Dick Sargent, Cary Grant, and Groucho Marx in the Same Bed

West Hollywood, October 1994

It is the evening before the AIDS Walk, an event almost as big as Halloween or Gay Pride, and Lane and I are having some guys over for dinner, including Will the bondage boy, Randall, the muscle bear with the pierced penis, and Scott from MCC.

 During the time between dessert and sharing or hitting the bars, we swap stories about gigantic penises, homophobic home towns, and hookups with the captain of the football team, and the question comes up, "Who's the biggest celebrity you've ever been with?  Big in stardom, or big in size?"


Scott: David Hyde Pierce, star of Frasier
Lane: Batman and Robin
Me: Michael J. Fox
Will: Peter Fonda

Randall the muscle bear sits back in his chair, looks slowly around the room, and says "Cary Grant, star of North by Northwest and Indiscreet."

The famous movie star!  We all wait expectantly.  I haven't heard this story before.

"Dick Sargent, who played Darrin Stevens on Bewitched," he continues.

"Um...I'd rather hear the Cary Grant story."

"...and Groucho Marx.  All on the same night, in the same bed."

Hollywood, Summer 1958

A hot day in June.  Randy was 18 years old, newly drafted into the navy, enjoying his last few weeks of freedom before shipping out.  He went to a Dodgers game with his brother, ate his mom's chocolate chip cookies, watched The Red Skelton Show with his grandmother -- and went cruising.

Los Angeles was still a netherworld.   Police chief William H. Parker hated "perverts." The sodomy law wouldn't be revoked until 1976.   There were bar raids, entrapment scams.  Randy was afraid to go to the bars.

So he stood on the corner of Hollywood and Highland, outside of Coffee Dan's, and waited for someone to pick him up.

He looked much different than the muscle bear that we met 33 years later. Cleanshaven, a boyish face, short black hair in a military crewcut.  Thinner but still built, smooth chest, nice biceps.  And a Kielbasa, which he augmented with a balled-up sock in his jeans.

It didn't take long to get offers.  He rejected two before climbing into the car with a guy in his 30s with a round face and a warm smile.  They drove to a deserted parking lot off Selma, and kissed and talked, and the guy went down on his massive Kielbasa -- not pierced yet.  He offered $1, but Randy rejected the money and went down on him in return.  Then they sat and kissed and talked some more.

It turned out to be Dick Sargent, 28 years old, making a name for himself in Westerns and movies.

"The second Darrin on Bewitched!" Lane exclaims.

"So..." Will says.  "How big was he?"

Bratwurst, uncut.

Randy knew him from  Bernardine (1957), about a high school boy who invents a fictional girlfriend.  Dick was doing that a lot in the studios!

One of his buddies in the movie was played by his ex-boyfriend Hooper Dunbar, who had also dated James Dean and Sal Mineo.  He left Hollywood for Central America, where he would become a painter and important Bah'ai leader.







His other buddy was played by singer Pat Boone, straight but open to suggestions.  His "Long Tall Sally" which hit #8 on the charts in 1956, was about a drag queen.

"I haven't slept with him." Dick said.  "But I've seen him in action.  Not bad."

"Sounds like everybody in Old Hollywood was gay," Lane says.

"That's what I told  Dick."

"You don't know the half of it.  There are so many guys like us in the studios.  Some of them you'd never guess.  Marlon Brando,  Wally Cox, who plays Mr. Peepers on tv.  Cary Grant.  He's such a ladykiller, you'd never know he's in the fraternity."

"Cary Grant!  I loved him in Indiscreet!"

"Would you like to meet him?  There's a party Sunday afternoon, if you can make it."

It was held at a gay casting agent's house in Beverly Hills.  About thirty men, all ages from oldster to teenager, talking, dancing, flirting, swimming naked in the pool.  Randy had never seen anything like it.




Some guys he had heard rumors about:
Van Johnson, who starred in Brigadoon.
Tab Hunter, whose "Young Love" caused bobby-soxers to swoon.
Antony Perkins, who almost won an Oscar for Friendly Persuasion (left).

Others he had no idea of:
Ronnie Burns, the teenage son on the Burns and Allen Show
Rock Hudson, who starred in a lot of war movies.
And Groucho Marx!

The star of all those anarchic 1930s comedies like Duck Soup and Monkey Business, and now the host of the game show You Bet Your Life on Thursday nights.  He was sitting by himself, smoking his trademark cigar and drinking whiskey and being ignored: at 68, he was a bit too old for all the cruising going on.  Besides, the cigar stank.

Randy left Dick to mingle and approached him.  "Hey, Groucho, what's the secret word?" he said, stupidly, kneeling in front of him like an acolyte. "I didn't know you belonged to the fraternity."

The aging jokester grinned.  "How old are you, Beany Boy?"

"Eighteen."

"Two years younger than my grandson Andy.  Well, Beany, in my day tricks weren't just for fairies.  Any red-blooded all-American could grab his buddy's penis, no questions asked."   He put his hand on Randy's shoulder and pushed him forward.  "Now, how much do you charge to go a little lower?"

Then Dick appeared, arm in arm with the handsome, svelte 54-year old Cary Grant.

"Hello, what's this?" Cary exclaimed.  "The party's getting a bit wild, isn't it?"

Randy stood, embarrassed by the implication.  Dick and Cary towered over him.   "It's an honor to meet you, Mr. Grant."

Cary took his hand and held it for a long time.  "And you as well.  Dick, my boy, how do you conjure up all these foxes?  You must have a magic wand."

"Well, I do, actually," Dick said.  "But it's nothing compared to Randy's."

"Hey, Mr. Blanding, take a number," Groucho called.  "I believe the bobby-soxer had a previous commitment."

Cary grinned.  "You're into the Geritol set, huh?  Well, maybe we can work something out."

They ended up going to Groucho's house on Hillcrest Road, a few blocks away ("Don't worry, the wife is in Europe, playing 'Marco Polo' with an Italian gigolo").   Groucho served them all whiskey sours and put on a record of Dinah Shore singing "It's So Nice to Have a Man Around the House."  Dick and Randy kissed and fondled, while Cary and Groucho watched.  Then they all took off their clothes and went into the master bedroom.

Cary had a Bratwurst+, and Groucho -- incredible!  A Kovbasa++, easily a foot long once it sprang to life!  While Cary went down on Dick, Randy tried his best to go down on Groucho.  He just managed to get the head.

"Noble attempt, kid," Groucho said.  "Better than Rock Hudson, I'll give you that."

Then Randy went down on Cary -- much easier.  He finished in a few minutes with a monumental shudder.

"Time for the floor show," Groucho said.  "Live on stage, Randy and Dick, the Magic Wand Twins."

Dick topped Randy, his legs in the air -- bareback -- no condoms in those days!  Then he kissed Randy and helped him finish, while Cary and Groucho watched.

Then Groucho gave Randy $5 and sent him and Dick out the door.

A week later, Randy was on a ship headed for Guam.  He wouldn't be back in Hollywood for four years.

"I never saw Cary Grant or Groucho Marx again," Randall says.  "But Dick and I stayed friends.  He and Bert used to have me over for dinner and sharing.  He wasn't happy with my Prince Albert."

Dick Sargent came out in 1991, and became a "retroactive role model" for gay youth.  He and Elizabeth Montgomery, his Bewitched co-star, were the grand marshalls of the 1992 West Hollywood Gay Pride Parade.  He died on July 8th, 1994.

Levi's Date with a Star of "The Dick Van Dyke Show"

West Hollywood, June 1995

It's the night before Gay Pride, so of course Lane and I have a full house: Infinite Chazz, my ex-boyfriend Fred and his boyfriend Matt, Randall the Bear with the Pierced Penis and his date Levi ("like the jeans"), and some other guys.  Most of them will spending the night, six in the beds and four in sleeping bags on the floor, so they can march in the parade tomorrow or get a good place to watch (we're a scant three blocks from Santa Monica Boulevard).

The only one I haven't met is Levi, a Long Beach boy in his late 30s or early 40s, slim, very tanned, and just starting to go bald, with gray hairs among the black in his beard and poking up from beneath his white t-shirt.  Very nice bulge.  I'm hoping to get to "share" later, but chances are he and Randall will invite Will the Bondage Boy into their bed instead.

As usual at West Hollywood parties, we discuss celebrity hookups: Scott Baio, Michael J. Fox, Rob Lowe, Louis Ferrigno.

Randall tells about the time he and Dick Sargent competed over a Disney teen star -- not Tommy Kirk  (that's a story for later).

Then Levi stands.  "All right, boys and girls, it's time for a guessing game.  And to make it more interesting, everyone who guesses correctly wins 10 minutes in the bedroom with me on my knees:

On Gay Pride Day in 1978, when I was a 22-year old Cute Young Thing, fresh off the boat from Alamosa, Colorado, I met and had a swooning night of passion with my boyhood crush, a star of The Dick Van Dyke Show.  You have to guess which one."

The classic Boomer sitcom (1961-1966), about tv comedy writer Rob Petrie (Dick Van Dyke) balancing his work world with his suburban family!  I'm too young to remember first-run episodes, but I've seen a lot of reruns. Not a lot of gay content, no beefcake, but some of the guys were interesting.

"Was it Buddy?" Fred asks. (The short, spunky Morey Amsterdam)  "He had a wife named Pickles -- you don't get more phallic than that."

"I'm voting for Jerry Paris, who played the next door neighbor," I say.  "He was incredibly handsome, nice hair, great hands."

Maybe it was the son," Will the Bondage Boy suggests.  "Larry Mathews would be all grown up by 1978."

"Dick Van Dyke himself?" Matt asks.  "I always got a little -- je ne peux pas dire -- a vibe from him."

Nine votes are cast, with Randall abstaining: 3 for Jerry Paris, 2 for Dick Van Dyke, and 1 each for  Morey Amsterdam, Larry Mathews, Jerry Van Dyke, and Carl Reiner.

"Unfortunately, no one will be seeing what my mouth can do," Levi says, "Not until later, anyhow.  The famous tv star who set my heart aflutter when I was a boy, and who brought me to my knees that hot day in June 1978, was none other than Richard Deacon, who played Mel Cooley."

Huh?

Mel Cooley, the officious busybody, the easily perturbed stick-in-the-mud, the quintessential square, the brunt of a thousand digs and put-downs?   How could he set anyone's heart aflutter?

Besides, he was bald, bespectacled, and rather homely, with a W. C. Fields nose, a weak chin, and a nondescript physique, even for the 1960s.

Levi explains:






Alamosa, Colorado, 1960s

A small town in the scrub grass at the base of the Rockies, 200 miles from the nearest big city, where the biggest tourist attraction was sand dunes.  It was full of cowboys, Mormons, and hobos, with nothing to do on a Saturday night but go to football games and drink beer: painful for a quiet, non-athletic, bookish boy regardless of your sexual identity, but when you're growing up gay in the police-state 1960s, sheer torture.

Looking for survival strategies on tv, Levi hit upon Mel Cooley.  Obviously gay -- at least, no wife was ever mentioned.  And a master of the passive-aggressive barbs that let you survive and even triumph over bigger, more powerful adversaries.  When fisticuffs would get you pummelled, try a slow burn or a disapproving eye-roll.  When an open objection would get you killed, try a snarky quip.  Genius!

Smitten, Levi watched Richard Deacon in everything he could find: Mr. Ed, The Addams Family, That Darn Cat, The Gnome-Mobile, Blackbeard's Ghost, Get Smart, The Beverly Hillbillies, Here's Lucy, Maude, BJ and the Bear.  

He always played gay-vague, passive-aggressive, snarky sticks-in-the-mud aching to ruin the hero's fun.  But on the talk and game shows -- Dick Cavett, The Tonight Show, Mike Douglas, The Match Game -- he revealed the sensitive, sweet soul beneath the bristly facade.  Levi was intrigued: he wanted more.

Hollywood, June 1978

A few weeks after he graduated from Adams State College with a degree in agriculture (his parents insisted), Levi was living in California (top photo), working in a department store, and watching his first Gay Pride Parade.  Harvey Milk was the grand marshal. There were protests against the Briggs Amendment, which would prohibit teachers from making pro-gay statements.

 And -- sitting on the patio of a restaurant facing the street, Levi saw his childhood crush, Richard Deacon!  He was with Paul Lynde and Phyllis Diller and a couple of Cute Young Things.

He was 57 years old, graying, and kind of chunky -- Levi later discovered that he didn't like the gym, and followed Miss Piggy's rule about jogging: "One should run only when one is being chased."  But he was enormously tall, massive, and vibrant, talking animatedly, waving his hands about.

"Mr. Deacon, I loved you in Dick Van Dyke!" Levi exclaimed, rushing forward.  "And in That Darn Cat!  You're a genius!"

"I'm not a genius," Richard said, looking up with a cruisy smile.  "I'm a craftsman."

Levi instinctively looked around, waiting for an insulting quip like "You mean crap-man."  But the others in his party just smiled.  Richard -- "Deac" -- invited Levi to join them.

Later they all had dinner at Deac's house off Coldwater Canyon Drive, north of Sunset.  He cooked: steak with corn compote and summer squash,  asparagus, and a Napa Valley cabernet, with a chocolate torte for dessert.

After dinner, Paul and Phyllis and the Cute Young Things went home, but Levi spent the night.  And the next.  They didn't become lovers, but they became friends, and shared tricks and recipes and Gay Pride Parades until his death on August 8, 1984.

West Hollywood, June 1995

"During my six years of friendship with Richard Deacon, I learned three important things about him," Levi says.

1. He didn't want to play heroes, or God forbid, romantic leads.  No fisticuffs, no kissing ladies.  He found what he was good at, and used it to his advantage, crafting a respectable Hollywood career, making enough money to indulge in all of the things he loved: good food, good wine, art, theater, travel.

2. He was the nicest, most approachable, most easy-going guy in Hollywood.  He would talk to anyone, from superstars to the counter girl at the deli, and no one had a single bad word to say about him.  

Levi pauses.

"What's third thing?" I ask.

"For some of you, it might be the most important.  Not to me -- I couldn't care less.  But it was very nice on a hot Hollywood night with a glass of Merlot by the bedside."

"What's the third thing?" I repeat, annoyed.

He spreads his hands, spanning at least a Kovbasa+.

3. Richard Deacon was hung to his knees.

Randall, the Muscle Bear with the Pierced Penis

Rock Island, December 25th, 1990

My boyfriend Lane and I have an open relationship: bedroom activity with other guys is fine, as long as we are both present, "sharing" or at least watching.  In emergencies, like when I'm back in Rock Island for two weeks, a close friend can substitute.

So on Christmas Day, I call Lane and tell him how my friend Dick and I went to JR's last night and hooked up with the Ginger Boy.  And he tells me about how he went to a bear contest at the Faultline, and got the phone number of the winner, Randall.

"You should have seen him!  A classic muscle daddy, in his 50s but not grey, a military haircut, a short-cropped beard, thick arms, nice muscular hairy chest!  I groped him -- feels like a gigantic Kielbasa down there!"

"Sounds hot," I say.  Not really my type though.  I just turned 30, so I'm not into the over-40 crowd.  I figure if they date, I'll just be the "watcher."

"And really into S&M: mummification, water sports, you name it."

I like some minor bondage, but Lane isn't into it at all.  What does he see in this guy?  "So, when is the big date?  You can bring Max along to share, if I'm still in the Midwest."

"No, we'll wait until you get back.  How about if we have dinner with him on the 5th?"

West Hollywood, January 5th, 6:00 pm

I expect Lane to drive me to a West Hollywood address -- San Vicente, Crescent Heights, Fairfax, La Brea.  But instead we get on the 410 and drive south for 45 minutes, to Long Beach!

The other side of the world?  What does this guy have that the 20,000 gay men in West Hollywood don't?  

Long Beach, 7:00 pm

We meet Randall at a restaurant on East Broadway, in the heart of Long Beach's gay neighborhood.  He is very attractive, very dynamic, in spite of being 23 years older than me.  Maybe I'll do more than watch.

I start bringing out my best stories.  I spent a summer in Japan.

"Really?  I lived in Japan for five years, after I got out of the navy. Nihonjin dansei ga miri kitekidesu!"

How about my celebrity boyfriend?

"Oh, I met him at a party a few years ago, when he was still in that tv show.  He let me tie him up, but I couldn't do anything else.  You know who's really into S&M scenes?  I'll give you a hint -- he's on Murphy Brown!"

Ok, my writing career.   "I worked for Muscle and Fitness for four years," I tell him, omitting the fact that I was a proofreader.  "But now I've moved into freelance.  I just had an article published in Frontiers [the local gay newspaper]."

"That's great.  I write a monthly column on the leather world.  You've probably seen it -- Randall's Ropes?"

Grrr.

10:00 pm

After cruising at the Mineshaft, a local leather bar, we go back to Randall's house, a square Spanish colonial flanked by palm trees.  Not much furniture: a nearly bare living room, a playroom with a pool table and a fireplace, a study with some paperbacks leftover from his college days.  But a well-stocked basement dungeon.

"Who's up for a scene?" Randall  asks.  "Boomer, you look like a bottom."

"Nope, a top.  Lane bottoms on occasion, but he's not really into it at all."

"Not tonight," Lane says.  "I want to try the dominance thing."

"Come on, Boomer -- you can't say no to two tops.  At least let us put you in my new leather-braided restraints and play with you a bit."

So I take off my clothes, and Randall wraps my wrists and biceps in tight leather bands.  He fondles my chest, and Lane goes down on me.  

But I'm not used to restraints, and it's very, very tight.  "Enough, enough!" I exclaim.

"But I was going to put clamps on your nipples!"

"Let me out of this thing!"

He unties the braids.  "Would you be up for a midnight swim instead?   In my pool, not in the ocean, so there will be no fish to nipple on your toes"

11:00 pm

Randall strips, revealing a nice muscular chest and a gigantic Kielbasa -- with a Prince Albert, what looks like a 3" thick metal hook through his glans.

Lane and I follow him upstairs and into the back yard.  It's January in Long Beach, 53 degrees out, jacket weather.  I assume that his pool is heated.

No.

Randall and Lane dive into the deep end.   I climb carefully into the shallow end and stand there, shivering.

Randall swims over and gropes me.  "Hey, Boomer, have you ever gone down on a guy underwater?"

Put my head under that ice shelf?  I don't think so.

I climb of the pool and go back in the house.  Randall follows.

"Sorry, you're from the Midwest, so I figured you wouldn't mind a little chill.  Let me warm you up."  He slaps my back -- vigorously. It hurts!

"Ouch!  Get away!"

"Sorry!  Well, let's get busy."  He grabs Lane, pushes him down on the couch, and starts aggressively kissing and fondling him.  His gigantic Kielbasa becomes aroused.  Who am I to turn down a Kielbasa?   I kneel and go down on him.

It feels like I'm going down on one of those old-fashioned hitching posts.


"Could you take that thing out?" I ask.  "It's breaking my teeth."

"Well, I prefer leaving it in.  Oral sex is much better that way.  Try this -- it will help you relax your throat."

He shoves a poppers vial at me.  I refuse.

Tired of getting my teeth knocked out, I move over and go down on Lane.

"Shall we go to the bedroom?" Randall asks.  He doesn't wait for an answer -- his fully aroused hitching post leads the way.

He sits on the bed, his back against the headboard, and Lane crawls between his legs and goes down on him.  I sit next to him.  We kiss for awhile.  Then he opens a carved wooden box and pulls out a homemade cigar.  "Want to get high?"

I don't drink.  What makes him think I do drugs?  I've never even seen marijuana before.  "Um...no, thanks."

"How about you, Lane?"

Lane looks up.  "Thanks, but I'm high enough as it is.  It's not every day that I get to go down on someone as big as you."

"Hey, he's not that much bigger than me!"  I exclaim.

"Just keep working, boy," Randall says, patting his head.  He lights up.  An acrid-sweet smell fills the room.

After awhile, he pushes Lane away and tries to turn me over onto my stomach.

"Um...I'm not into anal."

 "Just relax, boy." He spits on his penis and pushes it between my legs, while I'm facing the wrong way.  After a few dozen thrusts, he finishes with a yell.

All in all, a less than optimal evening.

But Lane loved it.  Randall was like a bigger, more accomplished, more adventurous version of me.  We visited him in Long Beach, or invite him up to West Hollywood, every couple of weeks until we moved to San Francisco in 1995.  And after we broke up, Lane and Randall became roommates.

Today Randall is 78 years old, still living in that house in Long Beach, still inviting Cute Young Things over to swim in his pool, try out his dungeon, and break their teeth on his Prince Albert.

See also: A Golden Boy for Christmas; Darren, Cary Grant, and Groucho Marx in the Same Bed.

Brandon DeWilde in Paul Newman's Bed

Born in Brooklyn, New York in April 1942, Brandon DeWilde was performing on Broadway at age 7.  At age 11, he was nominated for an Academy Award for Shane (1953).  That fall he got his own tv series, Jamie (1953-1954).

He was a big star.  And already sexually active. 

He always said that he was born horny.  As a teenager he rarely went more than a day without going down on a man or letting a man or woman go down on him.  Usually two or three.  He and a buddy often teamed up to work on a third guy or girl, then do each other.

How did he find all those willing partners, at a jailbait age, in the police-state 1950s, when sodomy and fornication would get you a prison sentence?  It helped that he had a stunning face and an enormous penis that kept getting bigger and bigger every year.  And that he looked...well, innocent.  Everybody thought they were his first.

Right, his first today.

Brandon wasn't sure whether he liked sex with men or women better -- why choose, they were both great!  But for sheer physical attraction, that jolt that hits you in the pit of your stomach, it was always men. 

Especially older, sophisticated, powerful men, the kind who would take you out and show you a good time before tearing your clothes off and throwing your legs in the air.

And maybe help your career.   Brandon's first real boyfriend was novelist James Leo Herlihy, who got him cast in the film versions of Blue Denim (1959) and All Fall Down (1962).

Not that they were monogamous -- no matter how many times they had sex the night before, Brandon still found himself getting aroused at the sight of muscular stage hands and pretty-in-pink script girls -- and he got a lot of invitations.  How could he refuse? 

In 1962, shortly after he and James broke up, Brandon landed a dream role --  Lonnie in Hud, an adaption of Larry McMurtrey's 1961 Western novel Horsemen Pass By, about a gay teenager who falls in love with his no-good uncle.

Ok, he wasn't explicitly gay, in the script, but that's how Brandon intended to play him!

Especially when he discovered that Hud was to be played by 37-year old Paul Newman, star of gay-subtext movies like The Long Hot Summer and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.   A major sex symbol, arguably the most beautiful man in the world.  How could Lonnie not be in love with him?

How could Brandon not be in love with him?

"Dream on," James said, still smarting a little from the breakup.  "Paul Newman can have any guy he wants, and he likes them big and built, like Brando, Yul Brynner, and Rocky Graziano -- why would he pick a skinny 20-year old kid?  Besides, you're both bottoms.  What are you going to do, exchange recipes?"

"I can screw with the best of them, Daddy-O!" Brandon exclaimed.  "And I can seduce with the best of them."

On May 21, 1962, location filming began in the town of Claude on the Texas Panhandle.  Cast and crew stayed at several hotels in Amarillo.  Brandon seduced the desk clerk at Paul's hotel into letting him into his room.  Paul came in later to find Brandon on the bed naked.

"I've been waiting all afternoon to suck the cock of Paul Newman," he announced.

Paul was hesitant at first -- he wasn't into skinny kids, even those with angelic faces and enormous penises -- but Brandon was very persistent.  Soon they were having sex every night, with each other and with whatever men or women they invited along -- both of them got a lot of offers! 

Brandon was mostly a bottom with men, but one night he topped a guy who was going down on Paul at the same time.  Then he switched positions -- what a kick!  He never topped Paul, though -- Paul had a smaller cock, but he was older, and a bigger star, therefore always dominant.

When the Texas shooting ended and they returned to Los Angeles, Paul said, "Look, it's been swell, but I'm a one-man man.  If we're going to do this, you're going to have to be faithful.  No other guys...or chicks either, unless you're married to them."

Brandon was completely captivated.  Paul's fame, his money, his connections that could push a career -- none of it mattered.  Even the sex wasn't important.  He wanted to be with Paul, share his bed, share his life, no matter what.

So he tried monogamy.  He cut back on the hookups.  He got married, to take some of the pressure off.  But he and Paul had different commitments, and just couldn't see each other often.  They had to make do with an occasional weekend fling.

What was Brandon supposed to do on the other days?  Sex with his wife Susan, of course.  But he got aroused so easily, and he had so many offers -- it was simply impossible to turn them all down. 

Brandon tried visiting Paul on the set for an occasional dressing-room blow job, but Paul didn't like that -- too dangerous.  If anyone found out about them, both their careers would be over.

Still, Brandon longed for some public recognition of their relationship, if only in code.

In 1968, Paul signed on as Butch in the intensely homoerotic buddy-Western Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.  Brandon thought that he should play Sundance -- a perfect way to display their commitment! 

Besides, his career was in the dumps -- he had barely worked in three years.  What good was having a superstar boyfriend, if he refused to use his influence to get you jobs?

Paul argued that it would look suspicious for him to promote Brandon for the role. The producers wanted Steve McQueen.

"Your new boyfriend?" Brandon sniped.  "What, does he suck your cock better than me?  Or does he have a tighter ass?  Here I've been trying my damnedest to stay faithful, and you're shacking up with every Tom, Dick, and Harry!"

The argument escalated, and became public -- they were nearly outed on the spot.  Paul angrily broke up with Brandon. 

Worried about being caught in the middle of a gay love triangle, McQueen backed out of the role, and Robert Redford took over.

Devastated by the breakup, Brandon divorced Susan -- they were mostly together for Paul's sake, anyway -- and distanced himself from Hollywood, returning to his old love, theater.  In March 1972 he remarried.  In July 1972, while starring in Butterflies are Free, he was driving through Lakewood, a suburb of Denver, when he swerved to avoid a drunk driver and was killed.

Paul Newman had a legendary career, in such memorable movies as The Sting (1973), Fort Apache, the Bronx (1981), and The Color of Money (1986).  Never openly bisexual -- his 2010 biography just mentions Brandon as his costar in Hud -- he was married to Joanne Woodward for 50 years, and had three children.  He was a strong supporter of gay rights. 

Most of this story comes from Randall the Muscle Bear, who never met Brandon, but knew some men who tricked with him in the 1960s.  I took some details from Darwin Porter's 2009 biography of Paul Newman, but I found it to be generally unreliable.

See also: Paul Newman and Rocky Graziano

Dick Sargent and Randall Compete Over a Disney Adventure Boy

West Hollywood, June 1995

It's the night before Gay Pride, and Lane and I are having about a dozen guys over, so they'll be able to get to the staging grounds easily tomorrow, or find a good place to stand to watch.  As usual at West Hollywood parties, we swap celebrity dating stories: Tom Cruise, Rob Lowe, Mario Lopez, Dustin Hoffman.

Randall the Muscle Bear usually doesn't participate, although he knows a lot of actors, but tonight he may be trying to impress his date, Levi from Colorado, so he says "I'm going to tell you about the time Dick Sargent and I competed over a Disney adventure boy from the 1960s."

The room is abuzz as we discuss the Disney adventure boys, a stable of teen hunks who took their shirts off to demonstrate "wholesome American masculinity" during the late 1950s and early 1960s: Jeff East, Tim Considine, Roger Mobley, James MacArthur, Tommy Kirk.

"You'll have to hear the story, and guess.

Hollywood, May 1966

Randall, who would become the Muscle Bear with the Pierced Penis, was then Randy, a 26-year old twink, fresh out of the Navy, back in his home town of Los Angeles after eight years in Hawaii, Guam, and Germany.    He moved into a tiny apartment on Crescent Heights, in what would one day be West Hollywood, got a job in set design, and reunited with his old friends, including actor Dick Sargent (the future star of Bewitched).

Dick introduced him to 26-year old Tommy Kirk (Old Yeller, The Shaggy Dog, Swiss Family Robinson) who had been fired from Disney last year when the studio discovered that he was gay.  He was trying to keep his career afloat with some beach movies and low-budget thrillers, like It's a Bikini World and Psycho A-Go-Go.

The three of them were talking, and Randall mentioned his crush on a Disney Adventure Boy from a few years ago -- he'd be in his 20s by now.

"He's a really nice guy," Tommy said.  "He and Annette are the only two of the old Disney gang who will talk to me now.  But he's straight.  He's got a girlfriend."

"Maybe she's a beard," Dick suggested. A woman you date as a cover.  "And, straight or not, nobody can resist my impish grin."

"Or my...um...baseball bat," Randy bragged.  "I'll bet you I can convince him to drop his pants in just two hours."

"That's nothing!  I'll have him throwing my legs in the air in 45 minutes."

"Is that a challenge?"

"Sounds like an episode of Truth or Consequences," Tommy said.  "Tell you what -- I'll arrange the meetings -- that's the truth.  But I get to go down on the loser, the dude who doesn't get the boy.  Those are the consequences."

Dick Sargent's Date

Dick and Tommy and their beards met the Adventure Boy and his girlfriend at a Hollywood hot spot.  The music was loud and psychedelic; acid and pot were being passed around openly.  There were dancers in cages.  There were a number of celebrities grooving to the music, including George Segal and the Smothers Brothers.

 At 36, Dick felt a bit old for such a groovy hangout, but he gamely danced the frug and the watusi with his girl.  Then they sat at a red booth for drinks.

After awhile, the girls went off to "powder their noses," and Tommy found an excuse to make himself scarce. Dick slid across the booth and grabbed the Adventure Boy's shoulder.

"Hey, dude, you didn't hear it from me, but I think your chick digs chicks."

"Yeah, I know," he said.  "Doesn't bother me a bit.  She's the smartest, funniest girl I've ever met, regardless of who she sleeps with."

"But don't you want to...you know, get laid?"

The Adventure Boy smiled and patted his hand.  "To tell you the truth, sex with girls isn't much of a kick.  I never could figure out why everybody's so hepped up on it."

"Me, neither."  Dick reached down and grabbed his knee.  He didn't respond.

"There are so many more important things in life.  Art, literature, music, philosophy."

Dick moved farther in, found the Adventure Boy's crotch, and squeezed.  The Adventure Boy found his hand and moved it away.

"A sunrise on the beach is more satisfying than any number of blow jobs, I don't care if they're from a chick or a dude."

Dick backed off.  Later he went back to Tommy's house for his "penalty."

Randy's Date

Randy refused beards, offering Tommy and the Adventure Boy a "guy's night out."  Beginning, at his insistence, with the L.A. County Museum of Art.  He had never been there -- it only opened in 1961, and moved to its new building on Wilshire in 1965.

"This is where it's at," the Adventure Boy said.  "Picasso, Rembrandt, Matisse will be here long after our beach-blanket dreck is forgotten.  Mod comes and goes, but the artistic spirit lives on forever."

Randy touched his shoulder.  "You're really very sensitive, aren't you?  Nothing like your buffed airhead persona in the movies."

He shrugged.  "It's a job.  Besides, it gives me an opportunity to scope out the action. The Body Beautiful in Technicolor."

Afterwards they drove to the Santa Monica Pier to have dinner and then walk along the beach at sunset.  Randy put his arm around the Adventure Boy's waist.  Tommy chuckled.

"Hey, you dudes should drop by my pad," Randy said.  "I got some righteous Sangria I picked up in Spain, and some maui wowie."

The Adventure Boy suggested that they go back to his house instead.  He put on a record of Debussy, offered them a joint, and then sat with his legs wide, his head back, his eyes closed.  His knee brushed against Randy's.

"Man, I could just lie here all night, letting the music flow through me.  This has been a far-out day."

Tommy went out to the kitchen in search of wine.  While he was gone, Randy knelt in front of the Adventure Boy and pressed down on his crotch.

"Art, music, pot, a walk on the beach, a couple of cool guys by your side. What more could you ask for?"

Randy unzipped him and pulled out his penis --very long, very thick around, pale in the dim light -- and fondled him.

He didn't get aroused.

Randy went down on him.  It was like going down on a limp noodle.  Completely soft.

After a few minutes, he tried his hand again.  Nothing.  He returned the Adventure Boy's penis to his pants and zipped him up.

A moment later, Tommy appeared with glasses and a bottle of wine.  "You guys been keeping yourselves busy in my absence?"

"No," Randy said, annoyed.

After a glass of wine, they said goodnight, and Tommy drove Randy back to his house to collect his "penalty."

West Hollywood, June 1995

We glance at each other.  Randall hasn't given us much to go on.

"Definitely Roger Mobley," Will the Bondage Boy says.

"James Macarthur," I suggest.

"Tim Considine?"

"Nope.  It was Aron Kincaid."

The blond hunk in all of those beach movies of the early 1960s -- Beach Blanket Bingo, Muscle Beach, Bikini Beach Party?  He was a lot hotter and more buffed than ostensible star Frankie Avalon, and a lot less interested in the ladies.  I don't remember him being in a Disney adventure boy movie, but then, growing up Nazarene, I only saw a few of them.

This was before you could look up such things readily, and by the time I was near a library, I forgot all about it.  Only recently did I look him up: Aron Kincaid was no Disney Adventure Boy.  His only work for Disney was The Happiest Millionaire (1967).  Randall was mistaken, or fibbing.

But at least both he and Dick Sargent dated a former Disney Adventure Boy: Tommy Kirk.



Was Aron Kincaid Gay?

It's possible that Aron was gay, but too tired or too high to get aroused, or too nervous with a third person there.

Or that he had no sexual desire at all; maybe he was asexual.

He was engaged to four women over the years, but never married.  When he socialized, it was with a man or a much older woman, like screen legends Rita Hayworth and Maureen O'Hara.   But mostly he preferred solitude.

In the 1970s, he moved to San Francisco and started a new career as a model.  He became friends with Armistead Maupin, author of Tales of the City, who named his chief villain Norman Neal Williams ( after his real name).  Later he moved to New York City, where he embarked on a third career as a painter of landscapes and seascapes.

 He lived alone through his life, and died in 2011.


See also: Dick Sargent, Cary Grant, and Groucho Marx, All in the Same Bed.

Dick Sargent's Three Way with Pat Boone

West Hollywood, March 2003

Conservative superstar Pat Boone, the World's #1 homophobe, had a three-way with Darrin of Bewitched?

I'm back in West Hollywood for a post-Oscar party thrown by Lane and his roommate Randall, 62 years old, but still a hot muscle bear with a pierced penis and a coterie of leather bear, cub, and otter friends.

The conversation moves inevitably toward celebrity hookups, and Randall begins telling the story of how, as an 18 year old in 1958, his friend Dick Sargent (who would star in Bewitched in the 1960s) took him to a gay party in Beverly Hills, where they hooked up with Groucho Marx and Cary Grant.  On the same night, in the same bed.

He's at the part where he and Dick are sitting in a parked car, making out and discussing who's gay in Hollywood.  Sal Mineo.  James Dean.  "Pat Boone. I haven't actually been with him, but I've watched him in action."

"Wait, wait, wait!" someone exclaims.  "Pat Boone is a total homophobe.  He writes books on how to 'be saved from the dangerous homosexual lifestyle.'  Are you trying to tell us that he's gay?"

"According to Dick, he's straight, but open to 'fooling around' with guys," Randall says.  "They had a three-way with a teenage fan while they were working on a  movie together."

Hollywood, March 1957

Bernardine, filming at 20th-Century Fox in the spring of 1957, was a frothy comedy about three high school boys who enter a fictional woman's name into a contest. Hilarity and romance ensue.  The big draw would be Pat Boone, a 22-year old teen idol with a string of hits:  "Ain't That a Shame," "Long Tall Sally," "Love Letters in the Sand, "April Love."  This was his first acting job.  

Costar Dick Sargent was 26 years old, with two years of acting under his belt, including a starring role in the tv series West Point, so he became a sort of mentor to the young star.  After work Pat often invited him home for dinner with his wife and three young daughters.  He became like one of the family.

One night when they were alone in the living room -- Shirley was off putting the girls to bed -- Dick did something that you never did in the 1950s: he came out!

"Today he would be setting himself up for screaming and Bible thumping!" I exclaim.  "It must have been much worse in the 1950s!"

"Actually," Randall says,  "The conservative Christians hadn't discovered us yet.  Back then they were screaming mostly about divorce and premarital hetero-sex.  Everybody hated queers, of course, but Dick was tall and studly, a graduate of military academy, not a queer queer, if you know what I mean. 

"I don't really like girls," Dick told Pat.  "I dig boys.  In fact, I've been in bed with one of our costars -- I can't tell you who, of course."

"I hear you, Daddy-o," the teen idol responded.  "Who doesn't dig boys?  I mean, I would never dream of cheating on Shirley, but it's not cheating when it's with a dude, reet?"  And I'll tell you a secret --"  he leaned in conspiratorily.  "When I sing 'Love Letters in the Sand,' it's not just bobby-soxers who moan and sigh and send me their phone numbers."

Dick was intrigued, and more than a little interested in the handsome Pat Boone, so he agreed to "fool around" with one of his regular "playmates," a teenage fan named Gerry.

After work a few days later, they drove up to Van Nuys, to one of those cheap hotels where the rooms have private entrances.  Pat waited in the car while Dick paid.  Inside, Pat made a phone call, and after about half an hour, Gerry arrived.

He was in his late teens, shorter than Dick, with brown curly hair, dark eyes, pouting lips, and a full, hard physique -- what they used to call "well knit."

After shaking hands with them both, he sat on the bed and began fondling himself through his chinos.  No preliminaries!

Shocked, Dick said "Shouldn't we kiss or fondle a bit first?"

Gerry frowned.  "You think this is a Sweet Sixteen Party, Howdy Doody?"

"No, but..., I like the way a dude looks and feels.  It's not just about the act itself."  He turned to Pat for validation, but Pat had already pulled out his own average-sized penis.

"I agree with the kid," he said, fondling himself to full arousal. "Hearts and flowers for the ladies, cocks and balls when it's just us cool cats."  He walked over to the bed. Gerry started going down on him.

Sighing, Dick lay on the bed, pulled out Gerry's impressive Kielbasa, and went down on him.  Gerry stayed aroused but didn't moan or say anything.

Dick pulled Gerry's shirt up to feel his hard chest and squeeze his nipples, but the kid  still didn't react.

After a few minutes, Gerry got on his knees, pulled out Dick's Bratwurst, and went to work.  That's what it seemed like -- doing a job.

Dick leaned over and tried to pull Pat close enough to go down on, but got shooed away.  "You can't fool around with your friends," Pat murmured, fondling himself.

Who else can you fool around with?

He and Gerry moved into the 69 position, still mostly clothed.  Gerry worked vigorously and enthusiastically, but still, Dick had trouble staying aroused.  He wanted Gerry's arms around him.  He wanted kissing.  He wanted the sight, touch, taste of the masculine!

Gerry finished soundlessly, with a gigantic spurt -- two mouthsful! -- and then turned his attention back to Pat, who continued to stand, continued to be fully clothed.  Dick stood and fondled his butt and tried to nuzzle his neck, but got shooed away.  Finally he sat down and beat off while watching Gerry bring Pat to orgasm.

Then Pat gave Gerry a dollar and sent him home, and they drove home, too.

They stayed friends, but when Pat suggested that they hook up with other boy fans, Dick refused.  He didn't like just fooling around with guys.  He wanted touching and kissing and fondling.  He wanted dating and romance.  He was a queer queer.

Was Dick telling the truth?

I got this story third hand, and it took place nearly sixty years ago, so it's impossible to determine what actually happened and what was embellished at some point along the way -- or made up altogether.  Today Pat Boone makes frequent homophobic statements, but who can say what he was thinking at the age of 22?  Maybe he really did think that "fooling around" with guys was fine, as long as you returned to your wife's bed at the end of the day.

After all, he was enough of a libertine to have someone photograph his penis in a box.

See also: Dick Sargent, Groucho Marx, and Cary Grant in the Same Bed; and Pat Boone, Teenage Heartthrob

From Walt Whitman to Tommy Miles in Four Hookups

Guildford, Surrey,  August 1917

Maurice Evans was born in Dorchester in 1901, but grew up in London, where his father was a chemist, a justice of the peace, and an amateur thespian.  As a boy he loved everything about the theater -- the lights, the costumes, the dark tragedy, the clowning.  He also loved music, especially Gilbert and Sullivan operettas, and fine arts, especially the nude Greek statues at the British Museum.  Was there ever any boy, he wondered, who found such joy in Greek statues?  Or in the soldiers going off to fight in the Great War, in their tight-fitting uniforms?

One day during the heart of the War, Maurice stumbled upon Iolaus: A Book of Friendship, by Edward Carpenter.  His type of love, the love of men for men, throughout history, even in the days of the Bible!

Discrete inquiries revealed that Carpenter was living in Guildford, Surrey, about 30 miles south of London.  So one day Maurice took the train out to visit him.

Carpenter was in his 70s, but still athletic -- he worked out with barbells every morning.  He lived with George Merrill, about 20 years younger: "a comrade, a helpmeet, the rib taken from Adam's belly -- that's George to me."

And that was the point of manly love, Carpenter explained: "adhesive friendships," intense erotic bonds that could transcend time and space.  "Do you know Walt Whitman?"

Maurice didn't.

"Oh, wonderful prophet of manly love!  He recited: Clear to me now standards not yet published, clear to me that my soul, that the soul of the man I speak for rejoices in comrades.  In 1877,  I visited him in Camden and bestowed upon him the everlasting kiss of many love."

His hand strayed down to Maurice's knee.  He began to get aroused.

"The everlasting...um...what?"

Carpenter knelt, unbuttoned his trousers, and put his mouth on Maurice's erect penis!   He had done nothing with a man before except some fumbling with hands and penises pressed together -- this was much more erotic, much more spiritual.  He finished in a moment, a glorious release, and Carpenter swallowed his semen.

"Your cock has been where Walt Whitman's was, fifty years ago," Carpenter said.  "Now you are joined, soul brothers."

Maurice went down on many guys after that, and had many guys go down on him, but no one ever called it the "everlasting kiss of manly love."

June 1970

Nearing the end of a long career on stage and tv and radio, Maurice, for a lark, took a role as a flamboyant, theatrical warlock, Samantha's father on Bewitched (1964-1971).  It was great fun, and he became close to William Asher and Elizabeth Montgomery, and their circle of gay friends: Dick Sargent (who played Darrin), Paul Lynde (Uncle Arthur), Richard Deacon, Wally Cox.

He was particularly taken by Randy, a fresh-faced young cowboy with a hairy chest and a perfectly enormous basket.  One night he went out to the clubs with Randy and Dick Sargent, and afterwards invited them back to his "pad" (actually a very nice house in Beverly Hills) for a nightcap.

"The younger generation is...er. where it is at, as they say." Maurice exclaimed.   "We never had anything so open in my day -- it was all about code words and beards.  Have you ever heard of Edward Carpenter?"

 Randy and Dick looked at each other and shrugged.

"He was a wonderful precursor of today's Gay Lib.  I have a first edition of Iolaus around here somewhere.  But for all his passion, he still used code.  He called homosexuality 'manly love of comrades.'  And do you know what he called French?  'The everlasting kiss of manly love.  Poetic, what?"

"Very," Randy said.  The music, the wine, the cruising were starting to effect him.  Maurice saw a definite tent in his jeans.  He slid to the floor, unzipped him -- beautiful penis, enormous yet perfectly shaped -- and went down on him while fondling his testicles.

Soon Dick was going down on Maurice.  He was rather proud of himself -- 70 years old, and still a stallion!

They retired to the master bedroom, where Maurice went down on Randy and Dick together until they had nearly simultaneous orgasms, a glorious shower on his face.  He didn't have an orgasm himself -- that would happen later, after the boys went home and he was immersed in the memory.

After they cleaned up, Randy and Dick got the post-orgasm munchies, so Maurice trotted into the kitchen to look for some snacks.  "Did you know," he called, "That I had French performed on me by Edward Carpenter, fifty years ago?  And fifty year before, he was with Walt Whitman, the great American poet.  So you fellows have a cosmic connection with the greatest gay poet of all time.   Don't you think that's rather...er...groovy?"

August 2017

Randall, the guy on Grindr, must be at least 70 -- older than Tommy's grandfather!  Tommy Miles liked older guys, but not that much older!  Still, he had a nicely muscled physique, and an interest in BDSM -- one of Tommy's fantasies was to be tied up and topped by an authority figure, a cop or a professor.  "It wouldn't hurt to ask for a cock pic," he thought.

He sent one of his own cock, and opened the one Randall sent -- bingo!  Enormous!

Randall insisted that they meet for dinner at a Chinese restaurant, which made Tommy a bit uncomfortable -- what would his friends think, if they saw him on a date with an old guy?  They'd think he was a hustler with his sugar daddy, or that he had a grandpa fetish.  Which, to be honest, he sort of did.

Mistaking his apprehension for being in the closet, Randall said "We don't need to hide anymore. There's still a lot of work to do, but things are a lot better for us than they were even 20 years ago, and especially when I was a boy, before Stonewall."

"What's Stonewall?" Tommy asked.

"You never heard of Stonewall?  It was only the beginning of Gay Liberation, when we started fighting back.  Before Stonewall, gay sex was illegal, it was illegal to go to bars or discuss gay issues in public, and we were labeled psychopaths by the American Psychiatric Association and subjected to electroshock therapy and forced castration."

"Wow."  He had no idea that gay sex had ever been illegal, or gay people deemed mentally ill.

"I was at the first gay right march in Los Angeles, in June 1970.  The police hated gays then, so we had trouble with harassment, and the city council thought..."

They returned to Randall's house, and he showed Tommy some books on gay history and culture.   The Gay Liberation Front...the Mattachine Society...Paris in the 1920s...Edward Carpenter...Walt Whitman.

 "Walt Whitman?  My high school was named after him!  Nobody ever told me that he was gay!"

"Fun fact," Randall said.  "When I was young, I went down on Maurice Evans, the movie star.  In 1917, when he was a teenager, Maurice went down on with Edward Carpenter, who, 50 years before, went down on Walt Whitman."

"A chain of hookups across gay history!" Tommy exclaimed.  "Cool!"

"Care to...um...continue the tradition?" Randall asked, fondling Tommy's aroused cock.

Full of life now, compact, visible, I, 48 years old, to one a century hence, or any number of centuries hence,
To you, yet unborn.
Now it is you, compact, visible, reading  my poems, seeking me;  
Fancying how happy you would be, if I could be with you, and become your comrade. 
Be not too certain that I am not now  with you.

See also: Cary Grant, Groucho Marx, and Dick Sargent in the Same Bed