Steve Reeves Forever!

There is one thing I will absolutely never get tired of, and that's looking at vintage physique photography of Steve Reeves. As an undergrad, when I still lived in housing, I had a giant Steve Reeves poster on the wall above my bed, which I used to give a light "good morning" peck to when I got up in the morning. Classically handsome, chiseled, with a physique like an Olympian god. He was perfectly cast as demigods like Hercules; only when playing mere mortals did he ever seem unbelievable. For actors, usually the reverse is true: it's hard to swallow that they're larger than life beings. I suspect this is why Reeves was so seldom seen outside Sword n' Sandal, a genre that was particularly perfect for him. It's hard to believe Reeves as a Rock Hudson-esque "suitor next door" in a romantic comedy, for instance. He was too blue-eyed, classically perfect and mythically physiqued.

It's hard to believe Steve Reeves turned down the part of James Bond in the original DR. NO, and the Clint Eastwood part in A FISTFULL OF DOLLARS. Sergio Leone's FISTFULL, incidentally, marked the end of the assembly-line S&S movie in Italy, as overnight they switched to producing the "Spaghetti Westerns." I have a feeling Reeves regretted that move, because he was from Montana and he always saw the highlight of his career was his one and only Western. It's funny how lead actors in Westerns and Sword n' Sandal pics are so very interchangeable.

I have no idea if Steve Reeves was approached to play Captain Kirk before Shatner was, but that would have been too perfect. There would be another role they had Reeves in mind that went on to become an institution with another actor. Reeves is the only person that would have been a worse. Actor. Than. William Shatner.

It may sound like I'm a little harsh on Reeves there, but I suspect one of the best-kept secrets in Hollywood is that Charleton Heston was actually a pretty crappy actor. But Heston had a presence that filled a movie. Much the same way Reeves's presence did the same for his films: you didn't pay to see acting, you paid to see a personality.

Healthy, massive, flawless, without roid-bloat, Reeves gets you nostalgic for a different kind of male physique ideal than the current, crazy "size over everything" crowd. I'd have a hard time calling him the handsomest man ever as long as Ulisses Williams Jr. exists, but that is certainly a label that, if it is an exaggeration, it isn't much of one.

Some might complain about the black and white photography, but I think this is missing the point. First, the reason most older physique pics are in black and white is because the world was black and white back then. Second, physique photography is meant to be in black and white. It turned limitation into a necessity by the use of contrast between light and dark on sun-glistening flesh.

Steve Reeves will be missed. I'm especially sad he died before he could make his cameo appearance in Ridley Scott's GLADIATOR. Now that would have been interesting.

I wonder...will the angels ask to feel his arms in heaven?