Salon.com > Damion Matthews

Gorgeous masculinity

Sat, 29 Apr 2000 16:00:00 +0000

My religious conversion to the muscle-magazine mind-set occurred in the middle of an Albertsons supermarket 10 months ago.

I had usually ignored men's magazines, but as I perused the magazine shelves, this one had an irresistible allure. Its cover featured a healthy, bright-faced youth, wearing nothing but a Speedo -- and a nicely bulging Speedo at that. He was shown emerging from a pool with a look on his face of absolute joy. Water dripped down his glorious, muscular body. He seemed to me the most gorgeous specimen of masculinity I had ever seen. Sort of like a young Tom Cruise, but sexier and with a less prominent nose. I quickly looked to see if the magazine's contents lived up to its cover. Indeed, they did. Page after page of male heat sizzled inside. Posing, sweating, getting physical. Men! Men! Men! I could feel my temperature rise.

Had I found the magazine Burn! Real Fitness for Real Men at a gay bookstore I wouldn't have been surprised, but at the local grocery market? That bastion of homogenous, middle-class, suburban heterosexual culture? What would Dr. Laura say? Though Burn! was disguised as just another fitness magazine, I blushed as I handed it to the clerk at the checkout stand. I knew it was much more than a fitness magazine.

Freudians prefer blonds

Wed, 10 Nov 1999 17:00:00 +0000

When Marilyn Monroe died in 1962, she left an estate valued at $92,781. In her will, she bequeathed her money to her half-sister, her mother and a few of her friends. Her will also stated that her personal effects and clothing were to go to Lee Strasberg, the acting coach, "it being my desire that he distribute these among my friends, colleagues and those to whom I am devoted." Their value at the time was $3,200.

Recently, Christie's New York auctioned off those same belongings for an astonishing $13.4 million. Of that sum, $612,600 went to the Literacy Partners, $441,650 to the World Wildlife Fund and the rest -- $12.3 million -- to one Anna Mizrahi Strasberg, widow of Lee Strasberg, a woman whom Marilyn Monroe had never even met. She is said to be thrilled.

The only other beneficiary of Monroe's estate is the Anna Freud Centre in England, an institute dedicated to researching the effects of long-term psychoanalysis and psychotherapy on emotionally disturbed children.

While Marilyn displayed some degree of dependence on her analysts and her acting mentor throughout her lifetime, her biographers suggest that, toward the end of her life, her relationship to both had cooled significantly. Did Marilyn intend for her legacy to end up where it did?

Hepburn vs. Hepburn

Wed, 06 Oct 1999 16:00:00 +0000

The telephone just rang. It was my friend Valerie, spurred on by some new observation she just had to share. It's nearly 2 in the morning, but does she care?

"Freak out, baby," she said, not even waiting for a hello. "Audrey Hepburn kicks Kate Hepburn's bony white ass. Her style soars! She's a Skyblazer! A Thunderbird! She Is My Queen!" And with those words she hung up.

She'd been watching "Funny Face" (1957), which I'd insisted she rent after learning she had never seen it. (Imagine that! A drag queen who had never seen "Funny Face"!) While I'm delighted by her enthusiasm for Audrey, her spiteful comment about Katharine, to whom I am eternally devoted, upsets me greatly. To take a jab at my most beloved heroine is to skewer my very heart.

Why did she do it? Revenge, probably. I think I touched a sore spot with her when I described the role Katharine Hepburn has played in my life. As I have explained to Valerie, it was when I discovered Katharine's films that I started to grow out of my Audrey phase. Katharine's fearless, quick-witted manner was a revelation to me. Her strength strengthened me and I became more self-reliant and courageous.

Katharine Hepburn made a man out of me.

Audrey was thinner

Wed, 06 Oct 1999 16:00:00 +0000

Simon Doonan is the creative talent behind the avant-garde, sometimes bizarre window displays at Barneys New York. His work has been described as "terrific street theater" by David Bowie, and received adulation from people such as Bette Midler, John Waters and Joan Rivers. His book, "Confessions of a Window
Dresser," which chronicles the fashion trends and pop
culture of the last two decades, is soon to be made into
a motion picture by New Line Cinema and Mad Guy
films, Madonna's production company. (It's rumored
that Rupert Everett may star.) Doonan, who writes a
column about celebrity style in Talk magazine,
recently spoke to Salon People about his appreciation of the
Audrey style.

If you could be either Audrey Hepburn or Katharine Hepburn, who would you be?

Audrey. She was thinner.

Why not Katharine?

I think Katharine Hepburn's style was totally unique, but ultimately, that persona, that calla lily persona, became a bit irritating. Whereas Audrey was just always very inginue -- and she had more of a skip in her walk.

Which Audrey movie is your favorite?