beefcake

Beefcake is a performance or a form of glamour photography depicting a large and muscular male body. Beefcake is also a publication genre. A role a person plays in a performance may be called beefcake. The term was believed to be first used by Hollywood columnist Sidney Skolsky.

==Actors typecast as beefcake== Beefcake poses by male actors were used far less frequently than cheesecake (pin-up) layouts of actresses. Nevertheless, as early as the 1920s, photographs were taken of such stars as Rudolph Valentino and Ramon Novarro to highlight their physical appeal. Male physique shots of famous stars were even less frequent during the early talking picture era, outside of stars of jungle films such as Johnny Weissmuller (Tarzan) and Buster Crabbe. The 1940s saw a rise in shirtless shots of such stars as Tyrone Power, Guy Madison, Sterling Hayden and Victor Mature; and in the 1950s movie magazines began running swimsuit shots of actors such as Tony Curtis, Rock Hudson, Tab Hunter, Jeff Chandler, Robert Conrad and Robert Wagner almost as frequently as they did with actresses. This period also included the rise of bodybuilding magazines, which continue to be popular to the present day, as well as musclemen movie stars such as Steve Reeves who were often barely dressed in their action/adventure films. In the 1980s, heavily muscular actors Arnold Schwarzenegger, Lou Ferrigno, and Sylvester Stallone continued to star in beefcake-type action/adventure movies (such as Conan the Barbarian or Hercules).