Around here, whenever the subject turns to "tragically forgotten movie careers" somehow David Nelson's name always pops up. After all, this fine performer not only played a featured role in Peyton Place, but soon after starred in two (count 'em) circus movies -- 1959's The Big Circus, in which he played a psycho trapeze star (!), and 1961's The Big Show, co-starring with Esther Williams(!). In addition, he also appeared in at least one Tina Louise western, 1959's Day of the Outlaw, and decades later turned up married to Patty Hearst in John Waters' Cry-Baby (1990). Top that!

As for Dave's TV career, credit papa Ozzie Nelson for being a shrewd-enough judge of, uh, raw talent to allow sons David and Ricky to portray themselves in TV's forever-running Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, which became must-see TV the instant it premiered on ABC (around the end of the Civil War) and remained so until the program went off the air (during the Vietnam War). Thanks to that TV classic (and with all due respect to Tony Dow ), everyone connected with the Meeker Museum considers David Nelson to be the definitive big brother sex symbol of all time.