guy from "AP Bio" tries to bond with an especially jerky Cary. Plus Ben Platt butt

 

I wanted to know more about Eddie Leavy, below, who plays the queen Anthony on AP Bio, so I reviewed his guest role on The Other Two, Episode 3.8, "Brook Hosts a Night of Undeniable Good."

The premise: The less-than-famous older brother and sister of teen idol ChaseDreams (Case Walker) live in his shadow.

The episode has three plotlines.  I'm reviewing only the third.

A Plot: Chase is getting kickback from his latest bad-boy stunt: "I hate ChaseDreams.  What a loser!"; "Asshole!"  "Everybody thinks I'm a bad guy, he complains.  "And I'm not.  It's giving me anxiety and depression."

His manager gets dollar signs in her eyes as she hatches a new scheme: Chase can become "the face of mental health" and make a fortune!  He's not really suffering from a mental illness, but who cares when there's money to be made?

Sister Brook likes the idea, too.  She has an altruistic boyfriend, and feels guilty about being so selfish, so this will give her an opportunity to prove that she is a good person -- while making money.  

She arranges a telethon to raise money for mental health awareness. Ben Platt, left, and Cameron Kasky, the founder of March for Our Lives, appear as themselves.

B Plot: Mom went from single mother with a famous son to hosting her own talk show to owning a billion-dollar network.  After months in the spotlight, she excitedly plans a trip back to her home town in Ohio, to return to her roots and enjoy everyday activities.

Jacob Dickey, left, appears as Nate.

She hates it.  The small town is boring, her old friends are dolts, and the food is awful.  You can't go home again.

 

C Plot: Cary, Drew Carver, has a 20th year class reunion tonight, but he doesn't want to go because he's not successful enough.  He's in Windweaver, a sword-and-sorcery tv series on Netflix, but it's just a recurring role as "an elf serf," who doesn't even speak.

Then his agent calls: Netflix has picked up the show for three more years, and invited him to be a regular. Turns out that the "elf serf" is actually the Windweaver, orchestrating the events. He'll be speaking.  And he's gay.

Thrilled that he can now "win the reunion." Cary tries to make the eight-hour car trip in six hours by not stopping -- he pees into a bottle and throws it out the window.  Couldn't you use one of your billionaire mother's private planes?

More after the break

Andrew Keegan: From "Teenage Caveman" and "The Broken Hearts Club" to...well, he got to kiss Dean Cain

 

Teenage Caveman, 2002, is not a good movie.  You find out instantly that the cavemen are actually living in a post-Apocalyptic world.  But it's good for beefcake.  Some of the guys strip to show their butts while preparing for sex.  Stephen Jasso, who plays Vincent, also had unsimulated sex in the controversial, "show everything" Ken Park (pics after the break).

And it gave us a memorable scene where the hunky 23-year old Andrew Keegan, playing the head teenage caveman, is tied to a post with his hands over his head, showing us his bulked-up post-teen idol physique. 

Born in 1979, Andrew Keegan was one of the more popular teen stars of the 1990s, playing mostly operators, rebels, and scallawags, such as Zack Dell in Camp Nowhere (1994), and "bad boys" in guest roles on TGIF sitcoms like  Full House, Moesha, Step by Step, and Boy Meets World.

By the late 1990s, he was starting to bulk up, and the teen magazines started going wild.  They specialized in shots of his bare chest peeking out from his shirt, as if he had been caught in the midst of getting dressed (or undressed).

Gay-vague  "not into girls" roles on Party of Five (1997-98) and Seventh Heaven (1997-2004), led to  Broken Hearts Club (2000): 

Andrew played Kevin, one of a group of gay friends who hang out in West Hollywood (others include Timothy Olyphant, Billy Porter, Justin Theroux, and Zach Branff).  They deal with coming out, AIDS, and so on.  Kevin kisses mysterious newcomer Cole, played by Dean Cain, something that was unheard-of for two straight actors in 2000.

Andrew didn't quite make the transition to adult hunk.  During the 2000s, he performed mostly in horror and sex comedies, like Extreme Dating, 2005: Four friends hatch a crazy sceme to get one of them laid.

He plays Sally Boy in Dough Boys, 2008, which is not about World War I, it's about a bakery. And his character is straight.

He produced and starred in A Christmas Too Many (2007), which includes a gay stereotype son among the relatives that Mickey Rooney invites to Christmas dinner. It gets a 14% on Rotten Tomatoes.

More after the break. Caution: explicit

Martin Spanjers: Eight simple rules for determining if the "Eight Simple Rules" kid is gay

 

Rule 1: Does his character gawk at guys in the shower?

This is a still from Epiosde 3.1 of the  TGIF sitcom Eight Simple Rules (2002-2005).  It was originally Eight Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter, about an overprotective Dad played by John Ritter, but when Ritter died, it became a general family-angst dramedy.  I never watched, but in 2004 you could hardly turn on your computer without seeing Martin Spanjers as the teenage Rory gawking at Sam Horrigan.  

Only Seasons 1-2 are available to stream on Disney Plus, so I don't know what's going on in the scene, except that Rory doesn't want to shower after gym class due to his less than adequate package.  Maybe Sam Horrigan is a high school jock?  

2. Does he play a gay-vague teenager?

Fan consensus is that Rory is one of those gay-vague sitcom kids, soft, shy, pretty, and struggling valiantly to act girl-crazy because on American sitcoms, all teenage boys must be girl-crazy.

3. Does he show his butt on screen?

The next time I saw Martin Spanjers, he was still naked, playing the teenage shapeshifter Sam Merlotte in a 2009 episode of True Blood, about vampires, werewolves, and various other magical beings in rural Louisiana.  When you shift back to human form, you lose your clothes, so he's naked when he breaks into a house looking for food or something to steal.

4. Does he have a gay-subtext role?

The house happens to belong to a maenid (minor goddess) named Maryanne, who naturally wants to have sex with him.  He steals $10,000 on his way out, which causes the adult Sam Merlotte a lot of headaches.  

Although the encounter is heterosexual, Sam is homeless because his parents kicked him out when they discovered his "secret."  We can see a reflection of gay teens ejected by homophobic parents.  About 40% of homeless youth are LGBT.

More after the break

Julian Lerner: Six-pack abs, some costars' bulges and dicks, and a lot of premiere parties for movies he wasn't in.

I stumbled upon Julian Lerner while researching someone else.  I don't know who he is, but anyone with abs like that deserves a profile. 

But I don't profile singers.  Let's see some acting roles.

He's in Disney's Descendants: Rise of the Red,  a 2024 movie in which Red, the teenage daughter of the Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland, and Chloe,the  teenage daughter of her bitter enemy Cinderella, go back in time to meet their mothers as teenagers, to forestall their life-long feud. 

It also stars:

1. Joshua Colley., left, as Captain Hook's son.  I thought Captain Hook was gay. Ki must be adopted.

2. Peder Lindell as Morgana Le Fay's son.

3. Paolo Montalban, bulging left, as King Charming -- Prince Charming after he inherited the throne, get it?  I always thought that was a description, not his actual name.

4. Levin Valyali as the middle-aged Aladdin.

5. Kabir Bery as the teen Aladdin

6. Leonardo Nam as the Mad Hatter's son.  Come on, that guy was too looney to establish a permanent romantic relationship.

7. Anthony Pyatt as the teenage Hades.  

Wait, Julian Lerner isn't in this.  Why is he getting photographed on the red carpet?

He wasn't in in Percy Jackson and Olympians, either, regardless of what Getty Images says.

More after the break

Kevin Zegers: Two gay roles, two gay teases, two dicks, and a lot of beefcake

 

Born in 1984, Kevin Zegers was a child star well known for the Air Bud series, about a basketball-playing dog; and Treasure Island, where he played Jim Hawkins to Jack Palance's scary Long John Silver.  

Nico the Unicorn (1998) is not a heroic fantasy, as the title suggests, but about a oddball outsider boy, crippled when his leg was shattered by a drunk driver, whose horse gives birth to a unicorn.

He took his shirt off in Komodo, 1999, beginning a long beefcake career.

Teen magazines gushed, and shirtless photos began to bounce around the internet. 

He impressed one fan so much that they devoted a website to him, back in the 2000s when such things were uncommon.  There were hundreds of pictures, and article on topics like "Kevin's Biceps."

Wait, it's still there.  This photo illustrates an article telling us that at age 14, Kevin could bench press 200 pounds.  If true, that is quite impressive: the average for a 14 year old is 65 pounds.

During the 2000s, Kevin moved easily between lighthearted child fare, like the contining Air Bud series,  and teens having troubled lives or meeting monsters. In Four Days, 1999. a bank heist goes wrong; in Sex, Lies, & Obsession, 2001, his dad has a sex addiction. Wrong Turn, 2003, is a teenkill. Dawn of the Dead, 2004, is about zombies; The Hollow,  2004, is about the Headless Horseman.

But he managed to take his shirt and pants off in almost every thing, such as when sex with his girlfriend made him sick on an episode of House MD.

Kevin's big social-commentary movie was Transamerica, 2005.  He played Toby, a teenage drug dealer and hustler.  After his mother commits suicide, he takes a road trip with a "Christian missionary" who turns out to be a trans woman Bree. 

 

He tries to seduce her, with a butt shot, whereupon she reveals that she is his biological father. They have some rough times, but the movie ends happily with Toby working in gay porn and reconciling with Bree.

Today most trans people dislike it: "absolutely horrible from beginning to end"; Bree "reinforces just about every single worst stereotype about trans people."  But in 2005, it was lauded for its "sensitive" portrayal of gay and trans people.

More after the break

Leif Garrett: Nude photos of the teen idol who out-swished Liberace in the glam 1970s.

Every gay boy in the late 1970s knew teen idol Leif Garrett, whose two albums, Leif Garrett and Feel the Need, were getting gushing reviews in the teen magazines: the greatest singer who ever lived!  And the cutest boy in the universe!

Or not.  He was way too swishy, even in that era of androgyny, to be an object of homoerotic desire.  But they followed him anyway, because he was the first gay person they had ever seen on stage.  Maybe they weren't doomed to sad, lonely lives in the closet after all.

Of course, he wasn't openly gay. The teen magazines tried to push his macho interests, like skateboarding and cars, and interviewed him incessantly about what kind of girls he liked.  But come on.

 

The penis you're looking at is called a club-bulge, an effect created by a combination of very tight pants and shoving a rolled-up sock down there.  It was a standard accessory for every actor at the time, and still in use in gay clubs.  Leif's is actually understated; you should see what Shawn Cassidy was wearing. 

I'm just a sweet transvestite from transsexual Transylvania.

Explicit photos after the break

Jimmy Cavaretta: Trapeze artist, nude model, Dating Game contestant, Las Vegas resident

As promised, here is my research on Jimmy Cavaretta.  He turns out to be one of the few non-actors that I've profiled: he's a trapeze artist and nude model.

Born in 1949, Jimmy began training in the circus arts when he was still a toddler, and  in 1962, at the age of 13,  started a trapeze act with his younger sister Terry.  The following year his other sisters got in on the act, and he became the "catcher" and the only boy in the Flying Cavarettas

Circus trapeze artists were still a big deal in the 1950s and 1960s.  The women wore skimpy outfits to draw the heterosexual male gaze, while  the men -- everyone from Tony Curtis to David and Ricky Nelson to teen idol Michael Callan got into the act -- didn't try to hide their bulges. 

Left: David Nelson's bulge.

Jimmy got the full teen idol treatment, with profiles in all of the teen magazines.  He a performed on  Ed Sullivan and The Hollywood Palace.  He released a single, "I Want to Be Free."  He was one of the "bachelors" on The Dating Game.

Meanwhile, the Flying Cavarettas were headliners at the Circus Circus hotel/casino  in Las Vegas from 1968 to 1973.

Then they broke up, Terry to form the Flying Terrells duo, with her husband Ron as the "catcher."  Jimmy joined the Flying Medallions, and toured with the Ringling Brothers/Barnum & Bailey Circus.

He did some acting and modeling work. Only one entry in the IMDB, Like It Is, 1970: a teenage girl runs away from home and starts hanging out with hippies, smoking pot and everything.

The media was coy about mentioning his wife.  They wanted him to be available, an object of desire to the thousands of spectators who gasped at his acrobatics -- and his attributes -- every day at Circus Circus.

Of course, he also became the subject of gay rumors.  

In 1976, his enormous pecs and...um...other attributes...got a centerfold in Playgirl.

More Jimmy after the break

A closeup of his cock.  So much for claiming that Playgirl was all about romance.

When Terry's husband and partner died in a plane crash, Jimmy agreed to take his place in the Flying Terrells.  The siblings continued to headline in Las Vegas, and toured in Europe and Australia.

In 1984, they won a Silver Clown Award at the International Circus Festival in Monte Carlo.  The presenter was Hollywood legend Cary Grant.

Jimmy continued to do occasional nude photos through the 1980s.

In 1991, sister Terry and her new husband had a baby, and decided that it was time to close the Flying Terrells.  But Jimmy and Terry continued to perform on occasion.

Jimmy is retired now, but still goes to fan and circus events.  And I'm still not sure if he is gay.  

You probably want to see David and Ricky Nelson in their acrobat singlets.

See also: "How do I know if I'm g***": A young Gideon story.  Mentions acrobatics

Mark Harelik: You've seen his face a hundred times. Now you can see his penis.  Mentions Jimmy Cavaretta

Kyle Hawk: Gay or gay-positive wrestler, Las Vegas resident. With nude Native American bonus

Jesse Bradford: The gay and gay-subtext roles of yesteryear have vanished, but he still has a physique. And a cock.

 

Born in 1979, Jesse Bradford made his acting debut at the age of 8 months, in a Q-Tips commercial (it was a non-speaking role).  He was busy as a child, playing the son of a screenwriter with lung cancer in The Boys (1991) and brother of a psychotic gay kid (Harley Cross) in The Boy Who Cried Bitch (1991).

But he first made an impression on gay teens with Far from Home: The Adventures of Yellow Dog (1995), where his Angus is lost in the Canadian wilderness with a dog named Yellow, fights for survival, and takes his shirt off, revealing a hard, firm but not muscular chest.

Unfortunately, Jesse's later projects involved a lot of girls.

In Hackers (1995), teenage computer whizzes Joey (Jesse) and The Girl try to save the world from a dangerous computer virus.  At least we see his butt.

In Clockstoppers (2002), Jesse and The Girl find a device that allows them to move super-fast, in effect stopping time.

But his darkly handsome teen idol face was sure to elicit swoons from gay teens.

The thriller Swimfan (2002) is about a psychotic girl who stalks Jesse, a high school swimmer.  Though he is heterosexual, the disdain he feels as the girl becomes more and more insistent in her desire to be with him can be read as a gay subtext.  And  fans got to see Jesse in a revealing swimsuit.

Some buddy bonding: his character  Balthazar likes Romeo (Leonardo DiCaprio) in Romeo+Juliet (1996).

He bonds with the gay male cheerleader Wes (Huntley Ritter) in Bring it On (2000). 

 In Flags of Our Fathers (2006), his Rene Gagnon storms the beach at Iwo Jima while mooning over Doc Bradley (Ryan Philippe).

After playing a gay hustler in Speedway Junky (1999), with Jonathan Taylor Thomas as his bisexual colleague, Jesse turned down a gay role in The Rule of Attraction (2002). Back then guys worried that playing gay would destroy their career.

More after the break

Preston Oliver: Teen idol with four tv roles, two boyfriends, "Ask Me" Toney, and some nude costars

 I found Preston Oliver by accident while researching Ian Winningkoff.

According to the IMDB, he was born in 2006 and grew up in Las Vegas.  He got bit by the drama bug in fifth grade, when he was cast as a pirate in a version of Peter Pan.  Acting classes and professional representation followed, and, at age 12, his tv debut on two episodes of Chicago Fire: 

As the troubled son of richster Bradley Boyd (Justin Belfi), he sts Dad's boat and garage on fire, is sent away for counseling, and is never mentioned again. 

Left: Costar Jon Seda's dick

Less than six months later, Preston was cast in two episodes of This is Us, as the son of Kevin. played by Justin Hartley.  It's a soap opera, so Kevin's character arc was very complex and loaded down with tragedy.

Left: the butt of costar Logan Shroyer.

Then came an episode of Roswell, New Mexico as young Michael. one of the main characters, who abandons a relationship with a man to fall in love with a woman. I don't know if he's bisexual, or got "cured" of being gay.  He's played by Michael Vlamis. 

Preston's big break came in the Disney Channel's Secrets of Sulphur Springs, about a boy and a girl solving mysteries involving time travel. 

More Preston after the break