Groovy guy contest
The Groovy Guy contest was started by Sam Winston in 1968 as a marketing tool for the then newly formed Advocate magazine and as a way to unite the Los Angeles gay community around a contest that moved away from drag events. The contest can be seen as the start of the split in the early seventies between the GLBT community. The co-sponsoer for the first contest was the gay club The Hayloft, where the first contest was held.
The event was organized by Bob Barnett and John Charles, of Too Guys Productions, with the Adovcate staff doing advertising. The first contest had seven contestants and 150 people in the audience at the August 19th event. Local LA area bars submitted applicatants to be considered for the contest. The bars that participated in the first event were: The Blue Angel West, De Paul's, Klondike, Right Pocket, River Club, Sax Club, Seventh Keg, Tony Honker and the Valli Haus.
Word of mouth created such a buzz that by the following year there were 18 contestants and 700 people in the audience. By 1970 the contest had become so famous that The Advocate featured a Groovy Guy float in the first gay pride parade down Hollywood Boulevard in June 1970. Starting with the 1970 event rumors in the community started circulating that the contest was fixed. These rumors increased each year and started causing some damage to the Advocate's reputation. In addition to this people accused the contest of making money off the community and not putting it back in despite the fact that the Advocate gave donations to the Metropolitan Community Churh and the Los Angeles Gay Community Center.
The last contest was held August 25, 1972 in the Grand Ballroom of the International Hotel in Los Angeles. 1500 people showed up to watch 29 contestents. The program was beset by accidents and illnesses that caused The Advocateto realize that the show was no longer worth all the energy that went into promoting it. In addition by that time the contest had lost a lot of luster as naked dancers became common in gay bars by that time. It was the forerunner of gay beauty pagents.
It was replaced in 1973 by the founders of Data-Boy and Entertainment West magazines, working with Barnett and Charles with the Groovy Stud Contest. The first Groovy Stud contest was held July 21, 1973 at the Mayflower Balloroom in Inglewood California for an audience of 450 with 32 contestants entering. The winner that year was 26 year old Bill Shepard, who was sponsored by the Kingmasters Social Club. By 1974, the winner of the 1971 contest was under charges for kidnapping and rape, which led to some tarnishing of the contest title. By 1975 the event had returned to the title of Groovy Guy contest and continued until the end of the 1970s.
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