11 Times Lyle Waggoner's Hunkiness Stole the Show

Feast your eyes on the beloved actor who died yesterday at 84 HERE.

Page 1 Roundup (03/18)

The Daily News: Mayor de Blasio, Gov. Cuomo spar over whether NYC will face ‘shelter in place’ order as coronavirus cases in the five boroughs climb above 900

Biden wins Florida, Illinois and Arizona primaries, putting pressure on Sanders to concede amid coronavirus crisis

Were the Brooklyn Nets having an orgy?

KIT212: 11 times Lyle Waggoner's hunkiness stole the show

Twitter: March of the adorable penguins

Queerty: Antigay Democratic Rep. Dan Lipinski loses primary to pro-LGBTQ challenger

A&U: Patrick Cowley -- composer, producer, DJ, musician who embodied gay urban life in the 1970s before his death from AIDS in 1982 -- is remembered in a newly published diary and album

Instagram: Joey Mantia's thighs

Twitter: Yes, this pandemic is horrifying. But before we feel too sorry for Corporate America ...

Financial Post: How can the man behind the electric car (smart) always be the subject of such dumb news?

Dlisted: Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson are out of the hospital

Baseline: Roland Garros postponed ... until September

Greg in Hollywood: Rob Lowe is sexy and 56

Instagram: Nathan McCallum's living-room workout

Mother Jones: What Trump isn’t telling us about the firm now running coronavirus testing

TV Line: 'Reno 911!' revival: Dangle's meeting is derailed by squirrels in first video

Coronavirus halts next ‘SNL’ with host John Krasinski

New York Post: First look of Tom Brady in Buccaneers jersey is strange

 NYC coronavirus cases increase by more than 100 in just one day

Boy Culture: A Patrick Duffy fleshback

Towleroad: Paul Lisicky reads from his stunning memoir of belonging, queer identity, sex and the plague years in Provincetown

Pro wrestler Mike Parrow marries longtime boyfriend

Jared Kushner encouraged Trump to treat coronavirus as PR problem rather than take immediate action: reports

The Washington Post: Coronavirus confirmed in all 50 states and D.C., after West Virginia reports first case; U.S. death toll passes 100

Sanders faces growing pressure to withdraw from presidential race

The  New York Times: America’s economy begins to shut down as pandemic measures take hold

As disgusting as Mitch McConnell is, does this reveal he's nervous about November?

A detailed account of Trump's horrifically inept response to the coronavirus pandemic 

The Wall Street Journal: Coronavirus-driven economic slowdown prompts $1 trillion stimulus proposal, including effort to get money into consumers’ pockets -- which is totally not a government handout or a type of socialism

Latest hot spot for coronavirus hoarders: The public library

The best home workout machine? It’s not a treadmill

‘My first apartment was so small that...’

Hot Cat of the Day: "When you wake up from a four-hour nap and don't know what year it is"

Lyle Waggoner Dies at 84

So sad to hear about the passing of Lyle Waggoner, the impossibly handsome actor who helped awaken something inside me at an obscenely young age.

Waggoner's son, Jason, says his father died peacefully Tuesday morning with wife Sharon by his side. Best known for his work on "The Carol Burnett Show" from 1967 to 1974, he later went on to star as Steve Trevor in "Wonder Woman" during the second half of the '70s. 

“He was funny, kind and multi-talented. But even more than that, a loving friend. I will miss him,” Burnett, 86, said in a statement.

What I loved about "Carol" was that there was never any pretense about why he was there -- his hotness was always a character in every sketch in which he appeared, turning the built sex-symbol ideal on its head. Damian and I watch the reruns and as Lyle is routinely being ogled and exploited for his body, we turn to each other and say, "Did we write this?"

He lived a long and healthy life, but it hurts to say goodbye just the same. RIP, handsome.

Related: 11 Times Lyle Waggoner's hunkiness stole the show

View this post on Instagram

So many great memories, so many years. Sending much love to Sharon and his family... #goodbye #dearfriend #rip Lyle Waggoner. #sad #carolburnettshow

A post shared by Vicki Lawrence (@vickilawrence_official) on Mar 17, 2020 at 12:54pm PDT

Celebrating 50 Years of Carol Burnett & Friends

It took us more than three months to get around to it, but boy am I glad I finally watched the highly rated "Carol Burnett 50th Anniversary Special." Not only did it kindly remind me that my childhood all but revolved around the show -- my friends and I used to re-enact the skits for my annual "Christmas at Harvey's" Christmas spectacular -- it tickled me to learn that I was in good company with Jane Lynch, Jim Carrey, Maya Rudolph, Bill Hader, Amy Poehler, Stephen Colbert, Harry Connick Jr. and others. ("The Family" sketches should not be underestimated for their searing portrayal of dysfunction families, with nuances that require multiple viewings to fully appreciate that often get missed in all of the more obvious yelling and name-calling .)

From his June 1973 Playgirl spread ...

The special also reminded me that Lyle Waggoner was partially to "blame" for my sexuality.

They showed this clip of Lyle undressed as Mark Spitz -- who should have had to turn over his medals after Waggoner's portrayal. 

Lyle and Vicki Lawrence

The only negative thing I have to say about the special was that it opened my eyes to something very disturbing about another sex symbol from my childhood: it would appear that Tom Selleck is now one piece of confetti away from being Rip Taylor. 

Next up for Carol? After her Amy Poehler-produced pilot, "Household Name," didn't get picked up, the comedy legend inked a 12-episode series order with Netflix for "A Little Help With Carol Burnett," an original unscripted comedy starring Burnett and a panel of straight-talking 4-8-year-olds as they demonstrate how different generations solve life’s biggest dilemmas. 

Awakenings

It doesn't matter if you're gay, straight or bisexual, all of us experienced that moment in life when our sexual awakening began to take place. Whether it was a certain page in the Sears catalog, seeing Lynda Carter in her Wonder Woman outfit or Bjorn Borg a certain athlete in short-shorts on television, everyone I've ever met can always pinpoint the exact moment when something changed inside, and tell me what first got them going back when. A quick poll around the newsroom where I work elicited the following responses: Phyllis George on "NFL Today," Julie Andrews in "The Sound of Music" (straight guys) and "this cartoon on 'Sesame Street' where a cartoon man climbs up the body of this boy in his underwear, teaching him to names all of his various body parts on the way up" (gay guy -- and how'd I miss that one?!!)



Although I've blogged the overwhelming attraction I felt for the young actor Timothy Gibbs, who caught my eye in the film "Just Between Friends" back in '86, I recently had a flashback to an even earlier moment, when I still wasn't fully aware of what it meant to be gay, but I knew something really exciting was happening to me.

This wasn't the first time I'd felt this way -- I was inordinately interested whenever Lyle Waggoner and John Schneider came on TV in the late '70s -- but it stood out because it was the year I was turning 16. It was the summer of '83 and it was my best friend Mark's turn to visit Arizona. (We alternated between Phoenix and Detroit each year.) I had been an absolutely OBSESSED "Jaws" fan as a kid in the '70s -- at age 8, I managed to get my step aunt to take me to see the rather "adult" film, I read the Peter Benchley novel, I had a huge "Jaws" poster hanging on my bedroom wall, and I even did an oral book report on Carl Gottlieb's "Jaws Log" -- so when "Jaws 3-D" came out, Mark and I decided to we had to check it out.

Although we didn't make it halfway through the film -- the 3-D wasn't working (at least not on me) so we demanded a refund telling the manager of AMC's Fiesta Village the show was more like "Jaws Negative 3-D" -- there was a scene near the very beginning in which Sean Brody (played by 21-year-old John Putch) gets seduced by Kelly Ann (film newcomer Lea Thompson) on a lagoon beach at SeaWorld.

After getting discovered by Sean's older brother Mike (played by an equally dreamy Dennis Quaid) and Mike's girlfriend (played by Bess Armstrong, who delivers one of the most cringe-inducing lines in movie history over a bullhorn: "You turkeys got any ID?"), Sean and Kelly Ann emerge from the water dripping wet, at which point we are treated to the strapping young buck's tight body in nothing but a pair of skimpy blacks briefs. For years afterward, this image replayed in my head, over and over (there was something about seeing something that I was "supposed to" that made me crazy). Nearly 30 years later, the image popped into my head again last week so I Netflixed this film over the weekend. Perhaps not surprisingly, it didn't quite have the same "effect" on me as it did when I was 16. (The testosterone racing through my body isn't what it once was, after all. The same thing happens to me now when I watch "Dirty Dancing" and say to myself, "WHAT was I thinking?!") Still, John Putch is as cute as ever (this was way before the Internet, so after seeing this object of my affection on-screen, I don't think I ever learned his name and don't recall ever seeing him again; I was tickled to learn just now that he is Jean "Edith Bunker" Stapleton's son). Once again, I only made it through the first 30 minutes of the film. But it still made me smile to revisit my ultimate teen lust moment. I'd love to hear from you in the comments section who starred in your earliest sexual fantasies. If and when I finally get my hands on those Avon catalogs from 1981 that featured two hunky male models in the Wild Country cologne section, I will have an addendum to this post that I'm convinced is as hot as I remember it to be ...

A face more than a mother could love

UPDATE:

This is what John Putch looks like today.