After Dark February 1976 cont'd

Okay let's look at the cover of this issue again!

I'm sure if we went to the newsstand in February of 1976, we would have seen winter clothes, snow or something other than men in swimsuits. Thank goodness for After Dark. I love the fashion spreads that they do and this is one of their best. I love looking at men in swimsuits. Especially these two.

The setting is the Rose Hall Interncontinental Hotel in Montego Bay, Jamaica.
The models:

Zarko Kalmic, an actor/model who was born in Haifa, Israel. He was the stage manager and production manager for Tom Eyen's Women Behind Bars. I think there is a picture of him out there somewhere with Divine. I think it's in one of my other issues of After Dark. I'll post it when I find it.



Bo van den Assum, from the Netherlands, was the male lead in the film J'ai Droite au Plaisir and at the time of this issue was working in New York in international law.



Bonnie George from Atlanta went to New York and started working with the Ford Model Agency before going to Jarrett Management. Somewhere along the way she started going by Bonita. Why do people think they can go by one name? Wait until you're famous!


I definitely envy Kenn Duncan. In addition to taking photos of gorgeous men, he also got to travel to places like Jamaica.










Don't forget to click on photos to see them larger!!! It's especially important for this issue!!!

Speaking of Kenn Duncan photos...
Houston Ballet's James Clouser.




The other thing that After Dark was great for was taking people who were not models, but architects, musicians, and builders, and getting them to model with their shirts or clothes off. They do write articles about their careers, but I sometimes wonder if that is just an excuse. Well whatever the reason, this issue featured John Corigliano who was a composer.



An interesting little write-up near the rear of the magazine featured Postcards in the Swim. Playwright, professor and photographer, Robert Chapman was attempting to revive the picture post cards by presenting these which depict some contestants in the Fort Lauderdale Swim Forum.







Speaking of more swimwear, I couldn't pass up posting this picture from an ad for The Yorkviller. The Yorkviller was a store in Toronto, Canada that were "Specialists in Men's Underwear & Swimwear". It was featuring the "Texy" underwear brief. This jeans-inspired nylon brief was by JIM of Spain.


And now speaking of underwear (I love these segues), I present "The Tank Thong" by Rudi Gernreich. Okay, I guess I don't present it, but I definitely wanted you to see it.


There was an ad for After Dark subscriptions. In it, they give the profile of the After Dark Man:

Young (Median age: 33.7)
Single (85.2%)
Affluent (Median income: $20,882)
Upscale (78.5% hold managerial or professional positions)
Well-Groomed (76.4% use a cologne; average expenditure of $804 per year on clothing)
Travel-Minded (Median of 3.5 vacations per year; 56.6% own valid passports)
Bon Vivant (81.6% regularly drink vodka, 81.3% scotch, 70.3% gin, 63.5% champagne)

I wonder what the stats on gay men in 1976 were? I wonder how it would compare? Three guesses...single and over 30? Yeah. Well, that's all I'm featuring from this issue, but believe me, if you ever get a chance to buy back issues, do it. Just don't bid against me on eBay for those rare issues I need to complete my collection.

After Dark February 1976

Okay, so here I am a couple of years ago and I'd started collecting issues of After Dark when this issue became available. Whoa!

Sunwear in Jamaica!!! Two hot guys (and some girl) on the cover in swimsuits!!! More on them in the next post, in the meantime:

Valerie Perrine.
I first remember seeing her in Superman. I was nine years old and I fell in love with her. Here was a bad girl working with Lex Luthor who saw the error of her ways and doublecrossed him for Superman. Back tracking to 1976, she was in New York to be interviewed for After Dark (and to see Bob Fosse's Chicago). The movie she was promoting was W.C. Fields and Me. Her co-star was Rod Steiger who she didn't exactly enjoy working with. Because of his method acting, the only time they spoke was in front of the camera. She also said that director Arthur Hiller wasn't a "barrel of laughs". She thought the character she played was dull, but she got to keep her $30,000 wardrobe.





Another actress featured in this issue was Geraldine Fitzgerald. Her career was discussed like her personal triumph Long Day's Journey into Night, the revival of Eugene O'Neill's Ah, Wilderness! and her cabaret recital at New York's Lincoln Center in 1974 called Geraldine Fitzgerald Sings.




Five years prior to the publication of this issue, the Dance Theatre of Harlem began and has taken New York by storm. It had developed into an important classical ballet company and was on par with some of the finest classical troupes in the country. Dancer Mel Tomlinson and ten other male dancers were performing at the Uris Theater on Broadway.


There was also an ad for Bette Midler's new album Songs for the New Depression.

In a music review they discuss Bob Dylan's involvement in the album. He wrote the song "Buckets of Rain" and participated on the vocals with Ms. Midler.


An autobiography "as told to Cindy Adams" by Jolie Gabor was reviewed. We all know Jolie's daughters and according to the article they were not happy with the way they were portrayed. Now I've got to get the book.


A couple of other things were happening that I'd have loved to have seen. One was Phyllis Diller who was appearing at the Empire Room in Chicago

and husband/wife team of Richard Benjamin and Paula Prentiss were part of a sextet in Alan Ayckbourn's trilogy of plays titled The Norman Conquests.


Stephen McHattie played the title role in the "NBC World Premiere Movie" James Dean: Portrait of a Friend.

The short career of James Dean was featured in an article by Chris Huizenga.














The rest of the issue will be continued in the next post!!!

Batty Betty

Funny Face Friday presents:

The Empress of Entertainment--Betty White!

Only Betty as Rose Nylund from The Golden Girls could look cute making that face.

It's so great that Betty White has had a resurgence in her career. As a pioneer for women in television, she has done everything!!! I heard her being interviewed about appearing on SNL. She said she was excited but panicked. Some are surprised she would be able to stay up that late. Excuse me, this woman is the consumate professional.

Three cheers for Betty!!!

Flying Blind with the Queens

Let's face it...I'm a child of the 70's. I was born in the late 60's but my childhood was spent in front of the TV during the best decade of television. Don't get me wrong. I know there are good shows on now and in recent years, but nothing that compares to the cheese on the boob tube then.

Case in point: Wonder Woman

For this I am only going to deal with the Lynda Carter version. Trust me, I will touch on the Cathy Lee Crosby one in a later post (btw, I actually like it).

Now I'm not going to talk about a specific episode or the update to the 70's from the 40's when the show changed networks. This is about two things.

The Queen and the plane.

Three actresses portrayed the queen in Wonder Woman. Two were Oscar® winners and the other was nominated. The queen (named Hippolyta or Hippolyte depending on which years you read the comics) went unnamed on the show.


Cloris Leachman played the queen in the pilot movie. She chewed the scenery in some scenes yet in others she seemed more royal. The pilot was written by Stanley Ralph Ross who was famous for his tongue-in-cheek scripts for Batman. He definitely wrote this one with tongue firmly in cheek.

Also, the cast was known for more comedic roles like Kenneth Mars, Red Buttons, Fannie Flagg, and of course Ms. Leachman. This is not to say that Cloris Leachman only did comedies, she won her Best Supporting Actress Oscar® for her role in The Last Picture Show. When talking one on one with her daughter Diana (soon to be Wonder Woman) she portrayed the little comedy bits that she was famous for or did things that I could see Phyllis Lindstrom do on Mary Tyler Moore.
While overseeing the competition (with Fannie Flagg) for the Amazon champion her regal persona stood out.



During the ABC World War II version of the TV series, the queen was portrayed by Carolyn Jones. Ms. Jones, famous for her role as Morticia on The Addams Family, played this role as a little more befuddled and motherly. Of course, her motherly quality came out of the fact that they had introduced Drusilla, Diana's little sister, soon to be Wonder Girl (Debra Winger).


Carolyn Jones still kept a royal air about her, but could become flustered by her youngest daughter. Ms. Jones also had an Oscar® connection when she was nominated for Best Supporting Actress in The Bachelor Party. Why she didn't come back for the second season when the show moved to CBS and the update, I don't know, but maybe John Saxon wouldn't let her return.


But Beatrice Straight, who won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar® for her small role in Network, came in and played her in the most queenly way of all three.

Her queen was majestic and yet, because she loved her daughter Wonder Woman, could still be motherly.

I, of course, fell in love with Ms. Straight from her performance in Poltergeist. She only a appeared in a couple of episodes, one on the island, and another when her daughter contacted her through the mirror (yeah, I know).


The special effects for the TV show were great and still hold up well today. The "Wonder Jumps" (executed with wonderment by Jeannie Epper) were so much better than the bionic jumps on The Bionic Woman or The Six Million Dollar Man. The "Bullets and Bracelets" with the sparks coming off the bracelets controlled by Lynda using a device curled in the palm of her hand were believable. The super strength displayed by bending steel bars, holding back trucks, throwing men around were also done with sleight of hand techniques and special effects that didn't distract me or ruin my enjoyment of the show.

Then there was the Invisible Jet. What were they thinking?


The best representation they did was of course in the pilot. They super-imposed Lynda sitting in a chair onto a model. It looked okay. The plane tilted and except for the fact that the chair wasn't invisible, but looked more like my office chair at home without wheels, it passed as okay. They reused shots in another of the TV movies before it got greenlit for series.


Once they went to series, I guess it was too expensive to do that shot over and over, so they just put a doll in a clear plastic plane and hung it in front of a sky backdrop and played the dopiest music behind it. It floated like it was on strings in a marionette show.


But it got worse. The show got updated to the present time (late 70's) and of course the jet got a makeover too. It got sleeker and more stupid looking at the same time. They again put a doll in a clear plastic plane with barely any head room in front of new sky backdrops but the same dopey music.

I don't understand why they couldn't do some establishing shots like the original pilot and just reused them. The establishing shot of the three Fords in front of the Townsend Agency on Charlie's Angels is a good example. Do you think they parked the three cars every week in front of that building and went and shot it? No, they shot it with all three, or just two, or just one, or none and interchanged them based on the plot of the show. They could have done a day flight, a night flight, an action maneuver and a calm flight and just reused them for the remainder of the show. I'm sure the cost would have been minimal if it was spread over the entire season.

I'll review some episodes of the show in future What's On? Wednesday posts. There are some really campy shows that I have just got to put my two-cents in on.



Warner Bros./DC comics