Matt's Date with Johnny Sheffield's Son

San Diego, July 1989

My ex-boyfriend Fred's boyfriend Matt was loud and proud, out to everybody and everything.  

"Hi, I'm gay, and I'd like to order a large pizza."

 "Hi, I'm gay.  What time will the flight from Kansas City be arriving?"

Fred didn't care for gay pride events, but Matt dragged him to Christopher Street West in L.A. every year, and sometimes to the parades in San Francisco and San Diego too.  "Mon chevalier blanc, it will be fabulous!" he promised.  "And, as any queen knows, they come with nonstop cruising.  Finding a Cute Young Thing to share my butt and our bed will make it all glorioski, n'est pas?"

In 1989 they went to the San Diego gay pride parade, and afterwards to a "hair cutting" exposition at the Eagle.  One of the guys in the chair was a Cute Young Thing named Stewie (this was before Family Guy co-opted the name): early 20s, tall, slim, very tanned, with brown curly hair, a round open face, pinprick nipples, and an average-sized cock, cut.  Plus he came from a wealthy family and attended a private school, just like Matt.  They immediately hit it off, and were so busy talking that they almost forgot to cruise.

They went back to Stewie's apartment, where Fred topped him while he went down on Matt.  Then Stewie topped Matt -- versatile, not like those West Hollywood queens who were only into oral.  And kissing and cuddling afterwards!  Merveilleux!  Matt was almost in love.

Lying in bed enfolded in each other's arms while Fred dozed, they shared coming out stories.  Stewie had known since he was in high school, but he hadn't told anyone in his family: "Mom might be ok with it, but Dad's old school.  He was in Hollywood in the 1940s, when being gay was the worst thing in the world."

"Has he been in anything I may have seen?" Matt asked.  "I'm quite the movie buff -- the silver screen was my only escape from the dreariness of the Midwest.  Let me guess -- your papa is Marlon Brando?"

Stewie smiled and began kissing Matt's chest.  "He was in some jungle movies.  I guess they were popular back in the day."

"Your papa was Tarzan, Lord of the Apes?"

"Close.  He played Tarzan's son, a kid named Boy.  I know, lame, right?  No wonder he doesn't like to talk about his acting days.  How would you like it if...old guys grabbed you at the Target...and said 'Can I have your autograph, Boy?""  He moved down Matt's belly to his crotch and began to give him a blow job.

Later Matt checked a movie reference book and discovered that Stewie's father was Johnny Sheffield, "Boy" in 8 Tarzan movies (1937-1946) and "Bomba" in 12 movies (1948-1956).  He had never heard of him. 

"Mon petit etalon, it makes no difference if your dear papa is Jerry Falwell -- you must come out to him.  It is the only way to be free of the monsters of our childhood.  And the sooner the better.  How about tomorrow?  Fred and I can come along for moral support."

"Tomorrow's not good," Stewie murmured, licking Matt's shaft.  "Mom might be ok with it, but she's out of town.  Dad's all by himself, and he'll kick me out of the house, seriously."

"You don't live in his house, so voila! Problem solved!" Matt exclaimed, pulling Stewie's head away and drawing him in for a kiss.  "Tomorrow you and I will go to Papa and come out,  ok?"  He nudged Fred.  "Réveillez-tu, mon etalon -- tomorrow we have a date with Tarzan!"

Stewie hesitated, but Matt could be very persistent, particularly when his aroused penis was in your face, so finally he agreed.

Fred had to get back to San Bernardino, but Stewie invited Matt to stay with him for a couple of days.  In the morning he called his father and got an invitation to dinner that night.

Fortunately, Stewie lived in the heart of Hillcrest, San Diego's gay neighborhood, so while he was at work, Matt had a marvelous time wandering among the shops and boutiques and bars.  He had lunch at a quaint little Japanese bistro, bought himself a new outfit, and worked out in the gay gym/bathhouse.  Stewie got home at 6, with just enough time to shower, change clothes, and drive them to a Tudor-style house near Hilltop Park in the suburb of Chula Vista.

Stewie parked the car, honked, and waited for his Dad to restrain the dogs so they wouldn't get out.  "I don't think I can do this," he said, literally trembling.  "Can we just say that you're dating my ex-girlfriend?"

"Mais non!"  Matt said.  "Seize the day, mon petit etalon!  I guarantee you that dear Papa Falwell will know before dessert!"

John Sheffield was in his fifties, tall and rather portly, with Stewie's round open face, graying hair, and glasses.  He offered them both handshakes, then invited them into the back yard, where he was grilling steaks.

"All I can cook is steak and burgers on the grill -- put me in front of a range, and I'm all thumbs," he said, drawing a steak from its marinade and placing it on the grill with a smoky flourish.  "I'll bet you're a great cook, Matt.  In six months you'll have him fattened up into a blimp!"

"Well, I don't like to brag, but one bite of my Poulet Célestine and you'll be giving me the deed to the ancestral castle."

"Great, then give me a hand, won't you, and bring out the salad?  The kitchen is through that door, then turn right."

"I'll show you the way!" Stewie exclaimed, not wanting to be alone with his dad.

When they returned, John said "I've been wondering when you would bring one of your friends around.  Patty and I always thought they would be a great bunch of guys.  So, Matt, are you and Stewie...um...."

Dad knows already!  Matt thought  "No, Monsieur Sheffield, we only met yesterday."

"Where did you meet" John asked.  "There was a lot going on in San Diego, a lot of cultural events.  Parades, festivals."

"At...um...church," Stewie exclaimed.

"I came down from West Hollywood especially for...um...church," Matt added, although he actually lived in San Bernardino.  Come on, Stewie, your Dad knows.  He wants you to say something!

"West Hollywood!  Now there's a great town.  So much to do for guys like you and Stewie to do.  I'll bet you could go out every night for a month, and not go to the same place twice."  He brought a steak to a plate.  "Like it rare, I hope?"

"Still mooing, monsier papa.  Bien sur, there is a lot of partying in West Hollywood, but eventually one longs to settle down with that one special man..."

"Or woman," Stewie added frantically.  "Depending on who you...who you are, a man or a woman yourself..."

"And who you fall in love with," John added.  "Let me tell you guys a story about me and Johnny Weissmuller, who played my Dad at RKO."  [In John's version it was a kiss, not a blow job]

They finished dinner, watched an old movie, and left.

"Wow, I never knew Dad was bisexual!" Stewie said on the way home.   He nudged Matt.  "Hey, sorry I didn't come out.  I just couldn't get the nerve.  He thinks of me as this raging heterosexual ladies' man."

"Bien sur," Matt said dryly.

This isn't really a celebrity hookup story, so Matt never thought of telling it at a party.  He and Stewie stayed friends -- I may even have met him -- but I never knew that his father was Johnny Sheffield, who filled so many of my adolescent fantasies.

It's probably for the best.  Who wants to win "10 minutes alone in the bedroom" with someone at a party, and have him spend the whole time gushing "Your Dad was so hot!"

By the way, I have found no external sources attesting that Stewart is gay.

"On Your Knees, Boy": Johnny Sheffield Almost Becomes Tarzan's Lover

Born in 1931, son of stage star Reginald Sheffield and socialite Louise Van Loon, Johnny Sheffield was already a star at age five, playing "Pud" in the Broadway play On Borrowed Time.

In 1938, MGM movie Tarzan Johnny Weissmuller picked him out of 300 hopefuls to play his adopted son, Tarzan Jr., renamed Boy, in Tarzan Finds a Son!  He kept the role going for eight movies at MGM and RKO.

As the years passed, Boy co-opted Jane's role as Damsel in Distress: in the climactic scene of every movie, he was tied to something and about to be killed or violated while Tarzan rushed to the rescue.  Tarzan and Boy became the chief jungle couple, while Jane took to staying home in the Escarpment, or leaving altogether ("visiting America").

Big John and Little John were inseparable off-camera, too.  Weissmuller was married to Beryl Scott at the time and having innumerable affairs with men and women, but it was Johnny Sheffield who appeared with him at the Brown Derby and the Trocadero, at movie premieres, on drives up the coast to Malibu.  When Johnny was fifteen, Weissmuller bought them a house on the beach near Santa Barbara, where they could get away for weekends of swimming, fishing, and sunbathing, just the two of them.

In the 1940s, no tongues wagged about the "couple."  Many people were not aware that LGBT people  existed, and those who did thought only of swishy queens. Johnny Weissmuller was 6'4" and all muscle, a "real he-man."  No way he could be a "swish."

And, in fact, there was nothing sexual going on:  Weissmuller never touched Johnny in that way. 

Even as a teenager, when he developed a beautifully muscled physique and a dazzling matinee idol smile.

Even when the Tarzan series ended and they separated, Big John to play Jungle Jim (1948-1955) and Johnny to star in his own Bomba the Jungle Boy series (1949-1955), Big John still treated him as a little brother, a son.

Johnny found this odd -- since around his 15th birthday, every single person he met, man or woman, boy or girl, without exception, wanted to peek under his loincloth.  And he gave quite a few of them the opportunity: Tommy Cook, his costar in Tarzan and the Leopard Woman; Peggy Ann Garner, his costar in Bomba the Jungle Boy; Cesar Romero, Bobby Driscoll, Jean Simmons.  Why was Weissmuller immune to his trademark flirting?

He was especially interested because he had heard from several of Big John's former lovers that he was gifted with the biggest cock in Hollywood, a veritable third leg.  Johnny was always a bit self-conscious about his size (barely 5"), and anxious to see what the cock of a Greek god looked like.

One day in the summer of 1953, they went swimming, and Big John, as usual, carefully turned his back to put on his swimsuit.  Johnny had had enough. "Why don't you ever show me your manhood?"  he asked.  "You'll show any stranger on the street.  You're more proud of it than your Olympic medals.  Aren't I important enough to rate?"

Big John turned around, startled.  "Of course you are," he said.  "But you know, it's not just a look.  When I show them, they always want to touch it, and then they want me to go to bed with them, and I don't want you to end up in my bed.  You're my son, my Boy, not some random fairy."

Johnny chuckled.  "I promise I won't go to bed with you.  Lord knows I get enough offers as it is."

Big John still refused, but Johnny persisted, and cajoled, and flashed his trademark flirting smile, and finally he said "You're a little pain in the neck, you know that?  One look, fine, but no touching"

They went back to the house, to the master bedroom, and Big John dropped his swimsuit. Johnny stared: his penis hung down about 4", long and thick even when dripping wet from the ocean. His balls hung down even farther.  Johnny always thought that the key to a man's erotic power was in the size of his balls, not his dick.

Johnny couldn't help himself -- he reached out and lightly cupped Big John's balls.  His own penis started to stir.

Big John had a weird expression on his face, stern like a schoolmaster facing a class of dullards.  "On your knees, Boy!" he commanded.

Johnny didn't know if he meant "Boy" the character, but he obediently dropped to his knees and put his hands around the hardening cock. Now it was at least 9"!

"No, Boy, with your mouth."

Johnny had gotten head a lot, but he had never given head.  That was just for women  -- and queers, like Cesar Romero, right?  But this was Big John asking -- no, commanding!

He opened his mouth as wide as he could, and Big John's cock became hard as an iron rod, thrusting past his tongue, hitting the back of his throat. Johnny gagged and spit, grabbed Big John's butt cheeks to steady himself, and prepared for the onslaught.

Johnny was too busy trying to do a good job to find it erotic.  What was he supposed to do with his teeth?   Was he supposed to use his neck and jaw, or wait for Big John to enter him?  What would he do with the sperm?

And suddenly the thought hit him with the force of a gigantic penis.  Would he and Big John now be...um...boyfriends?  A pair of queer lovers?  Would Big John leave his wife?  How could either of them continue their careers as queers?  Billy Haines had to retire...and...

Suddenly Big John spurted down his throat.   Johnny ran to the bathroom to spit it out and wash out his mouth.

They didn't become lovers.  In fact, Weissmuller was rather cool and distant for the rest of the day.  They didn't see each other again until his son's birthday party, nearly a month later, and after that only rarely.

Whatever bond they had was broken.

The next time someone asked for a peek beneath Johnny's loincloth, he told them in no uncertain terms to back off.

Johnny retired from acting in 1955, got a degree in business from UCLA, and spent his life in farming and real estate.   He lost contact with most of his old Hollywood friends.  Johnny Weissmuller, Maureen O'Sullivan, Ford Beebe, and Tommy Cook got Christmas cards.  Trying his best to put those days behind him, Johnny refused requests for interviews and autographs.

As the years and decades passed, requests grew fewer, fans grew older, John himself grew older.

He concentrated on his home in Chula Vista (a suburb of San Diego), on his wife Patricia, on his children -- he helped his  sons Patrick and Stewart start a successful construction company -- on his grandchildren.  No one recognized him anymore.

On the rare occasions that he saw an old photograph or clip from one of his movies, Boy and Bomba seemed like other people, with no connection at all to John Sheffield of Chula Vista, California.

He never told anyone about that afternoon at the house in Santa Barbara when he and Weissmuller almost became lovers, until one day in July 1989 when his 23-year old son -- the quiet, bookish one, the one who didn't like sports and was shy around girls -- came to him and said "Dad, I've got something to tell you...."

See also: Cesar's Three-Way with Desi Arnaz Jr. and Dean Paul Martin; Tarzan's Boy Johnny Sheffield; Matt Hooks Up withTarzan's Grandson.

Ricky Nelson and Kent McCord at an All-Male Party

When I was in eighth grade, Martin Milner and Kent McCord, stars of the cop show Adam-12, spoke at the high school, and for some reason my my boyfriend Dan and I were in the audience.

Their presentation was lame: stay in school, study hard, don't use drugs, don't grow your hair long, don't protest the war.  But I didn't care: I had never seen a celebrity close-up before, and Kent McCord was super-cute (Martin was in his 40s, too old).  I was star-struck.

  I got an autographed picture ("To Boomer -- stay in school"), handshakes from them both, and fodder for a lot of erotic fantasies.

My favorite involved getting Officer Reed (McCord) to Africa somehow, where he and Bomba the Jungle Boy were captured by the bad guys and tied back to back.

Naked, of course.

I never heard any gay dating or hookup stories about either Milner or McCord during my years in West Hollywood, but as stars of a show long off the air, they may not have been famous enough -- West Hollywood dating stories were all about impressing your friends with the biggest star possible.

But I recently got a hint of a Kent McCord hookup from Zack, in a story that was really about Ricky Nelson.  I interrogated him for as many details as he could remember, and added some details and conversations:

Hollywood, Spring 1969

Born in 1942, Kent McWhiter grew up in Baldwin Park, California, and attended Citrus Junior College and the University of Utah.  In February 1961, he met Ricky Nelson at a football game, and the two became fast friends.

With Ricky's help, he appeared in 28 episodes of Ozzie and Harriet.  Afterwards he landed a contract with Universal, adopted a new "macho" name, "Kent McCord," and pursued a successful show biz career.  He and Rick stayed friends throughout their lives.

But there was part of Rick's life that he never shared with the conservative, ultra-macho family man.

One day in 1969, Kent told Ricky, "Marty [Adam-12 co-star Martin Milner] is cool and all, but I just found out something crazy about him.  He told me he digs dudes!  I mean, he's married. How can you...."

Ricky decided that it was time to come clean about his secret life.  "Some dudes dig chicks and dudes both," he said with a smile. "If that's your scene, and if your old lady's cool with it, who are we to judge?  Besides, dudes are better at giving head.  They know what a man likes."

Kent stared for a moment, then said "That's not the craziest part.  He told me that he's screwed with both of his costars on Route 66, George Maharis and Glenn Corbett, and Chuck Connors.  The biggest, toughest, most masculine guys in Hollywood!"

"I'd like to have been at that party, man!  Getting a blow job from a muscle dude -- or giving one -- that's the living end!"

"You...you're that way, too? But we've been friends for years.  You saw me naked, and you never tried anything."

Ricky shrugged.  "I didn't think that was your bag, man.  But hey, if Milner invites you to any of those swinging muscle man parties, bring me along!  My dick could use a few muscle man mouths."

Kent looked away.  "No way, man," he said softly.  "I don't like muscle dudes...um...I mean dudes of any sort...I'm happily married. I'm a father....."

"Of course."  Ricky put a hand on his shoulder.  "I never said you had to like dudes to be my friend."

But a few weeks later, Kent called.  "It's on!  A 'swinging party' at a house in the Hollywood Hills.  Marty is going, and he promised that George Maharis will be there."

"Not a bad choice for your first taste of the forbidden fruit.  Can I come, too?  I can't pass up an opportunity to go down on George Maharis!"

"Sure.  But I'm just going to see what it's about.  I don't want to do anything.  Well, maybe get a blow job from a dude."  He paused.  "Do they really do it better?"

It was an all-male party like many Ricky had been to before, mostly celebrities and hustlers. Some of the hustlers were naked. You socialized around the pool and in the game room, and there was a darkened lounge for making out...and maybe other things, if you were brave.

They got beers and mingled.  Kent was awestricken by the number of recognizable faces: Latin lover Cesar Romero; Batman Adam West; George Takei of Star Trek; Bob Ellis, who Ricky pointed out as his ex-boyfriend.  Eventually they separated so guys wouldn't think they were a couple.

Ricky was cruising a cute young blond named Donnie, who was working on the Saturday morning kid show H.R. Pufnstuf and had a lot to say about young star Jack Wild, when he saw Kent headed toward the dark room.

"This will be good," he said.  "My buddy is about to get his first man-on-man blow job!  Let's watch, shall we?"

They waited a few minutes for Kent to get...um...comfortable, then went to the dark room.  Two or three couples kissing.  A guy smoking pot and playing with himself.  Tab Hunter and his trick masturbating each other.  And...in a corner...Bob Ellis getting a blow job.  He saw Ricky and Donnie and nodded, offering to "share."

Kent must have been heading to the bathroom instead -- the dark room was a little too advanced for a guy's first time.  But this was just as good.  "Care to share my ex-boyfriend's trick?" he asked, putting his arm around Donnie and guiding him over.

He unzipped Donnie -- very nice, a long, thin Bratwurst -- masturbated him for a moment -- then felt for the bottom's face and pushed it over.  Then he unzipped himself.  Soon the bottom was going down on both of them simultaneously while they kissed, leaving Bob to masturbate alone.

"Hey, I said share, not ignore," he whispered savagely.

"Sorry," the bottom whispered, and turned his attention back to Bob.

Never one to pass up a cock, Ricky fell to his knees and started going down on Donnie.  Only then did he notice -- his fellow bottom was Kent McCord.

Embarrassed, Ricky stood abruptly and walked away, leaving Kent to go down on Donnie and Bob at the same time.  He went out to the main party, socialized, cruised, gave his phone number to a Cute Young Thing, and finally retrieved Kent so they could leave.

"How was your first man-on-man blow job?"  he asked.

"Oh, I was too nervous to do anything," Kent said.  "But it was a lot of fun watching."

Was Zack Telling the Truth?

This is a third-hand story, from Donnie to Drake to Zack, and it was a dark room.  It's possible that Kent McCord was at the party, but the guy on his knees was someone else. After all, he's been married for fifty years, he's highly conservative, and I've heard no other gay rumors about him.

But who knows?  Maybe on a warm Hollywood night a generation ago, the man who would fill my adolescent fantasies found himself in a dark room, surrounded by the sight, sound, and smell of the masculine.

See also:  Ricky Nelson Steals Drake's Boyfriend; Donnie's Gay Sex Party with Jack Wild