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.

Drake on His Knees in Tony Curtis' Dressing Room

San Francisco, November 1996

Gay parties are different in San Francisco than they were in West Hollywood: dinner is out at a restaurant, not at someone's apartment, and there are no celebrity dating stories: there's no actor colony here, so most guys don't have any opportunity to meet celebrities.

But this is my birthday, so I have to tell the story of my date with Michael J. Fox.

David and Corbin, the gym rat with the Mortadella+, counter with our four-way with Brad Pitt.

My sort-of boyfriend Kevin the Vampire tells about his hookup with Anton LaVey, the founder of the Church of Satan, who was actually a "very nice guy."

Not to be left out, Drake the Teddy Bear artist tells us "When I was a kid, I hooked up with Tony Curtis!"

Tony Curtis, the famous actor who went in drag for Some Like It Hot (1959) and had a gay-subtext scene in Spartacus (1960)?  He's had five wives and six children, but how could anyone straight fill so many of his film roles with so many gay subtexts?

"Is it ok if I was slightly underaged at the time?"  Drake continued.

"California didn't repeal its sodomy law until 1976, so you were both committing a felony," Kevin the Vampire points out.  "Go for it."

Hollywood, November 1955

Drake's father was Georges Bruggeman (1904-1967), an actor and stuntman who appeared in over 200 movies stretching from the 1920s to the 1960s, including such classics as The Wizard of Oz (1939), Rio Bravo (1959), Spartacus (1960), and The Graduate (1967).  A bodybuilder, a winner of the AAU "Most Perfect Body" title in 1928, he doubled for beefcake stars like Buster Crabbe, Johnny Weissmuller, and Richard Green.

"Forget Tony Curtis!" David exclaims.  "Did you ever see your Dad naked?"

Drake grew up among celebrities.  He car-pooled to school with David and Ricky Nelson.  Buster Crabbe and Cary Grant came over for dinner.  He had free run of the studios, especially Universal, where his father worked most often.

"Did you get a sausage sighting of David Nelson?" I ask.  "I heard that he was enormous."

"Nope, sorry.  David was older than me, and Ricky younger, so we didn't really hang out."

Drake loved watching the beefcake stars like John Saxon, Rock Hudson, and Troy Donahue.

As they got to know him, they joked around with him, or sent him on little errands.  Sometimes they even invited him to help them change costumes.

He got a sausage sighting of gay actor Rock Hudson, but didn't hook up with him.

One day when he was about 16, Drake met 31-year old Tony Curtis, who was starring in the circus acrobat love story Trapeze, about a crippled trapeze artist (Burt Lancaster) who agrees to teach a young recruit (Tony) the trade, while they compete for the affection of Lola (Gina Lollobrigida).

Tony had black curly hair, soulful eyes, a feminine pout, and a tight physique, with a smooth hard chest.  He was a fey prettyboy who everyone thought was queer, except he was married and had lots of girls on the side.

In Hollywood since 1948, he was contracted to Universal Studios, cast mostly in  Westerns, film noir, and historical romances, anything that would allow him to pout for the camera, take his shirt off, and crush a damsel in distress into his arms.

Drake started hanging around Tony, mooning over him, as they said when he was a kid.  He loved Tony's half-smile, the wiggle in his walk, the way he had of looking at you like you were the most important person in the world.

Once as the walked across the studio, Tony put his arm around Drake's shoulders.  Overwhelmed by the warmth and strength of his touch, Drake walked more and more slowly, so it would last longer.

Finally Tony said "What's the matter, Drake?  Legs giving out on you?"  He then pulled Drake into his arms and carried him like a damsel in distress in a Medieval movie.

He was just joking, but Drake fantasized that night about being rescued by Tony and carried off in his arms.

He fantasized a lot.

"You needn't use euphemisms," Kevin says.  "We're all adults here.  You beat your meat while thinking of the prettyboy."

One day Drake found something he thought Tony would like -- he didn't remember what, an article in a magazine, maybe.  He was so excited about it that he burst into Tony's dressing room without knocking.

Tony had his pants down.  There was a boy on his knees, going down on him while fondling himself.

Drake recognized him as Jimmy, another studio hanger-on who sometimes took walk-on parts.

The moment he saw Drake, Jimmy jumped up with a shout, covered himself, and ran out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

Tony stood there, aroused, glaring at Drake.  "There's a new fad all the kids are doing.  It's called knocking."

"I'm...I'm...sorry," Drake stammered, staring at Tony's aroused penis.

"How big was it?"

"Bigger than me, and I have a Mortadella!  It was beautiful.  Long, thick shaft!  Enormous mushroom head!"

"You interrupted Jimmy's job," Tony said sternly.  "Now you finish it."

Drake had gone down on guys before; some of the older boys at summer camp used to pay him a quarter for each blow job.  But none of them were nearly as big as Tony!

He knelt, opened his mouth as wide as he could, and got the head in.  The shaft entered easily after that.  Tony thrust his hips, pushing it in and out in rhythmic strokes while murmuring "Yeah, that's it.  Do it nice.  Chicks just don't know how to do it right, do they?  It takes a man."

Drake was pleased at being called a man. He began to fondle himself, and finally pulled it out.

"Getting off on my rod, huh?" Tony murmured.  "That's the way I like it.  I want the queer to have a good time, too."

It didn't take long for Tony to spurt into Drake's throat.  Drake finished a moment later, spurting all over Tony's shoes.

"You should wash that up, kid," Tony said, pushing his penis back into his pants.

Drake was a little annoyed.  Was he a man, a queer, or a kid?

"Well, since you probably scared off my usual guy for good, want his job?" Tony asked.  "It pays $2.00 per load if you swallow, $1.00 if you don't.  He pulled two dollar bills from his wallet and pressed them into Drake's hands.  "That's for today."

Drake stared in astonishment.  But...this was a job?  He thought that Tony liked him, wanted to be friends and do things together.  Found him attractive, found him a man.  Would anybody with a willing mouth do?

"No...no, thanks," he stammered.  "I'm kind of busy."

He never went back to the set of Trapeze, but he did make out with Rock Hudson at a gay party in 1961.  Still no hookup, though.

Was Drake Telling the Truth?

1. Trapeze was filmed in France, not at Universal Studios, and George Bruggeman was not in it.  But he was in Mr. Cory (1957), with Tony Curtis as a busboy turned gambler.  A sixteen-year old actor named Jimmy Karath had a minor role. Maybe Drake mixed up.
 
2. In 1996, Drake told us that he was 53.  That means that in 1955, he would have been 12 years old, not 16.  Of course, older guys often knock a few years off their age.

3. This basket shot seems to indicate that Tony has an average-sized penis.

4. But Tony Curtis was definitely bisexual. In an interview for the gay magazine Out Smart in 2002,  Tony  said that during the 1950s he got "more action than Mount Vesuvius: men, women, animals.  I loved it.  I participated where I wanted...I've always been open about it"   But by the 2010s, he was rather homophobic.  He refused to see Brokeback Mountain due to its gay content.

Mario's Date with Rob Lowe

West Hollywood, September 1987

When I first arrived in West Hollywood in 1985, Rob Lowe was an androgynous prettyboy who took off his shirt a lot in Brat Pack classics like The Outsiders (1983), Class (1983), The Hotel New Hampshire (1984), Oxford Blues (1984), and St. Elmo's Fire (1985).

His fire faded a bit during the late 1980s, and his career almost fizzled out in 1988, after a tape surfaced of him and friend Justin Morritt having sex with a woman in a hotel room the night before the Democratic National Convention in Atlanta (there were actually two women there, but one doesn't appear on the tape).

Such shenanigans didn't ruin his popularity with gay fans, or the belief that he was probably gay himself. Even though he, and his Brat Pack buddies, made some of the most horrifically homophobic movies of the 1980s.  Even though he married Sheryl Berkoff in 1991 and had two children (Matthew and John Owen).

We still figured he was gay.  Why else would he star in the gay subtext-filled Bad Influence (1990) and The Finest Hour (1992), as  the psychiatrist treating the dead gay guy's sister in Suddenly Last Summer (1993), and as the mute, angelic, asexual Nick Stavros in The Stand (1994)?  Why else would he appear at so many AIDS Walks and AIDS benefits?

Why else would half the guys in West Hollywood claim to have dated him?

During my 10 years in West Hollywood, I heard about a dozen "my date with Rob Lowe" stories.  The one that sounds the most believable is from Mario, the wannabe actor who picked me up at the Different Light Bookstore.

He was black, rather feminine, thin and willowy, wearing gold rings, bracelets, and necklaces -- an immediate turnoff.  But he was also shorter than me, dark skinned, with glasses that gave him a studious look.

During dinner at the Greenery, I told him about my Celebrity Boyfriend, who dumped me for Alan the Pentecostal Porn Star.

He said, "Honey, forget those minor teen idol wannabes. You gotta start at the top.  Take me: I was in town about a month before I had a date with the super-hung superstar Rob Lowe!"

Hollywood, Spring 1981

Mario was 18 years old, a transplant from Richmond, Virginia, living in a tiny apartment off Selma with a drag queen named Esther Dicks, and eager to break into acting,   So far he had danced in a shoe commercial, and played basketball on a episode of Saved by the Bell.  

Then he got a starring role in a tv movie starring Vicki Lawrence (Mama's Family) as the owner of a hip jeans store.  He played the best friend of her son, Tucker:

A 16 year old actor named Rob Lowe.

Rob was a junior at Santa Monica High School, a handsome prettyboy with incredible eyes and a bulge that wouldn't quit.

Although he had starred in A New Kind of Family (1979-80) and an Afterschool Special, and had a few articles in teen magazines, Mario didn't know him.

He didn't come out, of course -- he invented a fake girlfriend back home in Virginia.  Rob said he hadn't dated much -- he was "shy" around girls.

"Uh-huh, honey, you know what that means."

They bonded during filming.  Rob invited him to a weekly basketball game that Garry Marshall (Laverne and Shirley) held at his house in Tarzana for every cute boy he could find.  Vince Van Patten and Ralph Macchio were there.

"So, Garry Marshall is gay?" I asked in surprise.

"Ain't nobody in Hollywood who's not gay, once they get a few beers in them."

One night Rob invited him over for dinner at his house in Malibu  -- "It wasn't no palace, by a long shot.  It looked like somebody air-lifted it from Wichita, Kansas. They didn't even have a swimming pool!"

Afterwards they went up to his room and watched Magnum, P.I. and drank beers they sneaked from the refrigerator.  They discussed whether Tom Selleck was gay, and whether he was hung.

"He's got nothing on me!"  Mario exclaimed.  "Why, when I get going, the honeys all be screaming 'It's too big!  It's too big!'"

They sat together on the floor, their knees touching.  Mario saw Rob starting to tent.

"Well, I'm not one to let an opportunity like that slip by!  I took the bull by the horns, by which I mean I fondled him until he pulled it out and let me go down on it.  Gigantic, baby!  8 inches!"

It took him a long time to finish -- not that Mario minded! But, Rob didn't reciprocate; afterwards he zipped up again, and they continued watching tv as if nothing had happened.

They got together a few more times after that.  Oral only -- Rob wouldn't go down on Mario, or even kiss him.  And when the filming ended, they moved on to other projects, and didn't stay in touch.

Evidence that Mario's story was accurate:

1. Rob Lowe did star in a pilot for Garry Marshall, Mean Jeans, with Vickie Lawrence as the owner of a hip jeans shop. He says it was in early 1980, not 1981.  His character was named Tucker.  That information was not readily available in 1987.

Here's a picture of his best friend -- I can't find the name, but he looks a lot like Mario.

2. Mario got other details right: living in Malibu, the "shy around girls," the basketball games at Garry Marshall's house, the size of his penis (before the sex tape made it common knowledge).

Evidence that he was exaggerating or making the whole thing up:

1. Wouldn't Mario remember that his first major acting job was in a tv pilot, not a movie?

2. A tv pilot takes about a week to shoot.  How did they have time to bond, play basketball, have dinner, and become intimate several times?

3. Rob Lowe doesn't mention any same-sex intimacies in his autobiography, Love Life, but he does say that he was into "experimentation" in high school.

See also:  Rob Lowe