ON A PLATTER

Yes, my darlings. The White Party has come and gone. Agility and antics… And no, this item is not about Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., but it is about another icon of the silver screen. A man who played a spy, a pirate, a thief, a soldier, an epic hero… Once upon a time in a very big city, full of fun and frolic, lived a young man who was something of a party doll. He modeled, he acted, and he dressed up in his finest and went to all the hottest spots – usually for pay.

On one such occasion he rolled all these activities into one. At a ball at a grand hotel he removed his street clothes, climbed up onto a large silver platter in the buff, and was artfully displayed among vines and leaves and blossoms and bunches of grapes. When the time was right he was ported above the heads of some similarly handsome and muscular young men through an appreciative audience – one of whom was a casting agent at one of the major studios.

And thus, a star was born, and not so very long ago…