The 70s were dying. But from the ashes of disco and its druggy debacuh rose, like a phoenix, a fabulous television show called Solid Gold. And the 80s were born.

The show beamed into homes like a stealthy Trojan Horse, full of twitchy-bitchy sexuality, along with studly helpings of man-ass wiggling for the camera.

It was genius! And the surprise of it all was that neither Aaron Spelling nor Allan Carr had anything to do with this primetime hit: The show ran for nine years!

Solid Gold gave birth to a phenomena we now call Porn Creep — in which pornographic titillation is sneaked into the living room in such small, incremental ways that everyone gets a glow-on and grandma doesn’t have a heart attack.

Grannies and kids loved Solid Gold. Aerobic enthusiasts, invalids, gays — and particularly straight guys. Suddenly everyone could watch together unapologetically without a twinge of anxiety. Pupils dilated with the joy of near-nude gyrations and grindings — week after week, hit after hit. (more…)

Yes, she’s been dead a million years — a million plus 10, actually, as she was strictly on autopilot in her last movies, Myra Breckinridge and Sextette, where her lines were radioed in through a teeny-tiny earpiece.

But Mae West lives, children!– as long as Nightcharm and YouTube have anything to say about it (more on that later).

At right, Salvador Dali’s famous take on the star: The Face of Mae West Which Can Be Used as an Apartment. The Mae West lip couch was actually built by Dali, and later copied by a slew of Las Vegas brothels.

Fittingly. In her movies, West always played a brothel madame, in style if not in name. She was forever on the vamp, with a keen eye for male horseflesh. Among her many trademarks — the hourglass figure, the salacious delivery — was a retinue of musclemen, usually half dressed, which would escort her about Hollywood and, in later years, co-star with her in a Las Vegas revue. (more…)

Booze, dope and showbiz. How can we resist?

The Valley of the Dolls is finally out on a deluxe 2-disc DVD — just in time for Gay Pride Day. And what a celebration it is! From its shocking-pink plastic case to its tons of queer-centric extras, we have never seen a DVD cater so hard — or so lovingly — to a certain kind of fabuloso gay mania.

Here you will find extras that include: Karaoke versions of the film’s dumbly worded songs where you follow the bouncing Rx bottle. Commentary by a camp-savvy but earnest Barbara Parkins (who hated her boxy, beige good-girl suits when all the other actresses got to wear sparkly Travilla gowns.) Remarks from Patty Duke (who hated the director and was accused of beating up too hard on Susan Hayward in the the film’s campfest finale, the ladies room cat fight.) And comments from a supporting player, who noted that it was a movie where all the actresses hated each other, upstaged each other, and saw their roles as pivotal career-changing opportunities. (more…)

Now, fresh from 2-disc DVD rehab, David K and editor John Calendo discuss the magic, the myth, and the madness of Valley of the Dolls.

David K: For years I’ve been smitten with the publicity still of the three girls on the bed. It’s the most famous image associated with the film.

John Calendo: It’s too bad the three actresses never appear in the same scene together. As to what they might all be doing on a big ‘ol Hollywood bed except trying on each other’s falls, I will leave to the girl-on-girl aficionados.

DK: That image symbolizes the heart of what I love most about Dolls: It’s a movie about glamorous, beautiful women … with big hair. But for all its pinky glamor the photo is also disturbing. The way the trio is juxtaposed on the bed, but not relating to each other — that signals complications. Goodie! A movie about Gals in Trouble! That fact shoots the film into the queer stratosphere. Beauty and chaos intermingling — it’s an addictive combo. (more…)

As so often happens, our thoughts turn once again to the liner notes on Barbra Streisand’s What About Today album:

“This album is dedicated to the young people,” wrote the singer with all the grave authority that came with being 27-years-old — in other words, a kid herself. Up until then, Barbra had been knocking them dead with old-style nightclub standards and off-beat showtunes. She had concocted a show business personality that was part clutsy Jerry Lewis, part Queen of England. Now she was declaring herself at one with her generation. (more…)

On June 10, just in time for her birthday, Judy Garland will appear on a U.S. stamp.

I always think of Judy at this time of year, as the rainbow flags unfurl and the floats come down the street with their glamor-girl boys and near-nude leathermen. Hyper-real spectaculars that would not be out of place in the Emerald City — or Munchkinland!

“Are you a friend of Dorothy?” soldiers would ask each other during World War II, using this code phrase to signal that they were gay. It was only a matter of time before the brass caught wind of it, without quite understanding its significance. In a dither that Reds and homos were sneaking into their ranks, the military spent $250,000 to find out who this diabolic den-mother of the GI homos was. Yet even the nelliest civilian could have told them (in exchange, we hope, for a little buzz-cut face action).

She was, of course, our Judy. The gal who fell from a star called Kansas. So tenderly young in The Wizard of Oz, yet already empowered by that penetrating cry in her voice. (more…)

“I felt a hand draw closer to my zipper,” the excerpt begins — a memory of sex on the subway that appears in the “Sex Issue” of HX, a glossy New York bar guide.

“He, with his banker’s cut and pinstripes, oh so slowly pressing against my stuff; no accident and my body knew it. Train frottage! I screamed internally as my bulge grew in excitement …”

Those were the days, my friend.

Pre-Rudy Giuliani and his Death-to-Sex squads. Pre-AIDS, which convulsed the city, swelled emergency rooms, and made stopping the transmission a city priority, resulting in the shut down of baths, theaters and backrooms.

Oh — sigh! — how we miss those lusty, free-for-all days! When we were all Tom Selleck clones, with gay wardrobes full of interchangeable man-gear, like Troy, above, a Stud magnet from Xodus. (more…)

Pinup boys of the 1950’s — beautifully lit in black and white and as silkily available as their female counterparts. It amazes us today that the photographer who took these pictures had to go to jail several times for trying to sell them.

What was then the most inflamed, forbidden pornography — one self-righteous blowhard even called the photographer a Communist for trying to corrupt “our clean American boys” — now seems sedate. Homoerotic to be sure, but very tasteful by 21st Century standards.

None of these classic gay photos would exist had it not been for Bob Mizer, photographer and founder of AMG, the Athletic Model Guild. The prolific Mizer left behind, as well, rare film clips and short movies of his scantily dressed discoveries. (Now available in the five-DVD bundle Fantasy Factory from AMG.) At the time no one else was shooting this material, let alone selling it through the mail. (more…)