alvadee:

i had literally never heard of him before 2017 but i wanted to watch Ryan Murphy’s “Feud” about the feuding between Bette Davis and Joan Crawford and i figured i should watch “What Ever Happened To Baby Jane?” (1962) before that since the filming plays an important part of the show and i knew it’s a cult classic.

and after nearly an hour into it ✨he✨ showed up

and i was like “i’ve never seen anyone who looks, acts, sounds like you. who are you, you’re fascinating?!”. after finishing the movie i immediately went to imdb, wikipedia, watched two movies he starred in that weekend, learned about his comedy career and then started to dive deeper doing my own research bcs the surface level internet provides very basic infos about him. now i’ve made a home deep down in this rabbit hole i went into. i just never had such a reaction to an actor/actress before or after that. it wasn’t love at first sight but i immediately liked him and was intrigued and impressed by him.

i think what made him so interesting to me specifically is that i have this thing for actors who are typecast as villains and whose screen image are disgusting, sadistic or perverse guys (who usually loose) but the actors themselves are very nonthreatening, charming, intelligent gentlemen. I think it has to do with the fact that they’re the best of both worlds: the kind, good man I’d be interested in irl but i also get to fawn over the fake sexy threatening scenes and situations they get to play as villains. 

i also find the duality interesting between Vic’s looks as character actor and as private person. i do think that he was a great actor and it still sometimes boggles my mind when i see him as certain characters, how a mustache could change his whole vibe and make him look creepy, how he could convincingly play sixty-year-olds in his mid thirties just with his own beard. it’s wild to me, it’s fascinating. i do think he was a beautiful man though, i think i can get when people don’t find him conventionally beautiful, especially in comparison to his hollywood actor peers, but i think compared to regular people he was, just looks wise, an attractive man. so his screen image, his job to appear “ugly” in contrast to that is always interesting to me.

another thing i think that endears me personally to him is how he managed to deal so gracefully with the outright bullying and microaggressions directed at him constantly because of his weight/looks. even since he was a child. i admire that while it certainly got to him i do think it made him a better person and sensitive to noticing other people’s pain (still wish he wasn’t bullied though, it can always destroy a person too). i think it’s one of the reasons basically everything he did was guided by love for people. i also admire that despite everything he grew a good amount of self-confidence and put himself out there, socially and in the show biz. i think there probably was a layer of insecurity to him but it didn’t let him grow self hating, like so many other male actors of his weight class, and he never projected the fat hate he got onto other fat people. he always was kind to other fat people and i think in his comedy and interviews he reminded everyone that fat people are just people. and all people are flawed, you can just see the “flaws” fat people have while everyone else can hide them. so everyone should remember they’re not better than anyone else and there’s no reason to be so cruel. i think that was a very kind and progressive mindset most people still haven’t arrived at today, fifty years later.

and everything else that make me like him so much are more general attractive characteristics, I think, though a lot of them surprised me. Vic, to me, was a case of: If you would ask me to describe my perfect man I would not have described him but being presented with him he is everything I could ever ask for without previously knowing that’s what I want. I’m fascinated by him as an actor, he could stand on an empty set doing his thing and I would hang on his lips. I fell in love with him through his interviews, which showed his intelligence and sharp wit, and the stories about him, which showed his big heart and qualities as mentor. I think he was very sexy because he was graceful, expressive, had the best face I can imagine, a beautiful, well-trained voice and was an imposing 6′3, 350 lbs bear. He was likable because he was interested, entertaining, introverted, wise, a big child, passionate, calm, a presence but not a bighead, motivated by the fun factor of things but also self-reflecting, someone who knew how to enjoy life but without hurting anyone. someone who i think deserved more respect and success than he got.

sorry, the reply is so long but i haven’t gotten an ask about him in quite a while so i have pent up feelings about him. haha