Allan Jones shocked me!

[MasterLcZ]

Posted: 4/16/07 at 3:47pm

Handsome singing star of the 1936 SHOWBOAT and lots of MGM musicals from the 1930s including The FIRELY, A DAY AT THE RACES and EVERYBODY SING. Judy Garland has his photo on her piano in THOROUGHBREDS DON'T CRY. In the late 1930s, he leaves MGM and does THE GREAT VICTOR HERBERT with Mary Martin at Paramount eventually landing at Universal where he does THE BOYS FROM SYRACUSE with Martha Raye and then a handful of B-Musicals before leaving the business in 1945. I saw one of his Universal programmers at Film Forum a few days ago at Film Forum: MOONLIGHT IN HAVANA with lovely Jane Frazee, Bill "Fred Mertz" Frawley and "The Jivin' Jacks 'n Jills" (a pre-teen dance troupe). Not much of a story and the songs were meh, but in one scene, Allan Jones takes off his shirt - and he's surpringly buff...and furrier than Sean Connery and Brian D'Arcy Janes combined.

I was stunned. Shocked. And delighted. I've never seen a leading man in a 1940s Hollywood movie with a hairy chest - the studios routinely required male stars to shave to twinkie-smoothness. And I've never seen ANY man so furry in a musical.
Aside from William Holden in the 1950s and Sean Connery in the 1960s, can anyone think of another romantic leading man who was spared the studio razor?
Allan Jones

[doodlenyc]

Posted: 4/16/07 at 3:53pm

Thanks for the heads up...

and he was Jack Jones' daddy!

[mejusthavingfun]

Posted: 4/16/07 at 3:55pm

woa.. woa woa