Happy Birthday to Michael Ontkean...
We don't see much of this handsome guy anymore but he certainly has left an impression on us.
Michael Ontkean, the star of the TV series "The Rookies" and "Twin Peaks" and who co-starred with Paul Newman in "Slap Shot," turns 63 today.
He was an early crush of mine well before he went on to play a gay man in 1982's "Making Love." If you haven't seen it, he plays a handsome doctor who is married to a beautiful television executive (Kate Jackson, who also played his wife on "The Rookies"). They are the best friends but things are shaky in bed.
Enter Harry Hamlin, a handsome novelist and swinging single who goes to the doc for a check-up which leads to lunch, then a dinner, then a bottle of wine or two then...DESSERT! The movie came out just as AIDS was beginning to rip the guts out of the gay community but the disease is not addressed here since the film was made when not much at all was known about AIDS. But it does capture the era well of men marrying women and struggling to submerge their sexuality - unsuccessfully, of course.
Anyway, Ontkean just breaks your heart in this film - a good man who really loves his wife but ultimately must face his truth.
Several years later in tne miniseroes "Family Album," Ontkean and Jaclyn Smith played a couple with several children - one of which is gay. Ontean's character is extremely homophobic and, rejects his son and tries to beat up the boyfriend. What I liked was that Smith's character did not stand idly by and accept the hoimophobia - she kicks hubby out. But time goes by and the acceptance and reconciliation is beautiful ... then boyfriend gets killed!
Well, it was on Lifetime after all.
Happy B-day Michael! We miss ya.
Below is the famous love scene between Ontkean and Hamlin in "Making Love"
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in Hollywood
Greg Hernandez authored Out In Hollywood for the Daily News from June 2006 to February 2009. He can now be found at Greg In Hollywood: www.greginhollywood.com
Thanks for posting! Memories.......But for those who haven't seen the film, especially the younger set....this posted scene is ALL there is in the film as far as any kind of contact between the two actors...you see more on tv these days - but it was shocking when seen in a movie theatre in Dayton in early 1982....by the way, when the movie was written and released, there WAS NOT such a thing as a known AIDS epidemic -- which only started to rear its ugly head during the summer of 82...