Totty of the Day

Sunday lunch, sorted.

Sal Mineo (10th January 1939 - 12th February 1976)

[Read an interview with Sal Mineo's "widower" Coutrney Burr on Matthew Rettenmund's "Boy Culture" site]

Flattery, indeed

Today is National Women's Day in South Africa.

One of that country's most famous exports (despite her having actually been born in Mumbai) was the late, great Juliet Prowse.

So let's use that excuse to cheer ourselves up, as we mourn the demise of the Great British Heatwave of 2018 (it's been pissing down today, and the temperatures are more or less back to normal for this time of year), with a clip of the great lady herself, dancing with the eternally sexy Sal Mineo!

Sal Mineo and Juliette Prowse - dance scene from Who Killed Teddy Bear?

Any spurious and convoluted excuse to feature gyrating sexy young totty? Moi?

Of course.

A wonderful life

Totty of the day...















...always and forever.

"It would be easy to blame Hollywood to say that I was typed and forced to play the same role over and over. For a while, I did. But the truth is that I knew what I was doing. I was enjoying myself. I was making money."

"If I'd understood back then that a guy could be in love with another one, it would have happened. But I didn't come to that realisation for a few more years and then it was too late for Jimmy and me."

As this marvellous little piece of footage confirms...

Salvatore "Sal" Mineo, Jr. (10th January 1939 – 12th February 1976)

My previous tribute to the lovely Sal.

The lovely Sal

One of the most gorgeous men to grace a movie screen, Sal Mineo would have been 71 today. Best known (of course) as the sidekick (and love interest?) of James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause and again in Giant, he struggled in the studio system of the time to escape stereotyping as either the angst-ridden teen or the underworld hoodlum. It couldn't have helped much that Mr Mineo was well known as a gay man in an era of witch hunts and celibate marriages.

He went on to become a stage actor and producer - notably of the homoerotic play Fortune and Men's Eyes (starring a young Don Johnson) - and made several cameo appearances on TV, but never re-captured that moment of success he had in the late 50s.

Returning from rehearsals of his latest play in 1976, he was stabbed to death in an alleyway behind his home. He was 37. A tragic end indeed for such a gorgeous man...

Here he is in one of his lesser-known roles, during a period in his career when he was still trying to sell the "heart-throb" image:

Sal Mineo in Who Killed Teddy Bear?

Here is Mr Mineo singing (during his very short-lived musical career):

Sal Mineo on Shindig

And here is a fab tribute video to Rebel Without A Cause:

[Yes, the video does work, despite there being no thumbnail picture]

Sal Mineo website