Shirtless!: A Hollywood Male Physique (Hardcover)

by Donald F. Reuter (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Tired of waiting for the scene when he takes it off? Then feast your eyes on Shirtless!, featuring more than 175 images of the best bare-chested men in Hollywood. Shirtless! tracks the muscular development of the male movie star with many never-before-seen photos. Here are all the favorite heroes of American cinema including silent-era heartthrob Rudolph Valentino, a swimsuit-clad Cary Grant from the thirties, barrel-chested Bob Mitchum at the height of forties patriotism, the fifties rebel James Dean, the hip and hirsute Sean Connery from the sixties, seventies stud Jan-Michael Vincent, eighties superman Arnold Schwarzenegger, the nineties sculpted Rupert Everett, and uberbabe Chris Klein beginning the new century. You'll also find some unexpected displays of male flesh and rediscover classic hunk films that are worth another look. An irreverent, indulgent, and informative visual journey through the world of movie muscle, Shirtless! will leave you breathless.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 160 pages
• Publisher: Universe Publishing; illustrated edition edition (January 6, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0789305089
• ISBN-13: 978-0789305084
• Product Dimensions: 10.5 x 6.6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #790,464 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Celebrity Skin, January 24, 2001

By	Wesly Moore "sazeracboy" (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

You can tell from the cover photo of 50s beach icon Tab Hunter, still beautiful after all these years, that this book is something special. When you open to the frontispiece of sweetly innocent Sal Mineo, then turn to the double-page title spread picturing heart-stopping Johnathan Schaech suggestively straddling a Harley, you know you're in for quite a treat. Donald F. Reuter, author of Heartthrob: A Hundred Years of Beautiful Men, has done it again. He has, in fact, outdone himself.

There is something almost fetishist in our attraction to celebrities and our fascination with their beauty. Hollywood knows this and caters to it at every available opportunity. What better and more direct way to our wallets is there than through our collective libido? For proof of this, we need look no further than the past few seasons' crops of teen-dream flicks, all attempting to capitalize on our lust. From "Titanic" to "I Know What You Did Last Summer" to "Here On Earth" to "Dude, Where's My Car?" we are inundated with images of the faces and bodies of beautiful men-all to get us to plant our butts in theater seats and separate us from eight bucks. And it works...sometimes with huge success, others less so.

For the purposes of this volume, Reuter divides our celebrity history into decades, the Thirties through the Nineties, prefaced by a section on silent film stars. These photos of pre-Hayes Code film actors showing off their best assets are especially noteworthy. Bevies of beautiful men from each decade are featured in all their bare-chested glory. In the accompanying enjoyable and often catty commentary, Reuter examines the appeal of each celebrity hunk and analyzes changes in society and in our attitudes toward objectification and worship of the male body. Over the course of 150+ pages, over 160 film and television icons are presented for our enjoyment and edification. The photos are glorious and often rare, some from the author's personal collection. There is truly something for everyone.

Although Shirtless! is ambitious in scope and completely successful in its achievement, no book of finite size can be infinite in scope, and everyone is bound to have a favorite celebrity who escaped inclusion. Where are Keanu Reeves, Scott Wolf, Simon Rex? Don't let the impossibility of including every movie and television star who ever took off his shirt deter you from adding this book to your personal library. After all, there are always Scott Baio, Jimmy McNichol, and Matt Dillon!

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Shirtless in Hollywood", February 15, 2001

By	Joseph J. Hanssen "Joe" (Upstate New York) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

I think there are enough men here to last a lifetime for everyone. If you like to see your men shirtless this is the book for you. Over 175 celebrity stars, actors, hunks, whatever you want to call them are here for your enjoyment. It's great that someone has finally brought together all the photos of these shirtless stars of past and present fame in one book. I rather enjoyed the comments made by author Donald Reuter throughout the book describing the photographs which helped to give the book a gay sensibility. As an added bonus it can serve as a reference book because all the stars dates of birth are given and regretfully the dates of those that have passed on.

From the very attractive cover design to the unique size of the book, this is one book that should be in your collection. A few stars were missing, but all in all a good representation. Highly recommended!

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Size does matter, January 28, 2002

By	Alan A. Pereira (superior, co United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

One reviewer favorably referred to the "unique size" of this book, but that's what I find its greatest fault. The dimensions of the book are 10.52 x 6.58, resulting in photo after photo being divided at the spine; I found it extremely frustrating to see so many gorgeous faces and bodies compromised, so to speak, in this manner. Also, because of the book's dimensions, many photos are reduced to tiny inserts on the page.

All that said, there are too many fabulous photos here to write the book off. The pictures of Tab Hunter and Mark Damon alone are worth the price of admission. If only...

I would be willing to pay much much more for a larger, coffee table edition of Shirtless. As it stands, I'll still keep this horizontally-challenged offering on hand for anytime I feel like drooling.