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Men in Tights

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Today is the anniversary of the debut of the musical Camelot on Broadway in 1960.

There is some comfort in this story for those who fear that if things start off badly, they will end badly too.

In its out-of-town productions, Camelot was a mess, far too long, disorganized and overly wordy. The director had a heart attack and the playwright/lyricist was hospitalized. Scenes were cut and songs were added and removed with little notice. But the music was great and the cast recording became the number one selling album in America for more than a year – a thought that is laughable today. Powerful casting and timely performances on the Ed Sullivan Show helped make it a success.

And no one could sing this song like Robert Goulet.

EPSON MFP image

Goulet exuded so much manliness in the role of Lancelot, he temporarily made it OK for young men to wear tights (as long as it was understood by everyone that there was no enjoyment in it – this was simply part of the job). There were plenty of high school stagings in subsequent years where the Lancelot aura provided some cover for teenage boys, including the Macon High School production of 1973.

You can see by my face that I have momentarily lost my Goulet-inspired confidence, and am looking for an exit.

Years later I met Robert Goulet when he came in for a radio interview. He exuded all the joie du vivre I expected from him, and though he was 70 years old and in his third marriage, he flirted with our young red-haired receptionist and whispered to me as he left, “that’s my kind of woman”!

Of course I told her, and she was delighted to hear it. It’s not every day that a genuine star takes a fancy to you. I wonder if she would have felt the same way, had he been wearing his tights.

Describe a time you’ve felt self-concious about your clothes.

84 thoughts on “Men in Tights”

  1. After my first divorce at age 30, I was asked out by an incredibly charming, handsome guy named Tim to go horseback riding. I dressed up in a gingham shirt, skinny jeans, and bought a wig with long enough hair to make into cute cowgirl braids. I’d never ridden before but my horse seemed to be a follower and trotted well behind Tim’s. I saw the tree branch coming, but instead of ducking to avoid it, I sat upright to see if it was going to hit me. Well, it did, and along with the “hit”, left my braided wig dangling from the branch! I was stunned but managed to put my horse in park. Tim, gentleman that he was, rode back, and surveyed the situation just in time for the dangling wig to drop to the ground whereupon my horse stepped on it. He dismounted, plucked it from the ground and dusted it off, saying, “You don’t need this”. He was so mistaken! I did need it as my own hair was flattened by bobby pins, leaving me feeling self-conscious and ugly for the rest of the date.

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  2. Good morning. Great picture, Dale. You had a lot more hair or was that a wig? It certainly does look like you not too happy about posing for that picture.

    When I entered high school my Dad thought I should learn to dress properly and I was given dress pants to wear to school. I don’t know why I didn’t immediately rebel and refuse to wear them. No one else wore dress pants to school in those days which was the mid fifties. I certainly didn’t like wearing them. I think after about a year of dress pants I changed over whatever was in style then, I believe it was blue genes. I guess I was not excessively bothered by the dress pants. I do remember that I was happy to be done with wearing them.

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  3. Rise and Shine Baboons!

    OMG is that hair or a hat?—To echo Jim.

    Since getting old and fat (but ever grateful to be alive, since cancer treatment triggered the weight-gain), I always feel self-conscious about my clothes.

    I still love this musical. Sigh.

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    1. Yes, it was hair Jim and Jacque. I had extra at the beginning so I could go without in my mid-to-later years. Like having dessert first, I guess.

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  4. Nice legs, Dale! I can see no reason why you shouldn’t have felt confident in that outfit, except for the fact that you were a teenager, but I suppose that’s the point.

    As a teen I was terribly self-concious, partly because i had what at the time seemed like terminal acne. No amount of cream or medication could remedy it. When you add to that I shot up from being the shortest to the tallest kid in my class at age 13, there was simply no way I ever felt comfortable. I recall going to a school dance when I was 15 wearing a dress that my mother had borrowed from one of our neighbors, a woman in her early 40s at the time. The dress was too large for me, and although I never wore nylons or a bra (didn’t need one!), my mother insisted I wear both to the dance. When I got to the school, I promptly went to the girls’ locker room (the dance was held in the girls’ gym) and removed the nylons and put on a pair of white bobby socks I had stuffed in my coat pocket. I spent the evening sliding on the polished, and slick floor in the locker room as I knew no one was going to ask me to dance anyhow.

    As a rule, I don’t wear clothes that make me feel self-concious. I’ve never paid all that much attention to fashion, although looking back, I’ve certainly worn lots of outfits that I’d find embarrassing today. During my tenure at KPMG women’s business suits were in vogue, complete with little bow ties, and I had several of them. Trying to look the part, I guess, and it must have worked; they actually took me seriously!

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    1. Yes, there was one other King Arthur for that production, PJ. Brian Britton was a better singer and actor, but he had skinny legs. So I won the Battle of the Tights.

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      1. Makes sense to me Dale. No one ever became Miss America, I’m sure, based on the talent part of the show. The legs have it.

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  5. Having had dreadful self-esteem as a teen and through my 20’s, I’m usually pretty self-conscious about how I look. Essentially losing my hair up top has not helped the situation (although, contrary to what you may believe, I didn’t take to wearing hats because of that). Generally speaking, I’ve learned to develop a fairly substantial apathy toward what people think as far as my clothes are concerned. People usually pick up on my pattern of ‘polo shirts in spring/summer, turtlenecks in fall/winter’ within a few years of seeing me around. Easy, cheap, low maintenance, comfortable, and just enough to ~maybe~ look dressy but still be casual. I was just wondering if my clothes are a subconscious reflection of my personality…mmm…some yea, some nay.

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    1. That’s almost exactly my wardobe, TGITH. Polo shirts in the warm weather, mock turtlenecks in the winter. I give you points for authenticity.

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  6. oh i was always into the style of the mode of life the bell bottoms and earth shoes in the early 70’s the pierre cardin and olag cassinni in the late 70’s early 80’s when i began my business career and ironed a crisp collar on my shirt and decided on a windsor or a double windsor knot for my tie.(today i tie a shelby knot it really is the best) to the casual but dressed up versions with tommy bahama and some of those golf shirt companies who make decent looking shirts to wear under a blazer. i have always been a sports coat fan but felt like my style was a timeless one that would be forgiven by the fashionistas. looking back i see that maybe i was following the trend with a bit of a personalized twist to it. birkys a coat and a hat are preferred but the rest (jeans and a shirt/sweater) are open for the whim of the moment. as for discomfort someone once told me the only person who notices the difference between a bad hair day and a good hair day is you and i have kind of adapted it one step further and applied it to fashion. but thats today.
    way back when 2-6 grade i went to catholic school with the powder blue shirts navy blue pin wale cords and the navy blue tie. i did everything i coud think of to do a variation on those themes and not get kicked out of school and got run up to sister mary magdalines office for inspection regularly. cool skin tight wide wale cords in a dusty blue instead of nave was pushing it but i got away with it and suddenly others were allowed to buy those pants too. the blue shirt was replaced buy a button down collar with rounded points on the collar ala hermans hermits or the beatles and again i got away with it but mess with a navy blue tie and you’ve gone too far. my dad said it was ok to wear a green one on st patricks day and when the nuns said it certainly was not he came and took me home for st pattys and said they were all screwed up (nice to have a little support) years later when my kids went to the international school and they started getting real uppity about the maroon and or white or gray 3 button golf shirts with the schools name printed over the heart (puke) i wrote a letter and the word nazi being include got the attention of the head of the school who was quite sensitive about such words.
    i have been on stage giving a presentation with my fly down (but who knew) and i have been embarrassed to be caught in clothes i thought i was putting on for a minute and realized 8 hours later as i was walking into a concert or aplay maybe a different selection would have been more appropriate, but heck i let it roll off my back
    so dale the lead means you sang the”if ever i should leave you” and ” c’est moi” tunes for the masses? quite impressive. nice legs by the way. i had bangs like that and my fashion sense told me my curly hair need to be tamed so i would put scotch tape on my bangs to make the lay down flat in 5th 6th 7th grade and eventually turned to putting the vacume cleaner on reverse to blow rather than suck the air and assist me in developing my pre hand held hair dryer poof hair doo a thing of wonder in the jr high school halls of bloomington. sr high was long hair that got brushed every now and a again to go with the jeans that got washed every now and again. i guess fashion does sneak up on you (or me anyway) and make a difference

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    1. Oh hair! I have very fine hair with absolutely no body, but for a couple of years while in high-school I was a model once a week for a neighbor who was an apprentice in a beauty salon. There were various techniques she had to learn, and the one she practiced on me was curling my hair with a curling iron. One fancy hairdo after another, once a week for over a year. Of course, my mode of transportation to and from the salon was my bicycle, so by the time I got back home most of Jytte’s handiwork was mostly blown away. Probably just as well, my classmates thought me weird enough without me sporting a fussy do that didn’t go with my otherwise disheveled look.

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    2. Actually tim, I played King Arthur, the Richard Burton role. Lancelot was the star but because King Art was KING, the yearbook staff decided I was the lead. Arthur sings “I Wonder What the King is Doing Tonight”, “Camelot”, and “How to Handle a Woman.”
      That last one is pretty funny when sung by a 15 year old.

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  7. In my dreams – literally. I find myself walking around with no shirt on and trying to act casual. I don’t know what that means.

    When I was in junior high, my father offered to use a clothes brush to clean off my skirt, probably to remove dog hair. I don’t remember his ever doing it any day but this particular one.
    Normally, I wore knee socks but it must have been a “special” day because I was wearing stockings. He overshot my skirt and brushed my stocking (without my knowing it) because when I got to school, I had a huge, calf width run in one of my stockings. Having to walk around with that all day was mortifying.

    Another junior high story; it’s a ripe time for embarrassment. My parents sent me to dancing school for 2 or 3 years in junior high. The uniform was dressy dresses, anklets and Mary Janes and white gloves (white gloves for the boys, too – better than sweaty palms, I guess). The boys didn’t have to wear dresses.
    The second or third year, I showed up for the first session in the fall and found that EVERYONE except moi had upgraded to stockings. Mortification again.
    I was the rare public school student in a mass of private school kids who probably all knew each other and had communicated about the change. I can still picture that room full of couples dancing in a big circle with one girl with glowing white socks.

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    1. Lisa, those who study dreams say that most women have dreams in which they are naked and almost no man ever does. That can’t be just coincidence. I think women bear a heavier burden to look good to others, and maybe that’s at the root of those dreams.

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        1. Steve, I’m sure you’re going for humor, but I think you may have just crossed a line to “inappropriate.”

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  8. I remember an incident when I should have been a little more aware of the effect of what I was wearing. In my younger years I was attracted to some aspects of the hippie life style. My hair was fairly long and once in awhile I would experiment with tying a bandana around my head to hold my hair back. I should have known that the custom officers at the entry point from Canada to the US would not react favorably to a guy sporting hair held in place with a bandana. Those officers held my family and I up at the boarder and searched our car for drugs before letting us go. Perhaps a hat with my hair tucked up in it would been a better way to dress on that day.

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  9. Morning-
    Mom put me in polyester sweaters for my elementary school photos. I’ve hated sweaters ever since.
    I’m lucky my wife didn’t pick me for my sense of style.

    Every now and then I put up some lights for a Mayo Clinic show. Nothing fancy, some basic lighting. But the audience is doctors and administrators.
    The playwright is a very nice man; always dressed in suit and tie. I’m in my usual jeans and sleeveless shirt. And he asked me one day if I had made it my goal to never wear a shirt with sleeves? He said his goal was to never wear hard soled shoes but he was still working toward that.
    And then after once performance, the entire Mayo Clinic production team and myself were invited up to one of the conference rooms for supper and instructed to introduce ourselves and our roles in this production. Wow- was I under dressed and embarrassed to be there in my sleeve less shirt.
    My introduction started off by saying clearly I wasn’t a ‘Mayo Employee’ so don’t judge Mayo by my appearance.
    And this fall when I did the show at Mayo, I wore Jeans and a shirt w/ sleeves!

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    2. The brand of Ben has been compromised
      Go sleeveless
      You are not there for sleeves you are there because you are the best
      Pack a cashmere sports coat in case dinner invite comes up again then wear it over your sleeveless self

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  10. Greetings! I remember being very self-conscious about my clothes around middle school. The Catholic grade school wasn’t so bad, but I went to a public middle school and the fashionistas were in high gear. The majority of my clothes were either hand-me-downs from 4 older sisters or sewn by my wonderful mother, who may not have had a full grasp on middle schoolers’ ideas of fashion. Plus, being so tall, pants were always too short. I still despise pants that don’t come way down almost to the floor. Finally bought my first capris about 2-3 years ago.

    Then when I worked in Corporate America at Pillsbury, the expectation to wear nice suits and everything was difficult. The people I worked with earned 3-5+ times more than I, but I still had to dress the part on a paltry secretary salary. I have large, hard-to-fit feet, so I had to buy expensive shoes to be comfortable. I remember paying $80-$90 a pair for my beautiful Bandolino pumps that I loved — and that was over 15 years ago! Now, I’m not overly concerned about what I wear. Luckily, the jobs I’ve had the past few years have been in very casual places.

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    2. Joanne – I too had some clothes “sewn by my wonderful mother, who may not have had a full grasp on middle schoolers’ ideas of fashion”…

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  11. My wardrobe has become more and more casual, and I often wear jeans to work. I don’t like to dress up that much anymore. I will have to think hard about clothes for February, however, as it appears very likely that daughter and I will be able to take a trip to London over the Presidents’ Day long weekend to tour the Harry Potter film studios and take in a performance of Wicked. We have to work out the final details. I don’t think I should wear jeans to the theatre. This opportunity is totally unexpected and and is possible because the mother of the newly appointed Cardinal of a southeast asian nation came down with pneumonia last week in Rome at her son’s installation and the Cardinal’s sister, who has to stay in Rome and take care of their mother, doesn’t have enough annual leave at her job with the State of ND to go on the London trip. The Cardinal’s sister was going to go to London with my boss, who kindly asked if daughter and I would go with her intead. This turn of events is so strange!

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    1. Renee, it sounds like a wonderful trip. Someone who travels a lot (not I) could probably advise on some pants that are easy to pack, comfortable for travel and appropriate for many situations including theater. I saw Wicked on one of its stops here; it’s a fabulous show.

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    3. Who chooses Cardinals? Would you be able to say the Pope got you tickets to Wicked? That would be a fantastic thing to be able to drop into a conversation!

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  12. There was a brief period in my life when I was good looking and young and comfortable with myself, and it was fun in those days to wear clothing that attracted attention. I had a wild hippy printed shirt that looked something like the cover of Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Band, and it went well with my grey polyester bell-bottoms.

    For most of my life, though, clothing has been strictly a matter of function. This is one of the great advantages of being an outdoorsman. You wear wool shirts, chamois shirts, canvas pants, rugged jackets and other clothing from LL Bean or Cabelas. You can buy clothing in one decade and now it will be no more in or out of fashion two or three decades later. You can go about looking like Mark Trail and exude a “screw fashion” attitude that can be pretty sexy by itself.

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    1. I had a thick red wool shirt jacket that I wore for more than 15 years. It was one of my all time favorites for wearing in the spring and fall. It could have been a sportsman’s jacket. Actually it was a jacket for use by senior boy scouts. A full fledged boy scout would have attached all kinds of badges and insignia to a jacket of this kind. I didn’t have any of that stuff on mine and I wore it for many years after I left scouting because it was such a sturdy, well made jacket in an attractive red color.

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      1. Husband once had a black and red plaid flannel shirt that he wore constantly. A young neighbor finally asked, “Does he have any other shirts?”

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  13. Anytime I realize once I am out and about that I look more lumpy or, um, Rubenesque, than I thought I did when I got dressed in the morning. I do my best to not wear stuff that might be more appropriate on a woman 20 years my junior, but it is equally difficult not look frumpy (and more middle-aged than I am) some days.

    One stand-out, though, was a party in college. One of my theater pals was throwing the shindig – he rented a house that was right behind the theater building so his place was a frequent site for cast parties and general gatherings. He would occasionally decide there needed to be a theme, and in one case he decided a “tacky party” was in order. Well, having access to the costume stock gave me an advantage here. I went digging through with a couple of my buddies who agreed that the faux snakeskin (with gold and silver lame threads no less) mini skirt and form-fitting scoop neck top were the way to go. It was awful and wonderful all at once. Found a ratty pair of snagged up nylons and some gold lame sandals to complete the ensemble. The skirt barely covered my backside and the top plunged way lower than I was used to…needless to say, I got a lot of attention at the party (eep!) – especially since most everyone was used to seeing me in jeans and t-shirts because I was working in the shop. (It goes without saying that since I was still in my youth, there was a lot less of me then…so form-fitting and short was not quite as horrific as it might be on me now.) Glad I had a long coat to wear over that mess when I walked to and from my dorm. I’m not sure what got into me to put it on to begin with – and I was less than comfortable in it the whole time I had it on – but the attention was flattering in its own way.

    And add me to the “nice legs!” bandwagon Dale. You looked quite dashing in your velveteen and tights.

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    1. Anna, that right there is why guys do theater don’t you think??

      For me, as a shy lonely kid in high school, one of the confirmations I was in the right place was that EVERYONE would hug after the play. We’d run from the lightbooth in the back of the balcony to the hallway backstage to get in on the post show hugs.

      Hmmm… more pieces of my life fall into place…

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      1. I found theater when I was in 6th grade. Found tech theater in high school and never looked back. These were “my people.” One of the best strike parties I ever went to was one in college that was only crew, with one exception, because the entire cast (minus our one actor who crewed a lot of shows) were seniors and had skittered off to the senior dinner as soon as the lights went down on the production. I don’t miss the hours and the splinters now that I work so very few shows, but I do miss the people.

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    2. Nothing you could call a “perk”, really. I was 10% more smug for a few weeks, but that all happened inside my head. I think the people who chose “Student of the Quarter” were not the cool people everybody wanted to be close to, so being their current favorite didn’t really matter.

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  15. I have a Camelot story to share…..One of my former colleagues is from a very small town. He played Lancelot but given the size of the school the chorus was awfully small. When not on stage he was supposed to stand behind the scenery and sing to augment the chorus. His falsetto on “The Merry Month of May” is delightful to this day.

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  19. I’ve tried to post a couple of times today but the WP police keep deleting my posts. I think it’s because I tried to respond to Lisa. I have had dreams like hers and I seem to have them regularly. I often dream that I’m outside in my yard walking around my house in my all together. I don’t know why this happens but it usually wakes me from a deep sleep and I feel the need to verify the presence of my pajamas and that I’m not outside. (If this posts, I’ll assume that I used the words “all together” instead of the words I was choosing earlier.)

    I used to be much thinner but I’ve gained a lot of weight over the past ten years. Clothes no longer fit me comfortably and I’m always self-conscious. I used to be able to wear anything and look good but no longer. I don’t like the way I feel and I hope my new job and the transition to a new routine, or lack of routine, will help me change my habits and lose weight.

    The other thing was that I used to go to a hair stylist who cut my bangs every time I went to her. She was my friend’s sister and my friend really wanted me to go there. I didn’t like the bangs and I kept trying to tell her they were too short and too even. She did it anyway. I asked her to feather and layer my hair but she sliced those bangs straight across in almost a perfectly straight line. One day I left her salon and headed out to meet some friends. When I got there one of the guys asked me if my hair stylist hated me and advised me to go somewhere else. I was really humiliated and never went back to my friend’s sister.

    Let’s see if this posts.

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  20. I too have a Camelot story. Many, many moons ago, Hans and I bought tickets to see a traveling production of the musical at the State Theater in Minneapolis. Richard Harris was King Arthur. It was a rather lackluster performance, and Richard Harris appeared to be a little worse for the wear.
    It was a matinee performance, and somewhere during the first half, a baby in the audience started crying. King Arthur was on stage and Guenevere was entering the stage at the moment the baby began wailing. Without missing a beat King Arthur quipped “I didn’t know you had a baby, Guenevere.” Everyone cracked up, the one memorable moment in that whole sorry production. Well, I don’t actually know that; we left during intermission and didn’t see the last half of the production.

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  21. Pretty much every day I’m self-conscience about my clothes. I’m not skinny so clothing is awkward. I love colors and coming up with different outfits with the clothing I have. Unfortunately, I enjoy shopping in bursts…but those bursts can be quite expensive. It’s not that I buy expensive pieces, but I get caught up in the clearance section, haha.

    Probably the only other time I was really self-conscience about what I wore was when I was in band and we had to wear the uniform. Ugh. That’s something that I don’t miss 🙂 I miss the music playing and the fun, but not the uniforms.

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  23. Mini-skirts made me extra self-concious, and I was so glad when they phased out. I too remember hand-me-downs that I wore that were already out of style. Seems like I always had at least one thing I felt really good in, and wore it to death…

    I have a Joel story – when my step-son Mario, his half-brother, got married in California (this would be August 2005), we found the wedding was a pretty casual affair at a winery outside of Ukiah. Joel and cousin Vin are there in short pants and maybe golf shirts – we’re all hanging around waiting for the bride and company to arrive. Mario comes over to Joel with: “Oh, yeah, I forgot to ask you if you’d be best man?” He and Vin were part of the wedding party, attired for… the weather, I guess. The photos are a hoot.

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  25. I always saw, I always said
    If I were grown and free,
    I’d have a gown of reddest red
    As fine as you could see.

    To wear out walking, sleek and slow,
    Upon a Summer day,
    And there’d be one to see me so,
    And flip the world away.

    And he would be a gallant one,
    With stars behind his eyes,
    And hair like metal in the sun,
    And lips too warm for lies.

    I always saw us, gay and good,
    High honored in the town.
    Now I am grown to womanhood…
    I have the silly gown.

    – Dorothy Parker

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  29. Gap clothing allows you to look like you’re from nowhere and anywhere. Doug Coupland
    Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society. Mark Twain

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