One day in the spring of 1956, Harriet Nelson (who played "herself" on the long-runnng Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet) invited her friend MJ (Mary Jane Croft) over for coffee, and to talk about a problem. Her son Ricky, a sophomore at Hollywood High, was soft and sweet and feminine, not outgoing and athletic like his older brother David. Ozzie pushed him into playing football, but he hated it. He preferred tennis, if he was going to play a sport at all. And music -- he was "musical."
MJ smiled. "When I was a little girl, musical was what they called...wait...you don't mean Ricky is that way...doesn't he have a girlfriend?"
"Ricky and Claire are just friends. They go shopping and talk about clothes. I've never seen them kiss, or even hold hands. And Ricky positively idolizes men. It's even appeared in the show." Lately head writers Dick Bensfield and Perry Grant had been introducing some "Ricky doesn't like girls" plotlines into the scripts. Harriet didn't know why. To signal that they knew...to issue a warning. She sighed. Studio politics!
"So what if he's...um...musical?" MJ asked. "You're still his mother, aren't you?"
"Especially the Hollywood gossip mill."
"..and I don't want Ricky being hurt. Mixed up with the wrong crowd, men who will blackmail him or abuse him. I think he needs a friend more than anything, to show that he's not alone. Do you know anyone who...."
"Are you trying to set Ricky up on a date?" MJ asked, a delighted gleam in her eyes. "Oh, it will be so sophisticated, like a Cole Porter song, like 'Begin the Beguine.' I know tons and tons of eligible men who are 'not the marrying kind.' They're mostly older, though. Cesar Romero, John Wayne, Joe Kearns....oh! Tony Curtis!"
She trailed off again. They looked at each other, understanding...
"Is this Drake boy handsome?" MJ asked.
When Harriet Nelson called 18-year old Drake, she was so subtle that he had no idea that the evening with Ricky was supposed to be a date. More like babysitting. The kid was two years younger than him, scrawny and kind of obnoxious. But his father insisted -- Ozzie and Harriet was one of the hottest properties in Hollywood, and it wouldn't hurt him to get tight with a big teen star.
Was Ricky even a teenager yet?
If he was going to be stuck in dullsville for an evening, he wouldn't do it alone -- he invited his boyfriend, Bob Ellis, a 23 year old actor who had starred on Meet Corliss Archer as a "best friend." Bob was great -- he had a car and his own pad. Plus a thick beefy chest, nice biceps, and a cock that wouldn't quit. Not just big, although it was about 7" -- Bob could take three blow jobs, one after the other, and still spring up, ready for more.The plan was to go to dinner and then bop at the Zanzibar. Ricky brought Claire along, and Drake and Bob would go "stag."
Everything went fine for awhile. Ricky was becoming rather cute, and he was very knowledgeable about modern music. Drake could almost see dating him.
Then Bob and Ricky started doing that look that Drake knew well. Could he be that way? And hot for his guy?
It got worse:
"Dad said I could sing on the show," Ricky bragged, "Or maybe play the drums, like Krupa."
"You'll never be as hot as Krupa!" Bob said with a sleazy leer.
"Maybe, but which one do you have a chance with?"
"Oh, be yourself!" Claire said, hitting him playfully with her purse.
At the Zanzibar, Drake asked Claire to dance -- good for keeping his pecularity a secret, but a bad strategic move. When they returned to the table, Ricky and Bob were gone.
"You mean it's cool with you that Ricky...does that?"
She shrugged. "I knew about his taste in fellows since we started dating. It doesn't hurt anybody, and I'd rather have him sometimes than not at all."
Doesn't hurt anybody? Drake was roiling with jealousy. He went into the bathroom, hoping to catch Bob and the scrawny kid in the act. Not there. Then into the parking lot, to Bob's car....
Bob and Ricky were sitting side by side in the back seat. Ricky had his cock out, and was playing with himself while he went down on Bob! Drake saw a flash of Bob's shaft, and quite a lot of Ricky's cock -- rather small, cut, and pale in the light of distant street lamps.
Drake rapped loudly on the window. Ricky sprang up in alarm and covered himself, then saw Drake and smiled. He rolled the window down part way.
"Just warming him up for you," he smirked.
Drake never went out with Bob -- or the little weasel -- again.
I heard this story a couple of weeks ago from Drake's ex-boyfriend Zack (I made up the conversation with Harriet).
Why did Drake never talk about it when I knew him in San Francisco in the 1990s? I think because it puts everyone, and especially Drake, in a rather bad light. Drake had no cause to expect monogamy from Bob when multiple partners seem to have been the norm in 1950s Hollywood. He overreacted to the situation and lost a boyfriend and a potential friend.
And there's another problem: Drake going down on Tony Curtis is a sallow 16-year old with no experience in the gay community; Drake going on a date with Ricky Nelson is an experienced 18-year old with a boyfriend. Six months apart at most. Can they both be true?
The other big difference then, I think, is people saw "I'm not ready for girls" as an acceptable answer. In the 80s and 90s, even with AIDS and teen pregnancy, saying you wanted to wait was seen as weird.
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