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.

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