Roddy McDowall

Don't ask me why, but when I look back at old Hollywood, I think Roddy was one hot piece. I'm in my twenties, so I'm not some elder-gay, who grew up with him, and have fond memories of that time period clouding my judgement. He was a beautiful child actor too. He seemed to have gone through an ugly phase once he hit puberty, and then turned into a hottie soon after. Is there any truth that he wrote down every secret in Hollywood, and it's placed in a vault somewhere? I know everyone told him everything because they knew they could trust him. This is going to sound like one of the dumbest questions ever asked, but was he gay? He never formally said anything. I assume he was gayer than Gay Gayerson, but you never know if he was a bisexual. Were there any stories about who he was linked romantically to? He did a photo shoot with Tab Hunter back in the day, where they looked like some young gay couple. He almost invented Hollywood bearding. The women they set him with is hysterically funny! All in all, he seemed like a very nice person. I never read one thing where someone had anything negative to say about him. Yes, I know about his having one of the biggest dicks in Hollywood rumor. There's two nudes out there that people swear are him. One looks like it could be genuine, the other look like Photoshop bullshit. I'll link them. If you have any stories/rumors, post em!

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_rokPBUzw4Po/SlqUMs9A3QI/AAAAAAAAAP0/n3mnnp8hxAs/s1600/roddymcdowall3.jpg



• Nude 1.

  http://www.findadeath.com/Deceased/m/Roddy McDowell/roddy.jpg

• Nude 2.

  http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_n-hm9gvEHbk/SiW9br6cFOI/AAAAAAAAETw/_YZmcxo99jk/s400/roddy.jpg

• Tab and Roddy. Is Tab holding a sausage?

  http://www.flickr.com/photos/scotteec/339020218/

• .

  http://www.britishcinemagreats.com/Actors_page/roddy_mcdowall/images_full/roddy_mcdowall_2.jpg

• Young

  http://www.doctormacro.com/Images/McDowall, Roddy/McDowall, Roddy (Lassie Come Home)_01.jpg

• Young, and seemingly saying, "Guuurrrrl," with his facial expression.

  http://www.starstills.com/product_images/o/198/ss2253810_-_photograph_of_roddy_mcdowall_as_ken_mclaughlin_from_my_friend_flicka_available_in_4_sizes_framed_or_unframed_buy_now_at_starstills__41479_zoom.jpg

• A rumor once circulated that he could fellate himself.

• Wish the Hollywood expose he wrote before he died would come out.

• McDowall and Farley Granger:

  http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4eAD9k9Wkow/TgcpbEysTtI/AAAAAAAABGo/LK7zxWfkLH0/s1600/qb4-farley-jane-roddy-600.jpg

• He remained best friends with Richard Burton''s ex-wife Sybil Christoher as well as Elizabeth Taylor, all his life. Not an easy feat.

• That poor woman in r9s pic was clearly just in the way.

• Just saw him in "Cleopatra" last night on TV. The campiest Octavian ever.

• That''s all well and good, OP, but perhaps you need to consider how clouded your judgment already is to think that a person''s memories of a pleasant time would somehow distort one''s objective assessment of the physical attractiveness of Roddy McDowall. \ \ Do any of your happy memories of 2006 leave you comparing Paul Giamatti to Michelangelo''s David? Or \ \ If we we weren''t aware that schizophrenia tends to start at your age, we would kid you about such delusional thinking. Just to be sure, please ask people around you if they have noticed other such presentations of irrational cognition or similar warning signs.\ \ But thanks for asking. Yes, Roddy was cute when young. Surprisingly muscular in a lean way. Famously discreet outside his circle. I knew a friend of his and while he would gossip about other old Hollywood acquaintances, he wouldn''t say a word when it came to McDowall, so the favor was returned. Or, since you say "judgement," I should say "favour."

• Isn''t that Janie Powell in r9?

  Bob Osborne

• Havn''t we done this thread before? I think its a rerun.

• I wonder who popped Roddy''s cherry. I wonder how old he was. I bet he was a little slut. lol.

• Excuse me, r13: are you completely stoned?

• Roddy was the epitome of class. Hollywood today is sorely lacking...

  Debbie Reynolds

• Yes, it is, r14.

  r9

• As a teen he famously spent long hours entertaining the GIs and sailors at the Hollywood USO throughout WWII.

  Bette Davis, Founder of the Hollywood USO

• I recall this very same thread, R15.

• I want that beautiful Lassie-dog in R5 link.

• Honeys, some of us don''t keep records of every single thread that''s been here in the last million years. \ \ Let the thread proceed: if you''ve heard it before, you almost certainly spend way too much time here and could use a break from it away.

• Roddy was the gayest gay who ever gayed, even in Hollywood. Bet as a hot young teen he gots lots of action .....

• I wonder if he was fucking young, up-and-upcoming Hollywood heartthrobs as a teen.

• I hope I live long enough to read his no holding back memoirs which are supposedly sealed away and only to be published 100 years after his death (or something like that).\ \ I remember a line of some Hollywood diva saying that his brunch get togethers had the worst food but the gossip was superb.\ \ Roddy was supposedly not only well liked but also must trustworthy to keep a secret (when it involved his close circle of friends?).

• A hundred years from his death? If true, that''s a shame because by then 90% of the people who would be interested will be dead.

• Was he a top or bottom? Who got his estate when he died?

• I think that quote is a joke. It''s a game of telephone. Someone probably joked about how long it would be until he would allow anyone to know any of the secrets he was privy too. I doubt there''s any such book. That man took the secrets to his grave.

• That''s a shame, R29. Most of the people are probably dead anyway.

  Charlotte Chandler

• Apparently he was one of the most well-liked people in Hollywood. His friends included Elizabeth Taylor, Montgomery Clift, Judy Garland. He was even liked by the cantankerous, hateful Louise Brooks.

• He''s mentioned quite frequently in "Merv Griffin: A Life in the Closet" and "The Man Who Invented Rock Hudson: The Pretty Boys and Dirty Deals of Henry Willson."

• His boyfriend when he lived in New York City in the 1950s doing theater name is John Valva. I am pretty certain he is still living in NYC today. He used to be an bit part actor.

• He died in 1999, R33\ \ He met and briefly dated Sybil Burton, who was divorced from Richard Burton. He left Roddy for her, but when he realised he had made a mistake, he tried to go back to Roddy but Roddy would not have him so he tried to commit suicide.

  Ciaran

• How much was he worth when he died?

• I always found Roddy as an adult totally creepy. NOT hot.

• He was very good friends with Merv Griffin... according to the author of Merv Griffin A life in the closet... juicy read, interesting... if you haven''t read the book. A but TOO graphic too...

• Farley Granger was hot, but looked stupid and boring. %0D\ %0D\ Someone once posted he was fired from the soap opera One Life To Live in the 70s because he came on to a minor who was an actor on the show (the kid who played Pat and Tony''s son). Is that true?

• This photo of Roddy was taken by John Valva.

  http://retrovinyl.runmovies.eu/2010/11/28/roddy-mcdowall-reads-the-horror-stories-of-h-p-lovecraft/

• Who is Dennis Osborne who was with him when he died and took care of him in Roddy''s final months of life?

• He didn''t make an easy transition into adult film roles though he actualy matured and aged into his teens and twenties quite handsomely.%0D\ %0D\ I do wonder if he left Hollywood for the New York and regional stages in the 1950s because of his well-known (in the business) homosexuality and perhaps uncomfortably close intimacy with some of filmdom''s biggest stars?%0D\ %0D\ Or perhaps he was just fed up with Hollywood?

• Or perhaps he didn''t get any job offers????

• He left Hollywood to be with Monty Clift. They were having an affair. Monty''s home was in NY. They were lovers at one point. Although Monty was older and more famous and treated Roddy very badly.\ \ Fact is is was Roddy who helped Monty at the end of his life which is well documented in the Patricia Bosworth bio of MC. Apparently upon his death RM was so upset he could not even attend his funeral.\ \ They were definitely lovers tho and spent a lot of time at Libby Holmans estate in Stamford, CT.

• Didn''t James Caan call him a "little fairy" in Funny Lady?

• It wasn''t Farley Granger who got fired from OLTL for inappropriate behavior, it was Tony George.

• I worked the front desk at an office where he had some business in NYC in the late 90''s. He came in one summer day wearing TIGHT white pants and I thought it was pretty daring for someone of his notoriety to walk the streets that way but he was still very sexy in an older daddy way. He was very polite which made him even sexier. I wanted him to linger in the lobby longer than he did so I could get over my shyness and chat him up in hopes of befriending him (read: date and fuck) but it didn''t happen. I must not have been his type, which was a damn shame - I would have totally hit that!

• r46, did he have a prominent uncut penis bulge?

• This might be a question for a different thread, but what the hell happened to Monty Clift''s personality and behavior? %0D\ %0D\ I watched an A&E Biography episode of Monty and everybody gushed about how charming and wonderful he was in the early years. Half way through the program he became a nasty crazy guy who was impossible to deal with. Drugs? Bitterness over the disfiguring accident? Death of his mother? All three? Something else?

• He was addicted to painkillers.

• Can''t you be a pill addict without acting like that, though? The stories were unpleasant weirdness. %0D\ %0D\ A longtime friend visited him. Monty said he''d make them omlettes and then Monty started repeatedly spitting into the bowl of eggs as he mixed them. %0D\ %0D\ He and Truman Capote went shopping for suits. Monty carried the suits out and threw them into the dirt on the street outside the store then went into a crazy shrieking fit when the store clerk came out.

• Also Monty was an alcoholic and he had a very tough time dealing with his homosexuality. Nancy walker and her husband were friends of his who were trying to help him. He was hitting rock bottom. He would go to real seedy bars and bring a bunch of people home with him, and then pass out drunk on his living room floor while the people from the bar would run in and out of the duplex would steal his family heirlooms, antiques and other things as well. \ \ If Roddy had a sexual affair with Monty, then I guess Roddy was a top because I thought I once read Monty was a bottom?

• Could Monty have been bipolar back then? or schizophrenic? Maybe his brain was totally gone from drinking a lot? I have heard of some alcoholic''s going nuts after so many years of drinking because their brains get really damaged.

• Monty''s Mother far outlived him. She was still going strong long after he died.\ \ One of his bios claimed that friends of Monty thought that he was "tormented" about his sexual attraction to men. He didn''t sound tormented when he was allegedly hanging out of his window and calling to men who passed by. That laying down on a pool table in the backroom of a leather bar while all kinds of men did all kinds of kinky stuff with him didn''t sound too tormented either.\ \ There is a nude pic of Roddy on the net. Well, it is allegedly him anyway. The legend is that he was hugely hung, but that pic sure doesn''t confirm that rumor. Looks very average to me.

• r53, nudes are linked.

• r53 that level of highy public sluttiness doesn''t exactly sound well adjusted. Some people react to self hate by whoring.

• yes, r47. It was impressive on a guy of his height, pretty sure he was no more than 5''9" (I''m 6'' and prefer guys taller than he) He also wore a white top, unbuttoned maybe halfway to his waist. Tight body, not too skinny but toned for someone about 70 IIRC - I''m sure it would have grossed out a number of people here. Maybe I was a little starstruck, but I thought he was hot.\ \ Not to sidetrack the thread but Roddy was there to meet a who who guy is rumored to have had sex with Nureyev and others, which is how he allegedly achieved his ''power'' in the business. That guy was very full of himself and quite unpleasant to underlings - someone who may have had plenty of secrets of his own. At the end of my employment the guy started to be nice to me. I left for a job where I thought I would have my own sordid adventures, but they never came to fruition. I thought I would become an insider to all the show biz scandals, but it was not to be.

  r46

• R53, on the contrary, he had a nick name around town Mr. Tiny Meat. His ding dong was said to be very tiny.

• He had a great career. He won a Tony and an Emmy and would have at least been nominated for an Oscar for Cleopatra but was mistakenly put up for Lead instead of Supporting Actor.\ \ He was on Broadway in Camelot with Richard Burton and Julie Andrews and sings a song on the original cast recording.\ \ Of course there are the four Planet of The Apes movies he starred in and hosted a comprehensive documentary on them before he died.\ \ He appeared on The Carol Burnett Show as her brother.\ \ Much of this is common knowledge but I wanted it out there as he''s just being referred to as a Hollywood gay gadfly.

• Totally possible that when I saw him he was fluffed and wearing a cockring, r57. In hindsight he may have had one and wore no underwear with that outfit (racking my memory!!) but once I recognized him I stopped thinking about what made it so prominent and I was just taken by his charming personality. He was also too close to my desk to see below his waist after I realized who he was. He was truly one of the nicest people I encountered on that job. I really wanted to see him head-to-toe again before he left, but I did not.

  r 46

• I met him in the late 70s. He would have been about 50 then but he looked great for his age and had a great body - very lean.

• Yes, R52. There was an article on this topic in today''s NYTimes. It is estimated that 60% of people with drug or alcohol problems have an underlying personality disorder.%0D\ %0D\ They use the drug/alcohol to relieve the symptoms (not realizing that that is what they are doing).

  http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/02/health/02abuse.html?ref=health

• He did a nice job with his small part in "Overboard" with Goldie and Kurt. The scene where Goldie''s character apologizes to him for being the c-word is kind of touching. They both did it well.

• Why hasn''t anyone brought up his fling with Yul Brynner? You queens are slipping and fast.

• I thought he still looked pretty fine in Fright Night.

• I''d like to hear about his fling with Richard Burton when they were doing "Camelot."

• "I watched an A&E Biography episode of Monty and everybody gushed about how charming and wonderful he was in the early years. Half way through the program he became a nasty crazy guy who was impossible to deal with. Drugs? Bitterness over the disfiguring accident? Death of his mother? All three? Something else?"%0D %0D His mother outlived him. %0D %0D It was the accident that sent him on his downward spiral. He was screwed up mentally before due to his mommy issues, but he really went to hell after the acccident. Not only was his beauty gone, he suffered chronic pain ever after. He was always prone to physical afflictions since childhood and he was ill and in pain for the rest of his life. I think it was a combination of mental instability and drug addiction and alcoholism that caused him to behave like a lunatic after the car crash.%0D %0D "on the contrary, he had a nick name around town Mr. Tiny Meat. His ding dong was said to be very tiny."%0D %0D You must be confusing Roddy with Monty. It was Monty who was nicknamed "Princess Tiny Meat."

• R57 is confused. R66 is correct.\ \ Everyone with a working memory knows that Roddy was famously hung. Plenty of photos of him in bathing suits and tight trousers attest to the truth of the stories. And Monty was just as famously known as Tiny Meat, not that anyone cared - Monty was not there to be a top.

• Roddy was a cutie, and he was way to successful as a young man to pose for the pics in #1 & #2, plus that doesn''t look like him at all.

• They said Monty was so beautiful before his accident that he had this extremely unique ability to attract and seduce straight men. Apparently he could get any man he wanted and there was no hesitation.

• The pics at r1 and r2 look exactly the same, except the "nudesploitation" one is reversed/flipped and darkened.

• [quote]Is there any truth that he wrote down every secret in Hollywood, and it''s placed in a vault somewhere?%0D\ %0D\ Yes. He wrote down every single secret, even the ones he didn''t know, and locked it away in the dungeon of his secret castle.%0D\ %0D\ Oh, honey, really.

• R71, please, with R69 posting one of the MARYest posts of all time (Monty''s hypnotic ability to lay every man on the planet owing to his beauty ), Roddy''s vaulted diary seems rather mundane.

• "They said Monty was so beautiful before his accident that he had this extremely unique ability to attract and seduce straight men. Apparently he could get any man he wanted and there was no hesitation."%0D\ %0D\ No STRAIGHT man would go to bed with another man, even if he was Princess Tiny Meat himself, Montgomery Clift. But as far as gay and bi guys go, well, I''m sure Monty never had to twist their arms to make them jump in the sack with him. %0D\ %0D

• R73, I agree.

• Richard burton screwed Farley Grangers wife while Farley slept in the next room.

• McDowall was a very good looking man. Its a shame the role most people today associate with him is one where you dont really see his face.

  http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-1oaNg_fOPFI/T1cpQreUZ0I/AAAAAAAAABs/vYyRwbTjdXE/s1600/planet-of-the-apes.jpg

• He's an odd one. The squeaky, girly voice, the porcelain fine features, and a lot of the cheesy roles he played later in his career work against him, but sometimes he did look good (image below is a still from his 1965 home movies on YouTube) and seemed to hold the genuine admiration of those who knew him.

  http://i2.ytimg.com/vi/EBInvGajCkc/mqdefault.jpg

• Get your paws on me, you damned sexy ape!

• How many of my friends here find the OP's reference to "elder gays" awfully offensive? I'm 62, and if it wasn't for this "elder gay" and a lot of my friends who fought the good fight against oppression with me, a lot of today's twinks would still be forced to live in the closet. I proudly take credit for the fact that I'm one of the thousands of fighters for human rights that made same-sex marriage a reality in today's world.

• I loved him in "The Legend of Hell House" which is a rip off of "The Haunting". I thought his acting was marvelous and he was at his height of cuteness.

• He is very cute.

• It seems NO ONE has ever written an unauthorized biography on Roddy. I wonder why?

• I agree he was handsome OP, and not just when he was young. He may not have been "hot" beyond the 70s, but he always looked good for his age.

• He is on several of Carol Burnett's Best of DVDs. And he is smoking hot!

• I can only imagine that no one ever attempted a biography on Roddy during his lifetime was because none of Roddy's friends and associates would ever agree to talk, knowing that Roddy had the goods on them. And after he died, well, except for the twenty or so people on this thread, no one would buy it.

• Look at the Sal Mineo biography. Someone should attempt Roddy's biography.

• How did anyone think those nudes at R1 & 2 are him? Those overdeveloped thighs couldn't have been his.

• Was McDowell bisexual? Frank Langella described him as such in his autobiography.

• He memorably played a gossip columnist in a TV movie written by Dominick Dunne, starring Rebecca DeMornay. It's actually pretty good. Roddy's character gets stung on the tongue by an insect and dies while Jill Eikenberry stands by. After he died, Dunne paid tribute to him in Vanity Fair as a loyal friend--and also outed him.

• [quote]I'm in my twenties, so I'm not some elder-gay What he means is he was BORN in the 20s Shut up you old fuck.

• RE 33 I googled Roddy's early 60's NYC BF, John Valva , and found out some heavy stuff I never knew. Roddy & John had a beautiful apt. , while Rod was on Broadway doing "Camelot" , with Richard Burton. Sybil Burton came into town , and rented an apt . In the same bldg. Then "Cleopatra" started up again ( after break from Liz' illness, and shooting relocating from London, to Rome). Liz got Roddy his part in the film , and told director Joe Mankiewicz to get Valva a small role too ( a Roman soldier). After filming, and the Taylor/ Burton scandal, Rod & John returned to NY. Sybil , now on her own , decided to get a house on Staten Island (???) , and moved out of the apt. And a big WTF, Valva moved in with her, like a couple . Roddy was shocked, and furious ( at Valva). After a month, Sybil & John realized they had made a big mistake, and he moved out. Roddy refused to take him back. There are images of him on Google, and being that was 50 years ago, he must have been very young, like 20. Looks very conservative, but cute.

  Sheilah%20Graham

• Those photos of a supposedly naked Roddy McDowell don't look anything like him. I don't think that's him. Anyway, Roddy McDowell appeared to be one of the best liked people in Hollywood. He was friends with EVERYBODY. Everybody liked him, even Louise Brooks, who was a belligerent, bad-tempered old lady when they became friends. I've never heard anything bad about him, nothing. Supposedly he has some kind of tell-all in a vault that isn't supposed to be published until some absurd date, like 2050 or something like that. Was he gay? Yes, by all accounts he was.