He of the arched eyebrows, impressive hair and jaw like a house, Harry Hamlin, has been telling the L.A. Times that a co-starring role in a gay movie back in 1982 nixed his Hollywood career before it began.

Harry was the poster boy of the early ‘80s – kind of a male Farah Fawcett. Out of obscurity he hit the big time in 1981 with classy blockbuster, Clash Of The Titans (memorable for Lawrence Olivier as Zeus and Ray Harryhausen’s plasticine monsters), which is about to get rebooted.

Harry must have been rubbing his hands with glee – he was officially ‘hot property’, had bagged Ursula Andress and there was bound to be a Clash 2. Then, a few months later, his little gay movie called Making Love came out and it was game over until he found his niche on TV in the massively successful series, L.A. Law.

Making Love was ground breaking in its day; it was the first mainstream gay movie to come out of Hollywood and marked a change by portraying gay characters as diverse, sympathetic and ‘just like us’. Suddenly gays weren’t all cross-dressing, knife-wielding psychopaths – we wanted the same things as everyone else.

Harry plays a young, promiscuous gay who gets involved with a closeted, married man, played by the excellent Michael Ontkean (Twin Peaks). The movie might now seem timid and simplistic in its handling of social themes, but it was controversial upon its release and Harry believes that playing an out and proud gay man after all that swords-and-sandals action in Titans “confused” audiences. Oh I see, Harry, you think because you were playing gay, audiences couldn’t comprehend that you were just acting… hmmm.

Is it possible that without his gay movie role People Magazine’s ‘Sexiest Man Alive’ of 1987 would have gone on to challenge, say, Harrison Ford for some of those juicy movie parts? Unlikely. If you look back, ‘80s cinema is stuffed with forgotten, one-hit, pretty boys. I think a gay movie like Making Love on your resume is more likely to get you remembered.

Interesting fact: Harry Hamlin once made a movie with an actor called Joseph Bottoms. For real.