First up, let’s check out this phat meme (courtesy of Ms Hoyt, thanks!) which is what reminded me of this cool-ass little story in the first place.

Heh. By cracky, that’s just too darn punny right there. Now, let’s get to it.

The Picture That Settles The Khan Chest Debate
It’s been years since I’ve looked at Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, but I do remember as a youngster buying into the idea that Ricardo Montalbán, who played the titular villain Khan, was wearing a prosthetic chest.

In case you’re not aware, it’s sort of an old urban legend that has been around for 35 years. Here is what the trivia on the IMDb says:

It has been widely debated that Ricardo Montalban’s chest was actually a prosthetic piece that he wore during the film. In the director’s commentary in the special edition DVD, Nicholas Meyer is quoted as saying that it was, in fact, Montalban’s actual chest and that he was a very muscular man who worked out. During publicity for the movie, during an appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (1982) Montalban explained that he was able to achieve the look seen in the film by doing push-ups. “A lot of push-ups.”

The problem some people had was that Montalbán was an older gentleman at the time of filming and had a chest that was alpha as fuck, coupled with some curious attire positioning and a necklace that in theory would hide a suspect seam, and some poor VHS quality, some insisted it was fake. The layers of crude, fake, makeup Nimoy and Shatner wore — it looks like they rolled their faces in their wive’s makeup drawers — probably didn’t help.

Well, the following pic puts that to rest decisively.

Wich, for my money, it….does. I’m satisfied that Montalban’s sculpted, manly chest is/was in fact the genuine article, no prosthetics required. Funny thing is, as a diehard Trek fanboi for pretty much my whole life, I never knew until just now that there ever even was a “Khan’s chest” debate; all along, I had just assumed it was either plastic or some other type of movie-magic fakery. Glad we finally got that all cleared up, aren’t you?

Funniest of all is that in the flick, Montalban’s Khan character was, in fact, a genetically-altered Übermenschen, specifically bio-engineered to be vastly superior in every way to us pathetic, flabby Normals. So in the end, not only was Montalban’s studly bod the real deal, but the man’s Rodin-statue-esque physique was probably a major part of the reason he got picked for the role to begin with. The above article appends another pic from early in Montalban’s acting career that’s even more convincing:

Yep, if THAT don’t persuade you, I can only guess that “Khan’s fake chest” is a position you simply aren’t open to changing yur mind about.

Update! Did a quickie Luxxle search, and whaddya know, further evidence in support of the propositio nthat Ricardo Montalban ha a seriously carved-up, cut-up phyzz.

From another of his early movies. 1950’s Right Cross, in which Mr Rich Corinthian Leather portrays (you guessed it) a Mex-American boxing champeen.

Updated update! You wanna see something that really IS fake, phony, and fraudulent? Try this on for size.

Corinthian leather is a marketing term coined by copywriter Jim Nichols[1] with the Omaha-based Bozell advertising agency in 1974 to describe a leather upholstery used in certain luxury vehicles of the Chrysler automobile company.

The advertisements developed the term Corinthian leather to imply a premium product of foreign origin denoting something rich, rare, and luxurious, though the product was in fact made by the Radel Leather Manufacturing Company in Newark, New Jersey.

Though Chrysler first used the term Corinthian leather in advertisements for the 1974 Imperial LeBaron, the term itself would ultimately become heavily associated with the 1975 Cordoba, an intermediate personal luxury car. The success of the advertising campaign closely associated actor Ricardo Montalbán, the spokesman, with the Cordoba’s so-called Corinthian leather. In promoting the Cordoba model, Montalbán described a car interior with thickly-cushioned, luxury seats upholstered in what were variously described as either fine,[5] soft,[6] or rich Corinthian leather.

When asked on Late Night with David Letterman what the term denoted, Montalbán said that Corinthian leather was a marketing term. Montalbán credited commercial writer Jim Nichols for the term. In promoting the Chrysler New Yorker in 1988, Montalbán described the Corinthian leather as a “rich” leather. The term came to include the vinyl upholstering for interior surfaces, such as the backs of the front seats and the head rests, and the lower parts of door facings.

Just in case any of y’all miscreants had somehow conjured the erroneous idea that We Duh Peepul being lied to, led astray, hornswoggled, and duped was something new.