Acting, luvvy

Sharing the day, as he does, with a typically mismatched handful of names including Kenneth Clark, Harrison Ford, Ian Hislop (65), Chris Serle and - ahem - Tulisa, it is the 85th birthday today of Captain Jean-Luc Picard/Professor Charles Xavier - aka Sir Patrick Stewart!

A stalwart of the West End stage, after sixteen years with the Royal Shakespeare Company [indeed I saw him in Antony and Cleopatra way back in 1978 in Stratford-upon-Avon, opposite Glenda Jackson and Alan Howard in the titular roles] he got the biggest break of his career in 1987, when he was "head-hunted" by producer Robert H. Justman for a new Gene Roddenberry series Star Trek: The Next Generation, and the rest is history.

Despite his [and his best friend Sir Ian "Serena" McKellen's] initial skepticism, he not only became a household name but also made himself a small fortune in the process. Indeed, he wryly commented in an interview that he made more money in a short break between filming scenes for that series than he did in ten weeks in the West End playing the lead "George" in Who's Afraid of Virgina Woolf!

Yet he never seems to have lost his charm, nor his self-deprecating sense of humour:

Captain Picard Dancing and Singing on the Bridge

He's also never been afraid to "play gay", despite being married three times [at his last wedding, to current wife Sunny Ozell, Serena McKellen officiated] - not least in one of my fave films of its genre, including one of my most-quoted scenes:

Patrick Stewart in Jeffrey

However, who knew he had sung a whole album of "cowboy classics"?!!

P Stew's Cowboy Classics

[Or was it all just an elaborate joke with a serious fundraising cause?]

He's brilliant! - and has one of the sexiest speaking voices in the business, to boot.

Many happy returns, Sir Patrick Stewart (born 13th July 1940)!

The angel and the dreamer who sometimes plays a fool

How very sad. It was only four months ago that I was lusting over his ample groinage of yore on the occasion of his 80th birthday, and now we hear that darling David Soul is dead...

Remarkably, he was a far more successful recording artist in the UK than ever he was in the States - where he is considered a "one-hit-wonder" - scoring two #1 and one #2 singles in our charts, and two hit albums. He ended up spending more time over here than back home - winning accolades for his appearances on the West End stage - and eventually settled, becoming a British citizen in 2004. That decision, fortuitously, also helped him in one of his lifelong quests, to recover and restore Ernest Hemingway's derelict Chrysler New Yorker convertible car in Cuba (which would have been unattainable had he remained a US citizen, given the continued embargo between the two countries).

Back to those halcyon chart-topping days of 1977, and, by way of a tribute here is his most successful worldwide hit [that I didn't feature in my August blog post]:

David Soul - Don't Give Up On Us

RIP, David Soul (born David Richard Solberg, 28th August 1943 – 4th January 2024)

Who's the black private dick that's a sex machine to all the chicks?

Long before I knew I was gay - in fact long before the onset of puberty - a certain man in a certain film gave me "the tingles".

That man was Richard Roundtree, and that film was Shaft [oh, that shower scene!].

And so it was with great sadness that I heard the news of Mr Roundtree's death today. Another piece of my formative youth has gone...

...but at least we still have one of the very best of all movie theme tunes to remember him by!

Isaac Hayes - Theme from "Shaft"

RIP, Richard Arnold Roundtree (9th July 1942 - 24th October 2023)

Guilty pleasures of the Soul

You know you're getting old when...

...you realise that "Hutch" was 80 years old on Monday!

In the interest of recycling, here's a tribute I did for him on the occasion of his 70th.

Confession time. I have to admit that despite his perceived "naffness", I have always loved David Soul - for his classic 1970s music as much as his groinage.

Guilty pleasures, I suppose, but these two alone are great songs:

David Soul - Going In With My Eyes Open [Legs & Co, Top of the Pops, 31st March 1977]

David Soul - Silver Lady

Facts about Mr Soul:

• He was the UK's best selling artist in 1977, and Starsky and Hutch was one of the most popular police drama series of the decade.
• David has been married five times and has five sons and a daughter.
• He starred (in French) with Anne Giraudau and Line Renaud in the television miniseries Les Filles du Lido in 1995.
• As well as playing the original lead in Jerry Springer The Opera, he also starred in the West End revival of Mack and Mabel.
• In September 2004, David became a UK citizen.

Many happy returns, David Soul (born David Richard Solberg, 28th August 1943)

Someone, help me, help me, help me please

Oh dear, time to feel old again... My childhood crush, the toothsome Donny Osmond is sixty years old today!

I was nine when I sat, entranced, in front of Top of the Pops, crying over this one...

Donny Osmond - Puppy Love

Times have changed.

Donny Osmond - Too Young

Too young? Not any more...

Many happy returns, Donald Clark "Donny" Osmond (born 9th December 1957)!

Guilty pleasures of the Soul

Confession time. I have to admit that despite his perceived "naffness", I have always loved David Soul - who celebrates (gulp!) his 70th birthday today - for his classic 1970s music as much as groinage.

Guilty pleasures, I suppose, but these two alone are great songs...

David Soul - Going In With My Eyes Open

David Soul - Silver Lady

Facts about Mr Soul:

• He was the UK's best selling artist in 1977, and Starsky and Hutch was one of the most popular police drama series of the decade.
• David has been married five times and has five sons and a daughter.
• He starred (in French) with Anne Giraudau and Line Renaud in the television miniseries Les Filles du Lido in 1995.
• As well as playing the original lead in Jerry Springer The Opera, he also starred in the West End revival of Mack and Mabel.
• In September 2004, David became a UK citizen.

Happy birthday, David!

David Soul (born David Richard Solberg, 28th August 1943)

Read my tribute to Mr Soul on his 65th birthday.

Georgie Porgie

National treasure and remarkably talented blues and Jazz singer, the super-cool Mr Georgie Fame is 70 years old today!

Apart from being a one-time fixture on the BBC and in the charts in the 60s and 70s, dirty little Georgie was also - scandalously - involved in a love triangle with the British nobility.

Back in 1971 the 9th Marquess of Londonderry divorced his first wife, Nicolette (Nico), who went on to marry Georgie. It turned out that Nico's then 18-month-old son - who was presumed heir to the aristocratic title - was not, in fact, Londonderry's son but was Mr Fame's. To be honest, back in those days who could have blamed her? I had one helluva crush on Georgie Fame myself...





Anyway, this birthday milestone is good enough excuse, if any were needed, to feature a little Pan's People at Dolores Delargo Towers - here are our girls accompanying Georgie (bizarrely, in his nightshirt!), in their own inimitable fashion, on the very funky Seventh Son:

Georgie Fame with Pan's People - Seventh Son

And here's my favourite of Mr Fame's many hits - a fond memory from my childhood - The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde:

Georgie Fame - The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde

Georgie Fame (born Clive Powell, 26 June 1943)

Come on boy

Three decades ago, the UK witnessed the end of an era, as the last of the great bands to emerge out of the Punk/New Wave era, The Jam, hit the Number 1 slot with what would turn out to be their final hit together.

Angry young men they certainly were when they first crashed into the nation's conciousness in 1977 with In The City, but their carefully-crafted music and their evocation of the "Mod" style rather than the slightly skanky "Punk" aesthetic meant they stood out in the crowd - indeed by the time they finally called it a day in December 1982 they had already scored eighteen consecutive Top 40 singles. After they split up, their entire back catalogue was re-released, and when six of the singles charted they equalled the achievement of the Beatles for the most records by one artist or group in the Top 40 at the same time.

Mr Weller went on to become some kind of spiky "mod icon", having massive subsequent success with Style Council and as a solo artist, and is named as an influence on countless future generations of artists, Oasis and Blur among them. The others - still allegedly not talking to Mr Weller - have had varying degrees of success playing The Jam's back-catalogue live.

Here's that last hit, for your delectation - Beat Surrender:

The Jam - Beat Surrender

Beat surrender
Come on boy, come on girl
Succumb to the beat surrender
All the things that I care about (are packed into one punch)
All the things that I'm not sure about (are sorted out at once)

And as it was in the beginning, so shall it be in the end
That bullshit is bullshit, it just goes by different names

All the things that I shout about (but never act upon)
All the courage and the dreams that I have
(but seem to wait so long)
My doubt is cast aside, watch phonies run to hide
The dignified don't even enter in the game

And if you feel there's no passion
No quality sensation
Seize the young determination
Show the fakers you ain't foolin'
You'll see me come runnin'
To the sound of your strummin'
Fill my heart with joy and gladness
I've lived too long in shadows of sadness

The Jam website

Another sad loss...

And so farewell to Simon MacCorkindale, who has died of cancer aged 58.

A classy, handsome man, Mr MacCorkindale made a good living playing upper-crust totty roles, notably in Death on the Nile, Dynasty and Falcon Crest. He was also one of those rare stars who had a stable home life - married to actress Susan George since 1984. I had a major teenage crush on him ever since seeing him as "Lucius" in I, Claudius...

I, Claudius clip

Such a sad loss. RIP, Simon Charles Pendered MacCorkindale (12th February 1952 – 14th October 2010)

Make it so

Happy 70th birthday today to a man with the sexiest voice in theatre - Mr Patrick Stewart!

From Shakespeare to Picard, Beckett to X-Men, with hundreds of other plays and appearances over the years, the man is a captivating and charismatic actor - and a (secret) crush of mine...

Here's his gayest performance ever, in the fantabulosa film Jeffrey. Many happy returns...

Patrick Stewart in Jeffrey

Is it so wrong..?

... to fancy David Miliband?!



I've always had a major "pash" for cute men in suits, and this one is definitely growing on me.