FRIDAY FAB 40+ DYLAN NEAL

I know what you are thinking, and you are wrong. Eyecons is not taking a break away from Magic Mike Week, strippers, nor even Canadian strippers. Dylan Neal may be an actor, but for anyone who's been aware of beautiful men, he was the first man to really bring male strippers to weekly (even daily) television on the appropriately named soap opera The Bold and The Beautiful. 


Seriously, if you give a show that particular name, you have raised the bar for a good looking cast to just an obscene level.  Expectations are going to be hiiiiiigh! However, the producers and casting directors proved that they were up to the task.  Tell me, just how many men are born with a face like this...

For each of these posts I try to pick the definitive and classiest pictures of the man of the day, and for Dylan it was like choosing between diamonds, each one as shiny and perfectly cut as the last. Architects could use that jawline as a protractor for the perfect right angle.

With eyes the bluest of blue, a smile with the dimpliest of dimples, pearly white teeth and beautiful, fluffy hair, Dylan has all the gifts. If there had not been a show called The Bold and the Beautiful, they would have to have created one just for him. 

Born in Richmond Hill, Ontario on October 8, 1969, Dylan is turning 43 this year, but looking none the worse for wear. There has to be a painting of him hanging in his attic that looks like Methuselah! Ponce de Leon wasted his time searching all over Florida; he need only have looked to Dylan to find the fountain of youth. 

I'll have what HE'S having!

Shades of Kurt Russell 

If my doctor looked like this, I would be throwing myself down stairs once a week

Dylan made his name in soaps and then transferred to prime time television here in North America.  

And yes, for the record, I tried to find the picture of him in a bathing suit, and to no avail. It is for such instances the word "harumph" was invented. 

With his otherworldly beauty, it's no surprise that Dylan  has developed a presence in fantasy programming like Smallville and Stargate Atlantis, and the film Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief. 

Here Dylan is at a Comic Con, but it looks more like a rehearsal for Camelot, and at any moment he is going to break into I Wonder What the King is Doing Tonight.

Dylan was on the demographically-skewed 20something show Hyperion Bay and made his mark as the responsible older brother of Mark Paul Gosselar.  For no explained reason, Dylan's beautiful mug was adorned with a beard.

Okay, you've got to admit, there is a certain lumberjack je ne sais quoi going on with that look. He did some hot shirtless work on the show...

Dylan made what was perhaps his biggest mark as the closeted gay sheriff on the hit series Dawson's Creek. 

"Whatever it is officer, I did it. Cuff me and take me away!"

His character dated the character played by Montgomery Clift lookalike Kerr Smith.

For a small coastal town, they sure had a disproportionately large hot gay population.

Dylan was also on other series like JAG...

These days, the handsome Dylan is seen on shows like USA Network's Psych, and looking as awesome as he did when he was young and restless (he's still bold and beautiful). 

Still, I said that I would be true to Magic Mike Week, and I shall. Dylan's fans can readily tell you that despite his wonderful career on television, the first thing we gays in North America think of when we hear his name is the fact that while on B&B, he played a guy down on his luck, who found that he could make extra money as a stripper.  This was at a time when the idea was rather novel and risqué. 

Some fine videos from those episodes...

You have to hand it to the show's producers for finding a way to bring Phyllis Diller into the mix. She was on every show cheering him on, and admonishing his character's girlfriend for being such a prude for trying to talk him out of stripping. You go, Phyllis!

No dummies, the producers of B&B put Dylan out front and center doing publicity as the stripping soap actor. He did a Playgirl shoot with no nudes, of course, but still, this is nothing to sneeze at...

(for the record, this one is not from Playgirl but i am putting it here anyway)

Still looking just as youthful and beautiful, one can only hope that the producer of an HBO, Showtime or Starz series will put him to work where he can get his clothes off again, and this time losing those damn towels!

Dylan Neal:

  

Canada's (and American soap's) original stripper!