I'm not currently watching The Young and the Restless, (it's awful) and I never watched Passions, but that doesn't mean I'm not aware of former model and actor James Hyde. I know many actors from my love of magazines, and I noticed many shots of James and his perfectly shaped face, his great body and beautiful blue eyes.
About a month or two ago, I noticed a recent shot of James on Twitter. It was announcing that his character was about to pop-up again on Y & R. Although I hadn't seen an image of James in awhile, even with the few additional wrinkles, and the sexy splash of grey in his beard, he looked as good, or maybe even better, than I remembered.
This had me looking for more images of the handsome actor which had me reminded he was once on the cover of Playgirl. It was back in 2002, promoting his role on long ago cancelled NBC soap Passions. No, sadly James didn't take it all off, but he was featured in several shots in a pair of sexy white Calvin Klein briefs.
Even just appearing in a pair of white briefs isn't something most soap actors would do today. As much progress as we've made, soap actors in general, seem to be more puritan than I remember growing up. It used to be fairly common to see male soap stars in speedos in magazines, but now they're all 'serious actors'.
Good for them, but soap operas are all about fantasy and escape, and the male actors especially, should be aware that they're eye candy. Not that there isn't room for talented thespians on daytime, but we seem to have lost a bit of the sexy fluff that used to be apart of soaps. Even looking for images of James reminded me of how the soap press has changed.
In part, I'm sure it's money, but the two shots above came from issues of Soap Opera Digest. Soap publications rarely do photo shoots for their publications anymore. They just used studio issued character shots cut and paste into their stories. Glad James was around before the change. Given he also modeled, I'm sure he was accustomed to being asked to lose his shoot for a photo shoot.
Above: Hyde with Ric Arango, Brian Buzzini and Naomi Campbell (Gianni Versace , Rock N' Rule Benefit Gala, 1992)
Playgirl Magazine
September 2002
Photography by J. Russo
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