Welcome to a new series here at Mr. Skin where we take a look at Hollywood's Golden Age...its NUDE Golden Age. We are considering The Golden Age of Nudity in film to be the 1980s, specifically the early 80s. After our weekly deep dive, you will be inclined to agree. This week we are going to take a look at Personal Best and its iconic nude scenes.
Since we are all enjoying The Olympics, I wanted to highlight an Olympic film with Olympic levels of nudity. The recently deceased Robert Towne wrote and directed this 1982 film about the women's track and field team heading into the 1980 Moscow Olympics and the romances that existed within the team. That's right: it's a lesbian sports movie!
Mariel Hemingway stars as Chris Cahill, an Olympic hopeful. The film was ahead of its time as it focused on the lesbian relationship between two track teammates as they head into the Olympics. Will their feelings get in the way of their Olympic dreams? Will love and lust disrupt their quest for the gold? It certainly doesn't get in the way of the team taking a steam together.
Here's a cool piece of trivia about the movie! Real Olympian Patrice Donnelly was in the film. Patrice was an Olympic hurdler who competed in the 1976 Olympics. She turned to acting in the 80s and played athletes and coaches in a few sports-themed films including this one. Who would have thought that a real Olympian would play a lesbian Olympic hopeful with Mariel Hemingway?
Patrice and Mariel are the two who have a relationship together. They also have a sapphic sex scene together! They caress one another while nude in bed and show off the lean curves and swerves of each other's bods.
They aren't the only nude babes in the movies. The whole team is naked in the sauna together which shows a lot of boobage, buns, and bush while the girls sweat it out. They deserve it! And we deserve to check them out. These girls get gold in next-level nudity.
The plot follows their trials and tribulations as they train for The Olympics and navigate an intimate relationship with one another that won't get in the way of their performances. In the end, the girls run their personal best and make the team...only to have the US boycott the Moscow Olympics. This was the Cold War, after all. The US did not compete in the 1980 Olympics, but these girls still had pride in their work.
Siskel and Ebert listed Personal Best as one of the top ten best films of 1982. It was very critically acclaimed, but the public wasn't as interested in the lesbian sports movie as the critics were. It did not generate a lot of revenue at the box office and has been rather forgotten as time has gone by. That is a shame because this is the kind of film that would do wonderfully now and the nudity remains timeless.
Mariel Hemingway, Patrice Donnelly in Personal Best
00:18:00 Mariel Hemingway and Patrice Donnelly caress each other in bed. (2 mins 34 secs)