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Revealing Role for Bradshaw in ‘Failure’

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Times Staff Writer

In the movie “Failure to Launch,” which opened Friday, Hall of Fame quarterback Terry Bradshaw has a supporting role. And more is revealed of him than you probably care to see.

Bradshaw is shown naked in a scene with Matthew McConaughey.

“I am doing this thing with the world’s sexiest guy,” Bradshaw said in a conference call. “How does that happen that I am naked and he is not?”

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Trivia time: Bradshaw appeared in two Hal Needham movies with Burt Reynolds in 1980 and ’81. Name them.

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Anything for a laugh: Bradshaw acknowledged that doing the nude scene for “Failure to Launch” was humiliating.

“Then I kind of got into it,” he said. “I kind of liked it and said, ‘Well, this is no different than taking a shower with a bunch of football players.’ It’s just my butt. Had it not been funny, I would have never done it. And it is funny.”

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Then again: Bradshaw said when they showed the scene at a screening, “The whole place just went, ‘Uh, a 57-year-old showing his butt. That is not funny.’ ”

Explaining why he is not very svelte in the scene, Bradshaw quipped, “My role called for me to put on 40 pounds.”

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Appropriate ad-lib: In a scene in which Bradshaw is fully clothed, he offers to go outside to play catch with a young boy.

“Come on, I’ll show you how to throw a football ... and ice your shoulder,” he says in the movie.

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Bradshaw said the last part of that line was his.

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A justified reward: Competing in Alaska’s Iditrarod Trail Sled Dog Race can be grueling. Temperatures drop to 45 degrees below zero. But there are rewards.

When leader Paul Gebhardt reached the Yukon River town of Ruby on Friday, he was treated to portobello bruschetta, rosemary lamb loin and peach crepes cooked in cognac, as well as seven bottles of pricey wine.

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Name game: “When it comes to chest passes,” wrote Dwight Perry in the Seattle Times, “nobody does it better than Cincinnati’s Treasure Humphries.”

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Looking back: On this day in 1979, in the first period of an NHL game between the Kings and Philadelphia Flyers, 372 penalty minutes were handed out. Randy Holt of the Kings was hit with nine penalties for a total of 67 minutes in the period -- one minor, three majors, two 10-minute misconducts and three game misconducts.

Somewhat lost in all that was that the Kings’ Marcel Dionne scored his 50th goal of the season. The Flyers won the game, 6-3.

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Trivia time: “Smokey and the Bandit II” and “The Cannonball Run.”

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And finally: Reader David Macaray says that watching the World Baseball Classic reminds him of Tom Lasorda’s comment when reporters asked him to speculate what Fernando Valenzuela’s contract demands might be after his spectacular 1981 season with the Dodgers: “He’ll want Mexico back.”

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Larry Stewart can be reached at larry.stewart@latimes.com.

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