Since today is his 64th birthday, it’s as good a time as any to again feature Bjorn Borg, the gorgeous guy who played in six of those finals in his career and won five of them – including an all-time classic in 1980 against John McEnroe.
Borg has become quite the Swedish silver fox!
The tennis legend, once ranked number one in the world over archrivals McEnroe and Jimmy Connors, burst onto the scene in 1973 when he made the quarterfinals of Wimbledon and became a major teen idol.
He went on to win a record five consecutive Wimbledon singles titles (an all-time record he holds with Roger Federer and six overall French Open singles titles. Borg is considered to be one of the greatest tennis players of all time.
He is the only player in the open era to win both Wimbledon and the French Open in the same year more than twice, winning both for three consecutive years.
Bjorn broke a lot of hearts when he walked away from the game in 1981. He was just 25. But he’s stayed busy playing seniors events and with various business interests including a line of men’s underwear several years back. It featured an ad campaign for his new underwear line “Love For All” with an amazing new ad featuring two male priests getting married.
Julia Sugarbaker (played by the late, great Dixie Carter) is an elegant, outspoken liberal intellectual who had lived her life with refined dignity.
Until the fashion show.
Julia took to the runway of the charity event unaware that her dress was tucked up into her underwear.
What I love about this clip is how utterly humiliated Julia is. Dixie Carter just plays it brilliantly, as usual. It was not often we saw Julia in such a vulnerable position since she was the Alpha Female in this group usually pointing out how silly the others were being.
My favorite exchange is this:
Julia: What I don’t understand is why didn’t somebody tell me?”
Suzanne: “What I don’t understand is where were your underwear?”
Got an email from a publicist promoting this stunning young man – it had the top two photos and a complete bio. So I’m running with it – word for word!
Enjoy!
Sizzling hot Havana, Cuba-born bilingual actor Carlo Arrechea is a star on the rise in Hollywood, recently making his U.S. prime time debut in the CBS hit TV series S.W.A.T. where he portrayed ‘Gio Torres’, a middleweight Cuban boxer, aka “The Caribbean King.” In the series, Torres is a prize fighter set to win a huge upcoming match when his pregnant wife if kidnapped and held for ransom. He enlists the S.W.A.T. team and works with them to retrieve his wife right in time for the delivery of their first child. The heartfelt role has garnered him much media attention and was one that was especially significant to him as it tied back to his Cuban roots.
A third-generation actor, Arrechea’s career began at the age of 6 when he played the son to his biological mother in a telenovela in his home country of Cuba. He fell in love with the craft and was selected as one of the stars of the children’s show “Los Chicos Altura” (“The High Kids”). In 2012 his family moved to Miami when he was 12 years old and he faced a culture shock that made him rethink acting. He decided to study psychology in college but dropped out after only one semester to return to his true passion. It was during this time that he got into theater and started receiving a lot of attention for his stage performances including “El Solar de la Palangana de Oro” by Raúl de Cárdenas, a work that opened many doors for him and earned him press coverage as the “new face of acting” by People en Español.
From theater, he jumped into television where he began with small roles in well-known Telemundo and Univision telenovelas such as “Más saber el diablo”, “El Cartel 2″ and “Alguien te Mira”. He also starred in two short films, “Fate’s Decree” directed by Michael Ruiz and the super production “El Manantial”, with renowned Sam Bradley as director. His career thus began to roll, and his name to be known on the Miami scene. Not long after he was cast in the successful Nickelodeon Latin America series “Grachi” which he starred in for three seasons (152 episodes). It was during this time that he also stared in his first leading film role in the romantic comedy LA REBÚSQUEDA, the highest-grossing Salvadoran film in the country’s history.
After his success in Latin America, Arrechea decided to move to Los Angeles to begin his crossover into the U.S. market. Throughout his acting career, he has starred in several television commercials, including the Jonnie Walker national commercial which toasts to immigrants and highlights their grueling path towards citizenship. He is a member of SAG-AFTRA and is an alumnus of the Stella Adler Academy of Acting. As a Cuban-born actor, Arrechea has always looked up to the original Latin Comedy star Desi Arnaz and a dream role for him would be to reprise the role of ‘Ricky Ricardo’ in a comedy series or film.
In his free time Arrechea enjoys reading, meditating, and exercising, and sees every day the opportunity to grow and improve in all aspects. He also enjoys volunteering for The Ronald McDonald House, where he feeds, plays games, and speaks with children and parents who have seriously ill children or family members in hospital.
I’m not in the business of outing people but I’m certainly happy to write about people coming out.
The celebrity whose coming out story I can claim full credit for is that of Victor Garber who talks about it in the latest issue of The Hollywood Reporter:
VICTOR GARBER, ACTOR, 71: I did come out inadvertently. This happened in an interview in Pasadena. I think it was after the Golden Globes in 2013 after Argo. And this guy was interviewing me, and he said, “How long have you been together with [your husband] Rainer [Andreesen]?” And I said, “Oh, we’ve been together a number of years” and didn’t really think about it. And Rainer was on a ski lift in Aspen and said he got like 40 texts and he nearly fell out of his chairlift. He said, “I guess you’re outed now.”
Here’s more of what Garber had to say in the issue: Ian McKellen and I had dinner one night, and it was just around the time he had come out [in 1988]. He told me I had to come out. And it really resonated with me. But I didn’t have the courage to do it until I was older.
After playing Jesus in Godspell, the director, David Greene, said, “I’d like you to play Liberace [in 1988's Liberace: Behind the Music].” There were some people who thought it wasn’t a good move [because Liberace had just died of AIDS], but I didn’t care. There was no question that I was going to do it. But I didn’t work in TV for years after that.
It is Pride Month and this video is from a year ago when the Emmy-winning Pose star belted out the power ballad Home from the musical The Wiz at World Pride in NYC.
The very handsome Giacomo Gianniotti began playing surgical resident Dr. Andrew DeLuca, on Grey’s Anatomy in 2015.
The Italian-Canadian actor studied theater at Humber College and made his acting debut in the Italian television series Medicina Generale in 2010. He went on to play recurring roles in the television series Reign (2013) and Murdoch Mysteries (2013–2014).
The 30-year-old actor also starred as Freddy in the now cancelled television series Selfie (2014), and later acted in the made-for-TV drama film The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe. In 2015, Gianniotti appeared in Backpackers as Andrew.
Former President Barack Obama spoke out tonight during virtual town hall hosted by My Brother’s Keeper Alliance, a program of the Obama Foundation. He personally thanked protesters in the streets across the nation following the death of George Floyd.
“As tragic as these past few weeks have been, as difficult and scary and uncertain as they’ve been, they’ve also been an incredible opportunity for people to be awakened to some of these underlying trends and they offer an opportunity for us to all work together to tackle them. To take them on. To change America and make it live up to its highest ideals.”
He drew comparison to 1960s: “There is something different here. You look at those protests and that was a far more representative cross-section of America out on the streets peacefully protesting…that didn’t exist back in the 1960s…There is a change in mindset that’s taking place, a greater recognition, that we can do better.”
Obama didn’t directly criticize anyone during the event, but he closed with a veiled message to those Americans who have criticized or are worried about the protests.
“And for those who have been talking about protests, just remember, this country was founded on protest. It is called the American Revolution,” he said. “And every step of progress in this country, every expansion of freedom, every expression of our deepest ideals, has been won through efforts that made the status quo uncomfortable. And we should all be thankful for folks who are willing in a peaceful, disciplined way to be out there making a difference.”
The nation’s first black president closed the speech with a direct call to the mostly young people who have recently taken to the streets: “Keep working. And stay hopeful.”
“This is a moment, and we have had moments like this before where people are paying attention. And that doesn’t mean that everything will get solved, so don’t get disheartened, because this is a marathon, not a sprint. But the fact that people are paying attention provides an opportunity to educate, activate, mobilize and act,” Obama said. “And I hope we are able to seize this moment.”
The busy newsman is juggling coverage of nationwide racial unrest and the COVID-19 pandemic with being a new daddy. He’s on the air each night during these excruciatingly difficult times and is often a voice of sanity.
Here are some photos of the birthday man before and after he became The Silver Fox.
Today, Jill and I are proud to stand with LGBTQ+ people and their allies in America and around the world to honor and celebrate the 50th anniversary of Pride Month.
Fifty years ago, a group of courageous individuals took their first steps towards pride in the Christopher Street Day Liberation March. One year after Stonewall, the world’s first pride march was an act of rebellion, a protest for LGBTQ+ people to be treated as human beings, and a demand that America live up to its founding principles.
We’ve made remarkable progress towards LGBTQ+ rights in the decades since, from Harvey Milk’s historic election to the first openly gay major presidential candidate. During the Obama-Biden Administration alone, we signed the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act into law; repealed Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell; addressed the epidemic of bullying in schools; established the advancement of LGBTQ+ equality as a foreign policy priority; and the White House beamed bright with the colors of the rainbow to mark the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision recognizing marriage equality.
It took hard work. It took acting up, organizing PFLAG moms, developing student activists, and a tireless persistence that HIV/AIDS be destigmatized and treated. Many paid a personal and a professional price just for being who they are — risking their jobs, livelihoods, and physical well-being. Many still do.
Despite our progress, much work remains.
As our nation grapples with the uncomfortable truths of systemic racism, a devastating pandemic that’s claimed more than 100,000 lives in the United States and left more than 40 million people filing for unemployment, and a President that’s waged an all-out assault on the rights of our most vulnerable, including LGBTQ+ people, we are reminded of why those first brave souls took to the streets to march 50 years ago.
Donald Trump and Mike Pence have systematically used the power of the White House as a literal bully pulpit to undermine LGBTQ+ rights. They have given safe harbor to white supremacists and other forms of hate. Predictably, we’ve experienced a rise in hate crimes targeting LGBTQ+ people. They rescinded the ability of transgender individuals to openly serve their country in the military, have denied LGBTQ+ people access to critical health care, and are failing to address the epidemic of violence against transgender people. The Trump-Pence Administration has abdicated America’s global leadership on human rights and walked away from our values, repeatedly failing to speak out against the abuses of authoritarian regimes.
This is wrong. We must send a clear message that hatred and bigotry have no place in America or on the world stage. As President, I will take swift action to reverse these odious policies and advance our progress toward ending discrimination against LGBTQ+ individuals. And I will start by signing into law the Equality Act.
There are dark and challenging realities ahead that we cannot ignore. Yet, I remain optimistic because I believe in who we are as a nation. I believe in the story of this country and the LGBTQ+ community.
Pride has come to be recognized as a global movement of love, self-expression, and community — resilient in the face of oppression and fear and hopeful for a better future. This month, let us recommit to those principles of Pride and remain steadfast in the fight for justice and equality.
Let us celebrate and honor the legacies of Aimee Stephens, Larry Kramer, and Lorena Borjas. Together, we will write a new chapter in America’s march toward justice and win the battle ahead of us this November.
Happy Pride.
Today is Spanish superstar Rafael Nadal’s 34th birthday so it’s a perfect time to feature the world’s number two ranked tennis player.
COVID-19 has the tennis tours on hold for now which means Rafa missed out on a chance to add to his already record 12 French Open titles. He has also won the US Open four times, Wimbledon twice and the Australian Open once for a total of 19 grand slam singles titles. Only Roger Federer, who has 20, has won more. He finished 2019 as the oldest year-end World No. 1 in history.
I have a great appreciation for Nadal’s grit and guts and absolute sexiness. He upped the sexy quotient in 2018 by returning to the sleeveless shirts he wore during the early years of his career. What he’s even better is he now pairs the shirts with shorts compared to the capri pants he wore back then.
Best of all, Nadal is a total class act who is gracious and thoughtful in defeat.
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Since today is his 64th birthday, it’s as good a time as any to again feature Bjorn Borg, the gorgeous guy who played in six of those finals in his career and won five of them – including an all-time classic in 1980 against John McEnroe.
After his success in Latin America, Arrechea decided to move to Los Angeles to begin his crossover into the U.S. market. Throughout his acting career, he has starred in several television commercials, including the Jonnie Walker national commercial which toasts to immigrants and highlights their grueling path towards citizenship. He is a member of SAG-AFTRA and is an alumnus of the Stella Adler Academy of Acting. As a Cuban-born actor, Arrechea has always looked up to the original Latin Comedy star Desi Arnaz and a dream role for him would be to reprise the role of ‘Ricky Ricardo’ in a comedy series or film.
The very handsome Giacomo Gianniotti began playing surgical resident Dr. Andrew DeLuca, on Grey’s Anatomy in 2015.
Today is Anderson Cooper’s 53rd birthday.
