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yuletide season is almost upon us, and I have been considering my requests. Most of my fandoms are very small, and none more so than Enemy at the Door (LWT, 1978-1980), starring old British stars of the small screen, Alfred Burke and Simon Cadell.
Burke was one of those actors who had an absolutely mesmerizing face. He grew a beard to play EatD's Major Richter in an attempt, as the tie-in novel puts it, to protect the unsuspecting public from being overwhelmed by its ascetic charms:
"Richter had a capacity to charm that might cloud a man's judgement... Richter was too quiet, too urbane, with a face of that ascetic cast which is acquired by saints, librarians and autocratic confidence tricksters... Perhaps aware of this himself, Richter had grown a beard, but it did little to hide his saintly expression, merely covered the lower part of his face in a gingery stubble."
Spoiler alert: it didn't work. Even bearded, his face was irresistible.
I would have to admit to the power of that face's unbeardedness, though, amply displayed in Alfie's star turn as Frank Marker in Public Eye (ABC, Thames 1965-1975), another tiny fandom which has made its way onto my Yuletide list.
Another thing on unexpected display during Public Eye's Season 6 Episode 8's The Golden Boy: rather more of Alfie's unclothed form than one had come to expect from this stellar, unpretentious show that had never resorted to glamour or sex appeal. True to form, poor Frank had been taken on a terrible bender on behalf of a client; his target, the college-aged titular golden boy Vyvyan Reveldale had been compelled to take Frank home and undress him and then to spend the night, making breakfast for him the next day (and romantically quoting Schiller to him: Freedom is only in the kingdom of dreams). Anyway, here is Frank waking up in bed, unexpectedly naked and even more unexpectedly not alone (from 37:54):
And still further unexpected dispatches - - Alfie got most of his kit off in David Mercer's Rod of Iron (1980), wearing aged-up silver hair and taking his ubiquitous signet ring off in order to play Nigel Hawthorne's father. One would not have expected this serious role to involve quite so much nudity, but many of the promo photographs from that show featured unexpected naked Alfie, including this one:
What can one say? It's not just his face that is mesmerizing. (Thanks tokainosite for discovering the nudes and sharing.)
Young Simon Cadell stayed clothed for his two season run on EatD, but after the show was cancelled, he'd apparently made rather a thing of taking his clothes off (when asked to drop trou in 1987's Life Without George, Simon had reportedly said, "What underpants do you want me to wear? Or none, in fact?"). In 1984's raunchy TV adaptation of Tom Sharpe's Blott on the Landscape, he gamely bared all, leading to an amusing anecdote from one of the Royal Galas where Simon was presented to the Queen Mother at a backstage line-up. Apparently Her Majesty had looked him up and down, and remarked, "It's nice to see you with your clothes on for once", before moving on to the next participant.
Here is the episode in question (warning, most definitely not safe for work). Simon's civil servant character gets into trouble from the get-go, and then again from 47:30 until the end:
Alas, the Blott nudes aren't up on Shutterstock (the series can be found here), but Simon's physique is also featured in Tales of the Unexpected (1984). Simon plays scummy British author Sam Luke, who has travelled to New York (and has surrounded himself by the worst New York accents known to Anglia TV), in order to promote terrible sexist new book 'Women Weeping'. He sports an ugly moustache to telegraph the ugliness of his character, and spends the entire episode in a bathrobe, except for the long moments that he spends without it (from 10:00 and 17:33).
One is certain the Queen Mum would have had something to say about that, even if Reinicke wouldn't have been very amused.
yuletide season is almost upon us, and I have been considering my requests. Most of my fandoms are very small, and none more so than Enemy at the Door (LWT, 1978-1980), starring old British stars of the small screen, Alfred Burke and Simon Cadell. Burke was one of those actors who had an absolutely mesmerizing face. He grew a beard to play EatD's Major Richter in an attempt, as the tie-in novel puts it, to protect the unsuspecting public from being overwhelmed by its ascetic charms:
"Richter had a capacity to charm that might cloud a man's judgement... Richter was too quiet, too urbane, with a face of that ascetic cast which is acquired by saints, librarians and autocratic confidence tricksters... Perhaps aware of this himself, Richter had grown a beard, but it did little to hide his saintly expression, merely covered the lower part of his face in a gingery stubble."
Spoiler alert: it didn't work. Even bearded, his face was irresistible.
I would have to admit to the power of that face's unbeardedness, though, amply displayed in Alfie's star turn as Frank Marker in Public Eye (ABC, Thames 1965-1975), another tiny fandom which has made its way onto my Yuletide list.
Another thing on unexpected display during Public Eye's Season 6 Episode 8's The Golden Boy: rather more of Alfie's unclothed form than one had come to expect from this stellar, unpretentious show that had never resorted to glamour or sex appeal. True to form, poor Frank had been taken on a terrible bender on behalf of a client; his target, the college-aged titular golden boy Vyvyan Reveldale had been compelled to take Frank home and undress him and then to spend the night, making breakfast for him the next day (and romantically quoting Schiller to him: Freedom is only in the kingdom of dreams). Anyway, here is Frank waking up in bed, unexpectedly naked and even more unexpectedly not alone (from 37:54):
And still further unexpected dispatches - - Alfie got most of his kit off in David Mercer's Rod of Iron (1980), wearing aged-up silver hair and taking his ubiquitous signet ring off in order to play Nigel Hawthorne's father. One would not have expected this serious role to involve quite so much nudity, but many of the promo photographs from that show featured unexpected naked Alfie, including this one:
What can one say? It's not just his face that is mesmerizing. (Thanks to
kainosite for discovering the nudes and sharing.)Young Simon Cadell stayed clothed for his two season run on EatD, but after the show was cancelled, he'd apparently made rather a thing of taking his clothes off (when asked to drop trou in 1987's Life Without George, Simon had reportedly said, "What underpants do you want me to wear? Or none, in fact?"). In 1984's raunchy TV adaptation of Tom Sharpe's Blott on the Landscape, he gamely bared all, leading to an amusing anecdote from one of the Royal Galas where Simon was presented to the Queen Mother at a backstage line-up. Apparently Her Majesty had looked him up and down, and remarked, "It's nice to see you with your clothes on for once", before moving on to the next participant.
Here is the episode in question (warning, most definitely not safe for work). Simon's civil servant character gets into trouble from the get-go, and then again from 47:30 until the end:
Alas, the Blott nudes aren't up on Shutterstock (the series can be found here), but Simon's physique is also featured in Tales of the Unexpected (1984). Simon plays scummy British author Sam Luke, who has travelled to New York (and has surrounded himself by the worst New York accents known to Anglia TV), in order to promote terrible sexist new book 'Women Weeping'. He sports an ugly moustache to telegraph the ugliness of his character, and spends the entire episode in a bathrobe, except for the long moments that he spends without it (from 10:00 and 17:33).
One is certain the Queen Mum would have had something to say about that, even if Reinicke wouldn't have been very amused.
