So why the history lesson on male full-frontal nudity in film now? It seems to be the case that this winter, if there is one in-your-face trend at the cinema, it’s men baring it all-from the front, particularly-on camera. We’ve come a long way since 1980, but there still haven’t been many major Hollywood moments in which the actors show everything on screen (actresses, on the other hand, have been exposed far more often, especially topless). But because of that role, Gere almost instantly became a sex symbol. (And about eight years ago, the actor told the Advocate the nudity wasn’t even written in the original script). Back then, it was considered a bold move for him to not only appear in a film with so much queer subtext, but also to show his penis several times on camera when it hadn’t been done before, outside of pornography. Neither did The New York Times, nor Rolling Stone.īut if you ask just about anyone who saw that film in theaters in 1980, Gere-who had only just begun to make a name for himself as a stage actor with a few small film credits-appearing fully naked was the central takeaway. Oddly enough, though, Roger Ebert’s review doesn’t mention Gere’s full-frontal nudity once. Schrader’s treatment on male loneliness is another element of the film (and in many of his following features) that was commended by critics. In the film, Gere plays an escort involved with the wife of a politician when it was first released, critics and audiences praised American Gigolo for its stylish neo-noir take on a seedy, hypersexual Los Angeles. In 1980, a young Richard Gere did something never before shown in mainstream American cinema by any well-known Hollywood actor: he appeared on screen, fully nude, in multiple scenes of Paul Schrader’s American Gigolo.