Christopher George: Soldier, cowboy, spy, warlock, Hugh Hefner, and nude model. Is there a gay connection?

When Christopher George posed for Playgirl, in June 1974, he was 43 years old and a Hollywood veteran, famous for Rat Patrol and about 50 gung-ho, "can we win this time?" war and cowboy movies.

He reclines, eating watermelon, a little paunchy in middle age, but hirsute, tanned, gold-chained, the sharp phallic knife accentuating his obvious gifts beneath the belt.

IMDB calls him a "solidly built, boyishly handsome leading man."  He was born in 1931 to Greek immigrants, and didn't learn English until he was six years old.  In high school in Miami, he played football, soccer, and track, drove trucks, and shot alligators.  

He was planning to become a Greek Orthodox priest, but in 1948 he dropped out of high school to join the Marines, and got the acting bug.  While waiting for his break, he held a variety of macho jobs, like bouncer, private investigator, and owner of a beer bar.  He started on the stage, roles in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Mr. Roberts, The Moon is Blue, and Stalag 17.

In 1965, he got a guest spot on Bewitched as George the Warlock, a Hugh Hefner-like playboy with a harem of women. Endora hires to seduce Samantha, but he likes her attractive neighbor more. 

He was also cast in In Harm's Way. with John Wayne as a naval officer who wants to beat the Japanese during World War II.  The two shared a gung-ho, macho philosophy, and became lifelong friends.Lots of rough, true-grit war and cowboy movies, flag-waving reactions to the pot-smoking, draft-card-burning, "can't tell the boys from the girls" hippies: Massacre Harber, The Thousand Plane Raid, The Devil's 8, Midway, Mayday at 40,000 Feet!

In Project X, 1968, Christopher plays a spy whose memories of a top-secret Commie weapon are being suppressed, so the good guys use advanced technology to extract them.  He has sex with the naked lady on the movie poster.

Christopher also did some modeling.  That's how he met Lynda Day, who became famous for her work on Mission Impossible and her Playboy centerfold.  They were married in 1970.

A heavy drinker and smoker throughout his life, Christopher died of a heart attack on November 28, 1983.  He received a Greek Orthodox funeral. In 2009, the Marines flew a flag at the Iwo Jima memorial

Is there any gay potential to such an indefatigably macho, hetero-horny, beefy, boyishly handsome Hugh Hefner?

Answer after the break

"Special": A non-heartwarming short series about a "special" guy hooking up. With hookup butts and dicks

At first I wasn't interested in Special, about a gay guy with cerebral palsy, because it had one of those stupid Netflix one-word titles, and because I figured it was a heartwarming, gushing, "live every day to its fullest" warmedy, with lots of hugs and understanding.  Yuck.

But I dated a CP guy back in grad school. His legs and hands didn't work very well, but he had a massive upper body, completely cut, not an inch of body fat anywhere.  He got cruised constantly.  I figured, it wouldn't hurt to watch for the beefcake.  I could always fast-forward past the hugging and motivational speeches.

Ryan O'Connell, a writer and editor with credits including Will and Grace (the reboot), Daytime Divas, and Awkward, turns out to be not particularly buffed, but he is definitely cute.  Still, he was ashamed of his CP, and spent years trying to hide it, attributing his "limp" to a car accident.

His CP is obvious to me -- stiff-leg walk, random hand movements -- but I guess it worked.  He finally came out as disabled in a 2015 book, I'm Special and Other Lies We Tell Ourselves, which inspired Special (2019).

8 episodes, about 15 minutes each, shorter than the traditional sitcom because there's only a one-episode B plot and no C plots.   

Episode #1: Ryan Hayes, who has led a sheltered  life due to his cerebral palsy and helicopter-mother (Jessica Hecht), wants to break out into the world.  He gets a job -- an unpaid internship at an online magazine (he has an income from his CP) --and a new bestie with body issues of her own, Kim (Punam Patel).  He tells everyone the limp story. 

Episode #2:  At a pool party, Kim encourages Ryan to display his body.  He  almost hooks up with Keaton (Jason Michael Snow), but Keaton bails when Ryan turns out to be a bad kisser (hint: when you're kissing a guy with CP, his head should be below yours).

Bonus: Ryan's butt and partial cock

Episode #3: Ryan has sex for the first time, with a sex worker (Brian Jordan Alvarez) who is very understanding and even cuddles afterwards.

More after the break. Caution: explicit

Ten Nude Dudes from Rejected Reviews, Part 2: From Ben Affleck to Bill Skalsgard

 

Every day I check the new releases and my recommendations, beginning with Netflix, and then going on to Hulu, MAX, and, scraping the bottom of the barrel, Amazon Prime, looking for movies or tv series to review.   They should be in a genre that I like, with gay characters, gay subtexts, or at least some beefcake. 

Most are easy to reject, icons with ladies only, a man and a woman gazing at each other, or guys shooting things. 

Sometimes I just jump in, but usually research is necessary to ensure that there are no nasty surprises, like queerbaiting or homophobic jokes. 

The result is a lot of n*de dudes with no review attached.  

1. Garrett Clayton, top photo, in Reach, 2018.  Socially awkward band geek Stephen, Garrett Clayton,  is planning to kill himself due to the constant bullying, until the new k*d at school, Jordan Doww, falls in love...um, befriends him.   According to a review, it's supposed to be a gay romance, but they "staunchly refuse to say the word," although there are a lot of homophobic slurs thrown around...at a performing arts school in 2016?

2. Stephen Luca in Blame the Game, 2024. Three male-female couples gather for their weekly game night. Two of the guys, Stephen Luca and Dennis Mojen, get naked, but nothing comes of it. In fact, the new guy gets tormented by his girlfriend's ex.

3. Ben Affleck in Going All the Way, which just appeared on Netflix, even though it's from 1996. After returning from the Korean War, two men, Jeremey Davies and Ben Affleck,  search for love and fulfillment in Middle America. Sounds fine, except in the icon, they're in the background of a shot of a woman's breasts, and according to the plot synopsis, they don't become a gay couple.

Left: Ben dick.  You already know what his face looks like.

4. Jaeden Martel in Mr Harrigan's Phone, 2022.   A teenager makes friends with an elderly hellraiser, who dies, but continues to call him, and arrange for the deaths of his enemies. No girls in the plot synopsis or trailer, but the wikipedia page reveals that he has a crush on a girl.  Why do they hide that? To lure queer viewers in?

5. Nicholas Alexander Chavez as a hunky priest in Grotesquerie, 2024. I actually started watching. The detective arrives at the house.  The cop tells her that they should let the FBI handle it, because it's a hate crime.  "Hate crime against what?" she asks.  "Everything."  

A nuclear family Mom and two preteen boys have been killed and placed at the dinner table.  Dad's body parts are scattered all over.  The timer goes off: whatever is cooking in the pot is read.  I'll bet it's Dad's head.

I fast forward...it's women talking to other women for 45 minutes, and then the detective in bed with her boyfriend. And it turns out to be a tv show, not a movie.  Next!

More Chavez after the break