Tom Villard in The Trouble With Dick

When I first started FH, I didn't really know who actor Tom Villard was.  I knew his face, it's incredibly expressive and distinct, and I recognized from watching repeats of The Golden Girls with my mom when I was a kid.  Tom made two memorable appearances during the shows run.  Over the last decade or so, there were several signs that had me thinking I needed to shine the spotlight on Tom and his work.

When doing research for the site, I often came upon posts about Tom, especially in November, around the anniversary of his death.  Tom died from AIDS-related pneumonia in November 1994, just five days from his 41st birthday.  Beyond his successful acting career in the 1980's,  Tom's battle with AIDS is an important part of his life and legacy.  

Tom was one of just a few actors to come out and discuss his struggles living with HIV and AIDS in the early 90's.  In an then unprecedented move,  Tom appeared on Entertainment Tonight in February of 1994 sharing that he was gay, that he had AIDS, and that he was in need of help.  Many in the industry turned away, but others offered support. After his death later that year, a non-profit foundation was created by his partner and some of his friends as a tribute to Tom.  The Tom Villard Foundation  engaged local businesses to provide free goods and services for community members living with AIDS. 

We Got It Made (1983)

A couple of years ago, when profiling Tom's We Got It Made co-star Matt McCoy, (HERE:) I again thought of Tom, and posting about his work on the site. This time, I began collecting images and started putting something together.  It remained however in my draft folder.  I wanted to do something a little different than others had done, and not just a mirror of other tributes and his page on Wikipedia. 

McCoy and Villard

A couple of months ago, I was given another, and my final, sign that I needed to feature Tom on the site.  I was watching TCM's tribute to Grease 2, and saw that Tom's name appeared in the credits.  I never really watched Grease 2 all the way through, but the commentary on TCM made it seem much better than I'd remembered... Tom was credited simply as 'Boy Greaser' but that was enough to have me heading to Google to take a deeper dive.

The Golden Girls

The Trouble With Dick (1987)

'Sci-Fi author is plagued by his publisher's demands to add more sex to his new novel, sexual advances of his girl's sexy best friend and her daughter and hallucinations in which the novel's hero faces desert parasites and alien vixens.'

I found what I was looking for with Tom's appearance in the 1987 sci fi comedy, The Trouble With Dick.  The film wasn't great, but it did hold my interest.  It moves back and forth between Tom's character and the characters in his novel.  One of Tom's co-stars is Susan Dey from LA Law and The Partridge Family.

The Trouble with Dick features Tom's one and only 'nude' scene.  Nude is in quotes, as you don't really get to see much.  The editing and lighting is purposely horrible and works over-time to ensure the viewer see's as little as possible.  Still, it was worth checking out.  Tom is 'nude' is three or four different scenes.  You do get a bit of butt crack when he gets out of bed in one scene, and more butt when he opens his bedroom door without his pajama bottoms in another.  Again, the editing and lighting makes it hard to see much, but I added videos of two of the scenes.  I think you see more in the video than the low quality caps that I made.

Timing really is everything.  If I had posted on Tom back when I first thought to, I most likely would have missed on discovering this little known film, and his only nude scene.  Hope those of you who weren't familiar with Tom's work learned a little about the man and his life.  Hope those who were familiar with Tom, maybe discovered this film and Tom's only nude scenes.