March 27

Unsorted pleasures:

Trudeau to Trump:
Don't send your troops to our border.
Canada has soldiers, too.

Grenades, rockets and puppies.
Oh, my!













"Reluctant" actor

Sterling Hayden 

There were actually a few scenes in Bahama Passage

in which Hayden wore a shirt, but I won't waste your time.

Here he towers over 18-year-old Dorothy Dandridge,

who played a maid (it was 1941, after all).

Continued from my previous post on March 25:

It started in 1938 with a photo of 22-year-old Sterling Hayden competing in a sailboat race off the coast of Massachusetts. Paramount Pictures saw it, conducted a screen test and signed him to a 7-year $250 a week contract in 1940. Hayden had no acting experience or desire to become an actor, but he wanted to make $5,000 to buy a schooner so that he could forge a life at sea. This is how careers played out in the Hollywood beefcake era. Hayden was so new to Paramount that their own publicity posters misspelled his first name. His desire might have been for the sea, but Paramount had other ideas for their 6'5" blond hunk. 

Hayden appeared in two films in 1941 – Virginia and Bahama Passage* – both opposite costar Madeleine Carroll, whom he married in 1942. Despite contractual obligations, by December 1941 Hayden was quoted as saying, “I’m no actor. I’m a sailor.”

*based on the novel Dildo Cay. Bahama Passage was actually filmed at that location (now known as Salt Cay, Turks & Caicos). In this instance "Dildo Cay" referred to the proliferation of the dildo cactus. I knew you'd ask (ouch!):

And sail he did. Almost immediately after marrying, he joined the Marines to fight in WW II, receiving a Silver Star for sailing expeditions through enemy-infested waters and a Bronze Star for parachuting behind enemy lines in the Balkans. He came back to Hollywood in 1946 and promptly got a divorce from a wife he had barely seen (note: there would be two more wives).

Hayden’s subsequent movie career consisted of starring and supporting roles in film noir and western genres, and today he is occasionally seen on television classic film presentations in The Godfather, Johnny Guitar, So Big, The Asphalt Jungle, Prince Valiant, The Killing, King of the Gypsies, Dr. Strangelove and 9 to 5. In divorce proceedings from wife #2 it was revealed that his annual earnings had been over $100,000 (in 1950s dollars) – more than enough to support that sailing habit. Right after being awarded custody of his four children in 1958, he took them on a sailing expedition to Tahiti. Even so, he returned time and again to Hollywood and remained active in film and television until 1982. Hayden died of cancer in Sausalito in 1986, age 70.

So my friend was devastated that her annual Sterling Hayden birthday party (b. March 26, 1916) had to be canceled this year because of the COVID-19 virus scare. But she sent some reminders that Mr. Hayden also looked pretty good wearing a shirt:

Boy Toy Lament:

Because your blogger has too much time

on his hands...

My favorite cover used to be by Chet Baker,

but out and proud Sam is my new champion.

Blame It on My Youth
1934

music by Oscar Levant (gay)
lyrics by Edward Heyman (closeted gay)

You were my adored one...
Then you became the bored one.
I was like a toy that brought you joy one day...
A broken toy that you preferred to throw away...

If I expected love when first we kissed,
blame it on my youth.
If only just for you I did exist, blame it on my youth.
I believed in everything like a child of three.
You meant more than anything...all the world to me.

If you were on my mind all night and day, blame it on my youth.
If I forgot to eat and sleep and pray, blame it on my youth.
If I cried a little bit when first I learned the truth,
Don't blame it on my heart, blame it on my youth.

They sure don't write 'em like that anymore. Your blogger caught a show by Mr. Harris at the Rainbow Room atop Rockefeller Center, NYC, soon after his album Standard Time was released in 1994. I was the guest of my older boyfriend, and this song hit too close to home to be comfortable. I stared at my shoes, as I recall.