SPOILER ALERT: There’s a lot of dick talk in this entry.  Pollyanna stop reading now.  Size queens, proceed. 

When I wrote a fan letter to John Ireland in insert year here, I did so only because there was a cool picture of him that I had cut out of Penny Stallings book “Flesh and Fantasy”.  He was featured in a section as a Grade B insert actor name here 

I did NOT know at the time that John Ireland also had a reputation for having one of the biggest penises in Hollywood.  I mean “John Ireland’s bulge” is an internet thing.  To see dedicated “bulge” sites on the internet with screen grabs or stills from classic films is terribly amusing to me. As you can see from the pictures here, John Ireland either chose not to wear underwear in his movies, or simply was always too hung to be hid. 

As the years passed and I became more familiar with John’s work, most notably in “All the King’s Men” for which he was nominated for Best Supporting Actor.   But watching Ireland with Joan Crawford in “Queen Bee” in 1953 was a twisted delight! This was during Joan’s serious “bitch movie” phase as the sharp-tongued, harridan wife of Barry Sullivan.  John Ireland’s character in “Queen Bee” was one of the unlucky victims of Joan’s cutting remarks, but in real life and off screen they had an affair and size-queen Joan was a certified member of his Pink Pony Club (thank you Chappell Roan for the inspiration).  Rumor also circulated that Joan came back for seconds during the filming of her second movie with Ireland, “I Saw What You Did” in 1965.  (P.S. – My review, you do NOT need to see I Saw.) 

Acting-wise, John Ireland turned in a lot of reliable performances – he was a standout in the film noir “Raw Deal” (1948) with the always-fun Claire Trevor and the delicate Marsha Hunt.  He was also in my dad's favorite film of all time, “Red River” with John Wayne. John Ireland was able to secure acting work for 60 years!  This goes to show that sometimes the less-handsome, not-movie-star, but reliable and versatile character actor can have a much longer and fulfilling career than some of their “bigger” peers. 

In 1986, it was clearly dual of the baseball bats when John Ireland co-starred with fellow cocksman Forrest Tucker in “Thunder Run”.  I never understood the appeal of Forrest Tucker except for his role in “Mame”, and I was too young to appreciate or watch “F Troop”.  I’ll cover Forrest separately under Mame.  As for the third Hollywood baseball bat, Milton Berle, I’ve got stories about him too! 

But enough about vintage Hollywood penises. I’m an ass fan anyway.  Brando’s bubble in jeans in “The Wild One”?!?!? Damn. But I digress. 

I also want to give some respect and a shout out to John Ireland's wife of 6 years, Joanne Dru. An attractive woman and a reliable contract player, Joanne never reached the heights of true stardom.  But she did star across her husband John, in a few films and she appeared in the super campy “Sylvia” from 1965 starring an over-the0top Carroll Baker and equally over the top George Maharis. Great poster and lobby cards for that movie.  Shown here are few nice wholesome autographed photos of the lovely Joanne Dru to water down this salacious entry on weiner wars. 

Oh, but wait, there is ONE more dick correlated to this story. Joanne Dru's first husband was singer and actor Dick Haymes.  Apparently, he had it going on in the southern region as well, having married six wives including one of Errol Flynn’s ex-wives (Nora Eddington covered under Errol), Fran Jeffries (covered under Jim Brown) and one of the ultimate sex goddesses of the screen, Rita Hayworth.  Shown here is an autographed photo featuring the pleasant face of friendly but benign looking Dick Haymes. Extreme movie star good looks were not gifted to John Ireland, Forrest Tucker, Milton Berle or Dick Haymes, but God and/or genetics gave all of these men another gift. There you have it. I've summed up everything for this entry into a nice package.