In preparation for the RuPaul’s Drag Race season 10 premiere tonight, we decided to chat with the brand new RuPaul’s Drag Race Facebook Bot!
She was filled with Charisma, Uniqueness, Nerve and Talent! She’ll introduce you to all the season 10 queens and serve up the realness only a DragBot can serve!
We asked her to read us and DragBot gave us a behind the scenes clip of Shangela reading “not that kind of girl.”
When asked to show death drops, DragBot was not amused either.
It’s gone. It’s really gone. Henry Cavill‘s dashing pornstache has been shaved off. And for real this time. It wasn’t digitally removed. It’s really gone. In this poignant tribute, he stands in front of the bathroom mirror and gives a touching memorial video to his fallen face hair. Watch below.
Sigh. It’s the end of an era.
We didn’t know what we had until it was gone, eh?
March 23, 1874 – Joseph Christian Leyendecker
Photographer unknown, via Wikimedia Commons
I have a J.C. Leyendecker coffee-table book that has provided a great deal of viewing enjoyment over the past three decades. I once had a framed print of one his advertisements for Ivory Soap. This print portrays an improbably handsome Jazz Age man preparing for his bath. This piece is virile and All-American, yet also homoerotic and stirring.
Leyendecker was the most famous American illustrator during the first half of the 20th century, the true Golden Age of American Commercial Illustration.
1911 study for Arrow
Leyendecker knew that sex sells. Before the conservative backlash of the mid-20th century, the American public celebrated his images of sleek muscle-men, whose glistening hotness adorned over 400 covers commissioned by leading magazines of his era, especially for The Saturday Evening Post.
While Leyendecker was also known for his depictions of elegant women, it was his stern, brooding men who created the greatest impact. With their strong jaws and perfectly tailored clothes, Leyendecker’s men were featured in the ads in newspapers and magazines across the globe, selling everything from luxury automobiles to socks. He basically came up with the whole idea of modern magazine design.
Study for Interwoven Socks (1920)
Leyendecker’s fictional world of affluence and beauty influenced other iconic pop culture moments, like the fantastical setting of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s great novel The Great Gatsby (1925), where he is mentioned. He created powerful advertising icons like the Arrow Collar Man, a symbol of smart masculinity, who served as the first modern male sex symbol and the first male advertising star. If only the public had known that Leyendecker was gay and the model for the Arrow Collar Man was his own lover.
At the apex of his popularity, he received more fan male than any other male, even more than silent film heartthrob Rudolph Valentino.
Leyendecker was drawn to depicting men in locker rooms, clubhouses, and workshops; extraordinarily handsome men exchanging inexplicable glances. Few images are more overtly homoerotic than his advertisements for Gillette in which scantily clad men learning how to use disposable razors.
Leyendecker was born in Germany. His parents came to America when he was very young. His brother Francis Xavier (Frank) Leyendecker was born three-years younger and was also gay. His sister, Augusta, arrived after the family emigrated to Chicago; she too was probably queer; never having married or seem to have any relationships with men other than her brothers.
As a teenager, Leyendecker worked for a Chicago engraving company. After completing his first commercial commission of 60 Bible illustrations, Leyendecker took classes of the Chicago Art Institute, studying drawing and anatomy.
In 1884, both Leyendecker brothers enrolled in the Académie Julian in Paris where they were impressed by the work of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Jules Chéret, and Alphonse Mucha, a pioneer in the Art Nouveau movement. The Leyendecker brothers were in Paris at a very crucial moment in art. They absorbed the academic French style of drawing, and it was also the time when Baron Von Gloeden’s photographs were seen everywhere. Von Gloeden was gay and idolized the masculine body. This went contrary to the contemporary worshipping of the female form and foretold, I hate to say it, the Nazi aesthetic ideal, and the worship of the male body.
In 1900, the brothers moved to NYC, the center of the American commercial art, advertising and publishing worlds. During the next decade, both brothers began lucrative long-term working relationships with apparel companies such as Interwoven Socks, Hartmarx, and B. Kuppenheimer & Co. They changed advertising, breaking with the regular rectangular format. Before, the lettering had to be at the top, but they broke the lettering with circles borrowed from Japanese design.
In 1903, a striking young dude appeared at the Leyendecker brother’s Greenwich Village studio. His name was Charles Beach, and he was looking for modeling work. Frank Leyendecker immediately hired him while J.C. was in Chicago. When J.C. returned, Frank graciously allowed his brother the use Beach as his model too. J.C. and Beach soon became inseparable, both personally and professionally. They were a couple for the next 48 years. J.C. was 29-years-old when they met, and Beach was 17.
Beach as the Arrow Collar Man
Leyendecker received important commissions from Kellogg’s; he did Karo Syrup; he did Maxwell’s Coffee. He did Chesterfield Cigarettes and propaganda posters for both world wars.
In his luscious illustrations and ads, Leyendecker athletes aren’t really competitors. They are an image of the American male as huge and beautiful, yet not threatening. Even in his incredible WW I posters, especially the ones with sailors, there was a real subtext of sexuality. It seems that the U.S. Navy has always had a certain reputation.
But, there is nothing cheap or coarse with his men. They are not tattooed or unshaven. They were regular guys blown up to heroic Greek proportions. His American men are a connection with the heroes and gods of antiquity.
His depictions of African-Americans are revealing. They are shown with sympathy, but they are still submissive, yet Leyendecker also sent a clear message. There are few illustrations sadder than the little boy dressed up in his military uniform being dusted off by a black porter. Who is this boy in the picture? Porters were called ”boys”, so the boy is really the old black man.
In 1914, the Leyendecker brothers, along with their boy, Beach, moved into a large home that also served as their art studio in New Rochelle, near NYC, where the trio would reside for the rest of their lives. These crazy Belle Epoch parties, which Beach organized, were attended by notables and celebrities from all walks of life, including the crème de la crème of NYC society. Included at the soirees were the many men who posed for Leyendecker.
Leyendecker’s only peer was Norman Rockwell, 11 years younger. Rockwell was greatly inspired by Leyendecker, but soon overtook the older illustrator. Rockwell worshiped Leyendecker, even though he was tough on him in him in his memoir. He was especially cruel to Beach, whom everybody seemed to hate because he was too good-looking, too prepossessing.
Leyendecker’s illustration for Interwoven Socks from 1921 and Norman Rockwell’s “G.I. Bill” from 1947
Those were hard partying days. Frank Leyendecker died in 1924 from an overdose of cocaine and heroin. He was just 48-years-old.
In the 1930s, Leyendecker’s commissions began to dry up, and Rockwell took his place as the most popular illustrator in the USA.
Leyendecker, who was always very much an introvert, spent his last years secluded in the house in New Rochelle. He put down his pens for good and moved on to that great studio in the beyond in 1951. Beach destroyed all of Leyendecker’s papers and his unseen works upon Leyendecker’s passing. He died two weeks later.
Leyendecker in his studio, 1924, photo via Wikimedia Commons
Nowadays, who makes an effort to dress? Leyendecker hawked silk shirts that had be ironed and cotton shirts that required starching and ironing; trousers that needed a crease down the front; shoes that had to be polished. Even in war, soldiers wore spats. There were the social protocols.
Leyendecker’s images probably pushed things too far. His men are not just suited; they are upholstered. Even undressed, the Leyendecker men sweated testosterone. Now, they are close to being caricatures. In our era, people dress down, during Leyendecker’s age, men dressed up even when they were undressed.
In “Torch Song” (1953), MGM via YouTube
Joan Crawford (1905-1977) was known for playing the determined working-girls in most of her films, playing women who had a rough start in life, but eventually found love, respect, and success. Her image was inspirational to women film-goers, and Crawford became one of the highest paid and most popular movie stars of the Golden Era Of Hollywood. By her own admission, Crawford loved playing the role of bitch on film.
I have always appreciated her considerable talents and the glamour she brought to films like Grand Hotel (1931), Mildred Pierce (1945), and The Women (1939). I also have snickered at the camp value of her over-the-top acting in Whatever Happened To Baby Jane? (1962), Johnny Guitar (1954), and Straight-Jacket (1964). I have marveled at the sheer queerness of Female On The Beach (1955), Queen Bee (1955), and Autumn Leaves (1957).
Yet, I came to appreciate Crawford as a complex, cryptic, contradictory product of a certain era and her own rough circumstances and difficult life. Just as she devoted herself to her fans, she doubtlessly inspired the downtrodden movie-goers to want more out of life and to go out and get it. She relied on men as her own doorway into a man’s world. Crawford was required to suffer for her ambition but she was also living in an age when she was actually allowed, even expected to carry and dominate a film. She was up to the task.
Crawford was a convincing creative force; an underdog who embraced good taste, glamour, and fantasy. She defied the class consciousness of the studio system that tried to marginalize and deprive her. She always held her head high. In her films, as in her life, she demanded to be counted as a woman and as an outsider. Her struggle was the same struggle of all marginalized human beings, but it was especially resonant to gay people of a certain age. She was ridiculed for her excesses, but her emotion was raw and real and she smartly underplayed it just slightly. Beneath her toughness lived a frightened woman.
Gay men recognized this and embraced her vulnerability. Beneath her flamboyance was reticence. Her promiscuity mirrored the perceived idea of gay male sexuality. We older gay guys can appreciate why Crawford would hide her insecurities and grim past behind a facade of Hollywood perfection. We loved it that she did it all for her fans. She always showed that she was grateful to those fans. One of her directors and lovers, Vincent Sherman, said her personal life was terrible and that it would take hours to bring her down from performing crying scenes.
As a bad girl myself, I appreciate that her bad behavior seemed to stem from her fears, although, just like me, she was known as a consummate professional on the set.
Happy Birthday, Lucille!
I like waking up to some good animated crap. But for real who uses one square after number 2?
Me Monday VS. me Friday.
Tail whip. from r/gifs
When trade won’t let you sleep.
A phantom getting out of this lady. Recorded with a infrared camera. Maybe another thing? from r/funny
Art! With a capital “F”.
That’s enough internet for today.
The song is “Jack and the Giant” by the band A Love Like Pi, and the video about an adventurous bubble – made with food coloring, soap, water, and a magnetized liquid called Ferrofluid – was created by a filmmaker named Kim Pimmel, who happens to also be a senior designer for Microsoft’s HoloLens.
It’s the most exciting story you’ll see all week. You might even shed a tear or two.
“I wanted to draw the viewer in with lush visuals and loose narrative,” Pimmel writes in the description. “But then burst that suspension of disbelief with the recognizable bubble characters – compelling the viewer to ask themselves whether they still have their childlike wonder or not.”
Love Like Pi’s Lief Liebmann explains on their website why they chose this particular theme for the video:
Jack and the Giant is all about the space that widens between you and your imagination as you grow older: a space that takes up no room in the physical world but feels gigantic to us in certain moments. We wanted the video to feel the same way. The challenge was to create a world that felt expansive, to follow a character we could relate to, and to highlight the ambitious themes of the song all within a space of about the size of a petri dish.
This week on HEY QWEEN, Kimora Blac from RuPaul’s Drag Race season 9 joins Jonny McGovern and Lady Red Couture for a gay ole kiki and spills her truth about padding, Kim Kardashian and her time on RuPaul’s Drag Race.
Watch Part 1:
Watch Part 2:
Watch Part 3:
Kimora also sat down for a good ole fashion game of LOOK at HUH, Hey Qween’s favorite T spilling, shade throwing game where she talks about her sisters.
In the episodes Kimora talks about Sasha Velour, Cynthia Lee Fontaine, Derrick Barry, Nebraska Thunderfuck, Gia Gunn, Nina Bonina Brown, Eureka O’Hara, Aja, Amaya Black, Jaymes Mansfield, Lady Gaga, India Ferrah, Farrah Moan, and All Star 2 champion Alaska!
Watch Part 1:
Watch Part 2:
Coronation Street – one of the longest running and most beloved soaps in the UK – has generated quite a stir with its latest plot twist in which the evil newcomer Josh Tucker drugs and rapes series hero David Platt.
Watch the controversial scene below.
And while many viewers were outraged, it also caused a 1700% increase in calls from survivors of sexual assault seeking help from a local non-profit.
via BBC
Survivors Manchester said calls had more than doubled while national charity Male Survivor reported a 1700% increase in calls.
“Phenomenal” handling of the issue had helped survivors speak out, it said.
Duncan Craig, founder and chairman of Survivors Manchester, said the characters’ portrayal of the issue had helped silent survivors to speak out and “to know there is hope and there is healing after such an abhorrent crime”.
He said he was asked to help with the storyline by executive producer Kate Oakes and was involved from the start – in script-writing, filming scenes and working with actors on the show.
Mr Craig, who has waived his right to anonymity, said he drew on his own personal experiences when advising Ryan Clayton, who plays Josh, and Jack P Shepherd, who plays David, and they had “absorbed every word I’d said”.
He said he was “blown away” when he saw the final scenes.
“It was so real – and reminds me of my own behaviour. It reminded me of the massive effort to keep the secret.”
Mr Craig said the storyline had helped men and boys watching at home speak out about male sexual abuse, demonstrated by the influx of calls to charities since Friday.
He added: “Coronation Street has always tackled dark stories and I’d invite Fern Britton and [veteran broadcaster] Michael Parkinson, who has also criticised the storyline, to see the work we do.”
A spokesman for Coronation Street said:
“Our reason for exploring this issue was to raise awareness and prompt conversation and to highlight of the help and support that is out there.
“We are delighted that the storyline has prompted people to come forward and seek help.”
A new biography of Robin Williams claims the late comic regularly harassed his Mork & Mindy costar Pam Dawber back in the ’70s, but that because he was so guileless and funny, “somehow he could get away with it.”
Says Dawber:
“I had the grossest things done to me by him. I never took offense. I mean, I was flashed, humped, bumped, grabbed. I think he probably did it to a lot of people… If you put it on paper you would be appalled. But somehow he had this guileless little thing that he would do — those sparkly eyes. He’d look at you, really playful, like a puppy, all of a sudden. And then he’d grab your tits and then run away. And somehow he could get away with it.”
Mork & Mindy director director Howard Storm also recalled an incident between Williams and the actress who played Mindy’s grandmother.
“I’m standing there watching this and I’m thinking, ‘oh my god’ and I just laughed. I thought she was going to turn and say: ‘How dare you stick a cane in a woman’s ass?’ That sweet old lady. There was nothing lascivious about it, in his mind. It was just Robin being Robin, and he thought it would be funny. He could get away with murder.”
“He’d be doing a paragraph and in the middle of it he would just turn and grab her ass. Or grab a breast. And we’d start again. I’d say, ‘Robin, there’s nothing in the script that says you grab Pam’s ass.’ And he’d say: ‘Oh, OK.”’ He would stand naked opposite Dawber while she was trying to act, in order to make her “blush.”
Huh. Different times, I guess.
Robin will be published on May 15 by Henry Holt. The book also explores his history of addiction and traces his life story, through to his untimely death. You can pre-order Robin here.
via EW
(Bottom photos: Pacific Coast News)
Super-private fashion and society photographer Bill Cunningham– who snapped street-style pics for the New York Times for 40 years before his death in 2016 – left behind an enormous archive valued at $1 million… as well as an unexpected memoir.
“It seems so unexpected,” said Christopher Richards, an editor at Penguin Press who acquired the book at auction. “He really didn’t divulge anything about his life to his friends and his colleagues. He was so private. I think it was a shock.”
And what new facts can we learn of the legend that we didn’t already know?
Mr. Cunningham’s memoir is a rosy account of an irrepressible dreamer who tripped his way from the stockroom of Boston’s newly opened Bonwit Teller to hat shops of his own in New York. He arrives in the city in November 1948 on opening night of the opera — then a tent pole of the New York social calendar — and stays long after the Social Register stopped being anyone’s bible.
Much of the material is new, even to his relatives. “Bill kept his family life in Boston and his work life in New York very separate,” wrote his niece Trish Simonson, in an email. “He told us stories over the years, but nothing that painted a full picture of what he did and how he came to do it. The drafts of the memoir we found, titled and edited and written in his own unmistakable voice, filled in a lot of blanks of how he made it from here to there, and what he thought along the way.”
He continues:
“Bill was a true original,” Mr. Richards said. “For me, this book is really for those of us who came to New York with a dream and saw New York City as a real oasis of creativity and freedom, a place to be who we want to be. It’s a really beautiful story about a young, artistic man finding his way in the city, in a particular kind of bohemian world that doesn’t quite exist anymore.”
Publication is planned for September — just in time for New York Fashion Week. (via The New York Times; Photo: MediaPunch)
You know the routine for The WOW Report on Radio Andy, right? Every episode – which airs every Friday at 3PM EST on SiriusXM, and again at 3PM PST (that’s 6PM EST), AND also on the SiriusXM app – World of Wonder Co-Founder Fenton Bailey, Executive VP of Development Tom Campbell, and WOW Report Editor James St. James countdown the top ten things from the week that make us go WOW! But this week’s episode is a little different…WE’RE LIVE FROM RUPAUL’S HOLLYWOOD STAR CEREMONY! You saw the photos, now watch the video! It will be like you were actually there!
Get behind-the-scenes RuPaul’s Drag Race T with Todrick Hall, Candis Cayne, Ru’s sister Renae, WOW co-founder Randy Barbato, RuPaul’s Drag Race showrunners Steven Corfe (current) and Chris McKim (seasons 1-4), lgbt activist Andrea James, makeup artist Jen Fregozo, WOWlebrities Adam Asea & Alicia Gargaro-Magana, Chad Michael Morrisette, Mito Aviles, and RUPAUL HIMSELF!!
Listen in at 3:00PM EST and again at 3:00 PST (6 PM EST) on SiriusXM! Or listen whenever you want on the SiriusXM App!
And be sure to give your ears the gift of THE WOW REPORT on Radio Andy SiriusXM EVERY Friday.
Do something this weekend that makes YOU go WOW!!!
Former Playboy playmate Karen Mcdougall appeared on Anderson Cooper 360, admitting to a 2006-2007 affair with Donald Trump, and said that the now-president once compared her to daughter Ivanka.
“He said I was beautiful like her, and ‘you’re a smart girl,’ ” said McDougal, who was 35 at the time of her alleged affair with Trump, then 60. “There wasn’t a lot of comparing, but there was some, yeah. I heard a lot about her.”
That seems… odd.
“You know, I know a lot of people think it’s odd,” she responded when asked about it by Cooper. “There’s been some comments I’ve heard in the news he’s said about her; I think those comments are wrong, but do I think it’s strange that a father would love his daughter so much that he brags about her? No, I brag about my dog that much.”
And about the affair… Does she regret it?
McDougal told Cooper she felt “a lot of guilt” for carrying on an alleged 10-month sexual relationship with Melania Trump‘s husband.
“What can you say except, I’m sorry? I’m sorry. I wouldn’t want it done to me, I’m sorry,” McDougal, 46, said.
“Going through it when I look back where I was back then, I know it’s wrong, I am really sorry for that. I know it’s the wrong thing to do,” she said, fighting back tears.
Buuuuuuuut…
“There was a real relationship there,” she said, adding, “I was in [love with him] … He always told he loved me.”
Um, ew. All of this. I need a Silkwood shower.
Watch it all below.
AMAZEEE!!! Your fave, lil’ LGBT series that could, EastSiders, that just released Season 3 on Netflix, is SLAYING in Daytime Emmy Awards noms, announced this week…including Outstanding Daytime Digital Drama Series, Outstanding Writing & Directing for creator and star Kit Williamson and Outstanding Actor in a Digital Daytime Drama Series for Van Hansis…CONGRATS, LADIES!!! The 45th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards will take place April 29, 2018.
Kit Williamson:
“The Daytime Emmy Awards are at the vanguard of the indie TV revolution, and I think it’s amazing that they have expanded the categories for digital series this year. We’re incredibly grateful to be recognized with this many nominations!”
It’s rollicking new club anthem, “Dem Beats,” by Todrick Hall (featuring our very own RuPaul doing a New Wave/Max Headroom-like DJ character that I reeeeeeaaally approve of)(see top pic).
Todrick is in full clubkid/unicorn drag here – looking AMAAAAAZING – dancing in a nightclub full of twinkly club kids, underwear-clad hotties, and frequent collaborator Chester Lockhart.
“Dance ’til the night dies, live ’til the sunrise, werk, get your whole life, we gon’ pose for that spotlight, we gon’ dance ’til the night dies,” Todrick speak-sings over a thumping bassline that’ll get you voguing the house down.
And that’s when Ru GOES off on a rap of his own.
Best dance song of the year? Or best dance song OF ALL TIME?
“Den Beats” is the first release from Todrick’s brand new visual album, Forbidden, a 30-song extravaganza due out on March 27.
Watch below. (via GayTimes)
What a cute couple, omg! Yes!
Doe-eyed celebuspawn/activist Paris Jackson, 19, and supermodel-turned-actress Cara Delevingne, 25, were spotted kissing on the streets of LA while out on a double date with Paris’s godfather Macaulay Culkin and his girlfriend, Brenda Song.
via Daily Mail:
The foursome were out for the night in West Hollywood, visiting the upmarket Argentinean steakhouse Carlito’s.
At the end of their meal the two happy couples headed outside, with high-spirited British model-turned-actress Cara leaning down to ask a giggling Paris to dance.
Smiling Paris’s hair flew out as she turned, before Cara took a spin herself.
Still flushed from their dance, the pair then shared a passionate kiss, before Paris nestled into Cara’s arms on the cold evening.
Earlier in the week, Cara posted a twitter video of she and Paris in bed, watching Carol and eating strawberries.
EXCLUSIVE: Sealed with a kiss! Paris Jackson and Cara Delevingne confirm romance with passionate clinch https://t.co/5PRPmfKOo5 pic.twitter.com/cphkAdbOg7
— Daily Mail Celebrity (@DailyMailCeleb) March 23, 2018
Cara Delevingne and Paris Jackson spotted kissing in Los Angeles. pic.twitter.com/YqgUjH3SPQ
— Pop Crave (@PopCrave) March 23, 2018
Cara con Paris Jackson
en Instagram Stories pic.twitter.com/BOkhz4KsOG
— Cara Delevingne Mexico (@CDelevingneMex) March 20, 2018
(Top pics: Pacific Coast News)
In “Nevada Smith” (1966) directed by Henry Hathaway, photo via YouTube
March 24, 1930 – Steve McQueen:
“In my own mind, I’m not sure that acting is something for a grown man to be doing.”
He was an independent, sexy movie star whose sense of cool defined the era.
McQueen’s father abandoned him when he was very young. His mother was an alcoholic and a prostitute who sexually seduced him. His mother remarried, and his new stepfather beat him, and nine-years-old, he left home to live on the streets. He moved in with his grandparents for a while before ending up in a California youth reformatory, where he was gang raped. Upon release, he enlisted in the Merchant Marines, but he jumped ship in Santa Domingo where he got a job in a brothel. Then he joined the Marine Corps. He was just 17-years-old.
He did well with his duties as a mechanic, but he continued to have trouble with authority figures. After three years in the Marines, he drifted around, sometimes selling himself for sex.
McQueen ended up in NYC, where he hustled around Times Square to support his two greatest loves: acting and motorcycles. He took classes at Sanford Meisner’s Neighborhood Playhouse.
When he finally became a big star, sex was his weapon. McQueen:
“The last thing I want is to fall in love with a broad.”
Among his conquests: Jacqueline Bissett, Faye Dunaway, Lauren Hutton, Sharon Tate, Mamie Van Doren, Ava Gardner, Rita Hayworth, Lana Turner, Tuesday Weld, Natalie Wood, and Marilyn Monroe. He married one of them, Ali MacGraw, for whom he abandoned his wife of 16-years, the mother of his two children, actor Neile Adams.
While married to MacGraw he kept a suite at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel just for quickies and had sex with groupies on set in his trailer. MacGraw has written that he would disappear for nights at a time on his motorcycle, fueled by piles of cocaine. MacGraw claimed that he was ”somewhat stoned every day of our relationship”.
Publicly, McQueen was a homophobe, yet, I have it on good authority that he had sex with James Dean, Peter Lawford, Montgomery Clift, Sal Mineo, Rock Hudson, Chuck Connors, and George Peppard. And, there is that long rumored affair with Paul Newman. J. Edgar Hoover and Richard Nixon saw him as a potential subversive and tried to smear him by releasing tid-bits about his same-sex affairs.
He did drugs, drank to excess, smoked three packs a day and was overwhelmed with self-destructive urges. His drug choices included cocaine, peyote, LSD and lots of amyl nitrate.
He made his Broadway debut in 1955 in A Hatful Of Rain, starring Ben Gazzara. But, McQueen really got his start doing television. His role as a bounty hunter on the series Dead Or Alive (1958-1961) made him a big star. The Blob (1958), was his first film as a lead. At 29-years-old, McQueen got a big break when Frank Sinatra chose him for the film Never So Few (1959). Sinatra saw something special in McQueen and made sure that his small role got plenty of closeups. Critics and audiences took notice, McQueen’s character loved driving at high speed.
His next film was The Magnificent Seven (1960), McQueen’s focused performance catapulted his career. He stole scenes from co-stars Yul Brynner, Eli Wallach, Robert Vaughn, Charles Bronson and James Coburn.
In Hollywood in the 1960s, McQueen frequented the Whisky a Go Go on the Sunset Strip where he met hairdresser Jay Sebring. The pair met Sharon Tate there, and the trio enjoyed drug and booze-fueled threesomes. He was supposed to have dinner at Roman Polanski’s on the night Tate and Sebring were murdered by Charles Manson’s gang in 1969, but he canceled at the last minute. He later learned he was on Manson’s Death List.
McQueen carried a concealed, loaded Magnum pistol at all times, which could have been disastrous considering his crazy temper. He once pulled the gun on his first wife and demanded to know if she had ever had an affair. Fed up with McQueen’s cheating, she confessed to having slept with Academy Award-winning actor Maximilian Schell.
His film Bullitt (1968) contains one of the most iconic car chases in film history. Screeching through the streets of San Francisco, McQueen, in a 1968 green Ford Mustang Fastback, chases a 1968 black Dodge Charger. McQueen, an accomplished race car driver, overshot a turn and smoked the tires, and producers decided to replace him with a stunt driver. The Mustang’s interior rearview mirror gives clues as to who is behind the wheel. When the mirror is up, McQueen is behind the wheel, and when it is down, it is the stunt driver. It took nearly a month to shoot the footage that took up nine minutes of screen time.
Like his onscreen characters, McQueen went his own way and pretty much did what he wanted. In 1968, he turned down the film Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid because he refused second billing to Paul Newman. He also turned down the lead in Apocalypse Now, Dirty Harry, The French Connection and One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest.
At his apex, with a salary of $5 million a film plus 15% of the gross, more than Marlon Brando, Robert Redford or Clint Eastwood, making McQueen was the highest paid actor in the world. In 1974, he became the number one box-office star in the world, although he did not act in films again for four years. If you want to see him at his best, watch Love With The Proper Stranger (1963) where he is sexy and appealing, and The Getaway (1972), hot, tough and violent. McQueen was a good actor and a true style icon.
McQueen made everything he wore cool: Polo shirts and khakis or a three piece suit, swim trunks, jeans and a tee-shirt, he epitomized style and bridged the gap between the Golden Age and the more modern movies of the 1960s and 1970s.
M2M via YouTube
M2M via YouTube
KnownMan via YouTube
He mixed casual sunglasses with suits. McQueen loved his Persol 714, wayfarers and aviators. He preferred canvas sneakers and leather boots.
Almost everything he wore had clean lines. He rarely wore ties and favored bomber jackets. He liked wearing blues which emphasized his eyes and worked against his bad boy image. He looked especially hot in denim on denim, my favorite of his looks. The best part about his style was his nonchalant coolness.
McQueen lived life at full speed, just like the motorcycles and cars he raced so famously. Noted for being a difficult diva on film sets, he fired cast, crew and writers on a whim. He was arrested for drunk driving in Alaska in 1972, posted bail and then left the state. He owned garages filled with Ferraris, Porsches, Jaguars and Lotuses.
In his last five years, McQueen only made three films, all self-produced. Maybe he burned too many bridges by that point. He began and ended his career playing a bounty hunter, two decades apart; his final film was The Hunter (1980).
At the end of 1979, he was diagnosed with Pleural Mesothelioma, a cancer associated with asbestos exposure. McQueen believed that asbestos used in film sound stage insulation and race-drivers’ protective suits and helmets contributed to his cancer, along with massive exposure while removing asbestos lagging from pipes aboard a troop ship when he was in the Marines.
After doctors told him they could do nothing to prolong his life, McQueen traveled to Mexico where he received controversial treatment that used coffee enemas, frequent washing with shampoos, daily injections of fluid containing live cells from cattle and sheep. Later, he checked into a small Juárez clinic under the name “Sam Shepard”, where the doctors and staff were unaware of his real identity. He had surgery to remove a tumor on his liver that weighed five pounds, despite warnings from his doctors that the tumor was inoperable, and his heart could not withstand the surgery. He died of heart failure at the clinic, 12 hours after surgery.
His estate was estimated at $30 million, and McQueen continues to make millions, with lucrative licensing deals with stylish brands such as Persol, Barracuta G9 Harrington jackets, and Barbour. He never actually wore the Rolex model that is now known as the “Steve McQueen Explorer” but he did own a Rolex Submariner. He would charge producers of his films $250 for the watch if he wore it onscreen. His 1976 Porsche 930 Turbo sold for $1.95 million in 2012.
His son Chad McQueen and his grandson, Steven R. McQueen both became actors and race car drivers.
Some may be shocked by all the sex and violence in his life, but I was shocked that at the end of his life, he was Republican and evangelical Christian. He died holding a Bible given to him by Billy Graham. Yet, I remain rather certain that he never really repented. His ashes were scattered over the Pacific Ocean.
For more, check out Steve McQueen, King Of Cool: Tales Of A Lurid Life (2009) by Darwin Porter.
Via YouTube
In a particularly cowardly move, done under cover of darkness late on Friday night, the White House announced it has revoked POTUS’ ban on transgender service members serving in the military, and will replace it with a new policy, one that is just as terrible.
The White House claims that the new policy states:
”…transgender persons with a history or diagnosis of gender dysphoria, individuals who the policies state may require substantial medical treatment, including medications and surgery, are disqualified from military service except under certain limited circumstances.”
Pretty press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said:
”This policy was developed through extensive study by senior uniformed and civilian leaders, including combat veterans. This new policy will enable the military to apply well-established mental and physical health standards, including those regarding the use of medical drugs, equally to all individuals who want to join and fight for the best military force the world has ever seen.”
According to a Pentagon memo about the policy, exceptions would include: ”People who have been stable for 36 consecutive months in their biological sex prior to accession, who do not require a change of gender.”
Huh?
Early in 2017, POTUS tweeted: ” I have consulted with my Generals and military experts…”. As it turns out, the president did not consult Defense Secretary James Mattis, who was on vacation at the time, nor any other senior officials. Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Joseph Dunford called the move ”unexpected” and he stated his intention to tell Congress that ”he was not consulted”.
This administration’s attempts to ban transgender people from serving in the U.S. military have been blocked by four different federal judges, and at the start of 2018, it was forced to allow openly trans soldiers to enlist.
The administration’s policy has always been driven by an extreme anti-LGBTQ agenda. Transgender people have always served and are enlisting and serving with distinction right now.
U.S. Army Major Dave Eastburn, a Pentagon spokesperson said on CNN: ‘‘The military will still comply with federal court rulings and continue to assess and retain transgender service members.”
Last night, DNC Chairperson Tom Perez said:
”This decision is an insult to our brave transgender service members and all who wear our nation’s uniform. Instead of fulfilling his oath to protect the American people, Donald Trump and Mike Pence are putting our nation’s security at risk and shoving real American patriots back in the closet.”
Representative Joe Kennedy tweeted:
”Banning transgender men and women from serving in our military is based on nothing more than bigotry. To all of the brave trans troops in uniform today, please know that this President does not speak for a country eternally grateful for your service. #ProtectTransTroops”
The ACLU’s Joshua Block said:
“What the White House has released tonight is transphobia masquerading as policy. This policy is not based on an evaluation of new evidence. It is reverse-engineered for the sole purpose of carrying out President Trump’s reckless and unconstitutional ban, undermining the ability of transgender service members to serve openly and military readiness as a whole.”
“Here’s time: March 24th in every single city. We are going to be marching together as students begging for our lives. This isn’t about the GOP. This isn’t about the Democrats. This is about the adults. We feel neglected. And at this point you’re either with us or against us.”
Cameron Kasky survived of the shooting at his school, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, that left 17 people dead. He had just left drama class when the shooting began on February 14. After picking up his younger brother from a different classroom and leaving the school, a fire alarm sounded. With other students, they were instructed to go back inside. They waited an hour in a classroom until they were rescued.
After the murders, Kasky invited with fellow students David Hogg, Emma González, Sarah Chadwick and others to his house and with them founded Never Again MSD (#NeverAgain), their student-led gun control advocacy group. Kasky came up with the name “Never Again” while the group worked through the night making their plans. Their group works to create a national movement against gun violence, including a massive rally in Washington DC today.
Kasky wrote an op-ed on the CNN website describing the events of the massacre and his reaction to it. Kasky told the CNN anchor Anderson Cooper in an interview: “My generation won’t stand for this.”
Hours after the shooting, Kasky posted on Facebook:
“Can’t sleep. Thinking about so many things. So angry that I’m not scared or nervous anymore … I’m just angry. I just want people to understand what happened and understand that doing nothing will lead to nothing. Who’d have thought that concept was so difficult to grasp? “
Kasky has deactivated his Facebook account after receiving death threats.
At a televised “Stand Up” town hall session sponsored by CNN, Kasky asked Senator Marco Rubio whether he would continue receiving money from the National Rifle Association (NRA):
“Can you tell me right now that you will not accept a single donation from the NRA?”
Rubio responded:
“I will always accept the help of anyone who agrees with my agenda.”
Kasky repeatedly questioned Rubio about whether he would continue receiving NRA money. The senator did not offer a definitive response but appeared to soften his positions regarding some gun restrictions.
Kasky was accused of being a crisis actor hired by liberals. His reply on CNN:
“If you had seen me in our school’s production of Fiddler On The Roof, you would know that nobody would pay me to act for anything.”
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