One of my pet peeves is when an article about Harlequin romance novels will characterize them as having had Fabio on their covers. It's bad enough when an article about romance novels in general will bring up Fabio, who hasn't modeled for a romance cover since the early 1990s. But conflating Fabio and Harlequin is particularly annoying -- not only because it's spreading an outdated stereotype about the genre, but because it's historically confused and flat-out wrong.
This post was prompted by an article I read yesterday on the website of Remind magazine. I had seen a TV commercial for the CW's new series of TV movies based on Harlequin novels. I searched on Google to learn more about them, and clicked on the Remind article. Admittedly Remind is a magazine devoted to pop culture of the past, so I was not annoyed that the author decided to talk about Harlequin's past before getting to their latest endeavor.
I was annoyed, however, that a huge photo of Fabio is at the top of the article, since this is supposed to be about Harlequin. The first sentence reads: "There was a time when nearly every grocery store checkout line had a spinning rack filled with Harlequin paperback romance novels, many of them featuring the hunky, long-haired Fabio."
Later in the article, we read: "By the 1970s and ’80s, Harlequin was at its peak, churning out love stories by the thousands and becoming a cultural phenomenon in the process. The books were sold everywhere from pharmacies to airport kiosks, often arriving as part of a monthly series like Harlequin Presents or Harlequin Superromance. The covers became so iconic that they made models like Fabio famous."
Those famous Fabio romance covers that you are talking about? Yeah, most of them were not published by Harlequin.
I suppose that it's understandable when the average person, who knows little about the topic, conflates Fabio and Harlequin. After all, the Harlequin brand became so successful by the 1970s that for many average people the term "romance novel" was synonymous with Harlequin. Likewise, Fabio became so popular in the late 1980s and early 1990s that he became synonymous with the male cover model. Ergo, to the uninformed, Harlequin must have published those Fabio covers, right?
It's comparable to people who don't know anything about comic books assuming that Superman or Batman is a Marvel character. But generally you don't see articles in actual magazines where such people are making obvious mistakes like that. No, it's only in the romance genre where such basic flubs are commonplace. Maybe we need better Wikipedia entries or something, to steer them away from those errors when they are doing their "research."
What may be confusing to the average person, however, is that Fabio did indeed appear on the covers of several Harlequin romance novels in the mid-to-late 1980s and early 1990s. Most of them, however, are atypical of the covers that the public associates with Fabio.
This blog post will show you every single cover published by Harlequin (and its rival-turned-imprint Silhouette) on which Fabio allegedly appeared. I say allegedly because there is some question about whether a few of these covers feature Fabio at all, or someone else entirely that Fabio fans think resembles him. You be the judge.
So, how many times did Fabio appear on the cover of a Harlequin romance novel?
In this post you will see a total of 48 covers (29 Harlequin covers and 19 Silhouette covers) published between 1984 and 1994. That may sound like an impressive number of covers, but keep in mind that it's a tiny fraction of Harlequin's output during that ten-year period.
For example, if you look at just one of their category lines, you will find that Harlequin publishes eight Harlequin Presents novels every month. (The same is true today as it was back in 1985.) That means there are 96 novels published in just the Harlequin Presents line each and every year. Add in their other monthly lines (Harlequin Romance, Harlequin Superromance, Harlequin American Romance, Harlequin Historical, Harlequin Intrigue, Harlequin Temptation, plus all the various Silhouette lines) and you have a staggering amount of books coming out every month. 48 covers over a ten-year period (some of which might not even be him) is just a drop in the bucket and hardly representative of Harlequin as a whole.
In fact, if you look at these covers, you may be surprised to see how often the male model is overshadowed by the female model here. For a time, Harlequin Historical had a cover design where it was the face of the heroine that dominated the image. HH #67 ("Gideon's Fall" by Bronwyn Williams) is an exception and probably has the most Fabio-istic of his Harlequin covers, with his shirt unbuttoned to reveal his hairless chest. That sort of image is more commonly found on his covers for other publishers like Avon and Zebra -- particularly on his covers for Johanna Lindsey novels of the time. (Fabio is shirtless in only 17 of the 48 Harlequin/Silhouette covers below.)
You can view an extensive cover gallery on the website of the Official Fabio International Fan Club, which offers more in the way of what people are thinking of, when they think of a Fabio romance cover, than the covers he did for Harlequin.
And now, without further ado, here are all 48 of those Harlequin covers featuring Fabio (or someone that Fabio's fans think is him anyway):
HARLEQUIN AMERICAN ROMANCE #327
"The Way Home" by Sandra Kitt (Jan. 1990)
HARLEQUIN AMERICAN ROMANCE #368
"A Summer to Come Home" by Dallas Schulze (Nov. 1990)
HARLEQUIN AMERICAN ROMANCE #398
"Night of the Phantom" by Anne Stuart (July 1991)
HARLEQUIN HISTORICAL #36
"Game of Hearts" by Sally Cheney (Dec. 1989)
HARLEQUIN HISTORICAL #39
"Liberty's Lady" by Caryn Cameron (Feb. 1990)
HARLEQUIN HISTORICAL #63
"The Silver Link" by Patricia Potter (Feb. 1991)
HARLEQUIN HISTORICAL #67
"Gideon's Fall" by Bronwyn Williams (March 1991)
HARLEQUIN HISTORICAL #76
"Cloud Dancer" by Peggy Bechko (May 1991)
HARLEQUIN HISTORICAL #78
"The Abduction" by Patricia Potter (May 1991)
HARLEQUIN HISTORICAL #84
"The Daring" by Patricia Hagan (July 1991)
HARLEQUIN HISTORICAL #105
"Silver Fury" by Isabel Whitfield (Dec. 1991)
HARLEQUIN HISTORICAL #114
"Wyoming Territory" by Jackie Merritt (Feb. 1992)
HARLEQUIN INTRIGUE #265
"When Night Falls" by Jenna Ryan (March 1994)
HARLEQUIN PRESENTS #1029
"No Strings Attached" by Annabel Murray (Nov. 1987)
HARLEQUIN PRESENTS #1132
"Close Proximity" by Elizabeth Oldfield (Dec. 1988)
HARLEQUIN PRESENTS #1482
"Past Secrets" by Joanna Mansell (Aug. 1992)
HARLEQUIN PRESENTS #1515
"Between Mist and Midnight" by Kathleen O'Brien (Dec. 1992)
["This is an altered face cover," according to Fabio fan site index.]
HARLEQUIN ROMANCE #2854
"Forest Fever" by Victoria Gordon (Aug. 1987)
HARLEQUIN ROMANCE #2899
"The Game is Love" by Jeanne Allan (April 1988)
HARLEQUIN ROMANCE #2970
"That Dear Perfection" by Alison York (March 1989)
HARLEQUIN ROMANCE #2978
"Song of Love" by Rachel Elliot (May 1989)
(Note: This is a second printing edition which uses the same cover illustration as the first printing.)
HARLEQUIN ROMANCE #3006
"Still Temptation" by Angela Wells (Sept. 1989)
HARLEQUIN ROMANCE #3114
"Hidden Heart" by Jessica Steele (March 1991)
HARLEQUIN ROMANCE #3211
"Sand Dollar" by Bethany Campbell (Aug. 1992)
HARLEQUIN SUPERROMANCE #159
"Moonlight on Snow" by Virginia Nielsen (April 1985)
HARLEQUIN SUPERROMANCE #166
"Sheltering Bridges" by Bobby Hutchinson (June 1985)
HARLEQUIN SUPERROMANCE #176
"Quiet Comes the Night" by Jessica Jeffries (Aug. 1985)
HARLEQUIN SUPERROMANCE #345
"More Than a Feeling" by Elaine K. Stirling (Feb. 1989)
HARLEQUIN TEMPTATION #407
"A Dark and Stormy Knight" by Tiffany White (Aug. 1992)
SILHOUETTE DESIRE #518
"The Ideal Man" by Naomi Horton (Sept. 1989)
SILHOUETTE DESIRE #526
"Before Dawn" by Terry Lawrence (Oct. 1989)
SILHOUETTE DESIRE #624
"Outlaw" by Elizabeth Lowell (Feb. 1991)
SILHOUETTE DESIRE #662
"Out of Danger" by Beverly Barton (Sept. 1991)
["They often altered Fabio's face since they were shooting so many covers all at once," according to Fabio fan site index.]
SILHOUETTE DESIRE #672
"Slade's Woman" by B. J. James (Oct. 1991)
SILHOUETTE INTIMATE MOMENTS #89
"Worlds Apart" by Kristin James (April 1985)
SILHOUETTE INTIMATE MOMENTS #166
"Hold Back the Night" by Linda Barlow (Nov. 1986)
SILHOUETTE INTIMATE MOMENTS #168
"Fire Signs" by Jocelyn Griffin (Nov. 1986)
["altered face"]
SILHOUETTE INTIMATE MOMENTS #182
"Within Reach" by Marilyn Pappano (March 1987)
SILHOUETTE INTIMATE MOMENTS #252
"Better Than Ever" by Marion Smith Collins (Aug. 1988)
SILHOUETTE INTIMATE MOMENTS #339
"Iguana Bay" by Theresa Weir (June 1990)
["altered face"]
SILHOUETTE INTIMATE MOMENTS #480
"Diamond Willow" by Kathleen Eagle (Feb. 1993)
SILHOUETTE SPECIAL EDITION #159
"In a Pirate's Arms" by Elaine Camp (April 1984)
SILHOUETTE SPECIAL EDITION #190
"Business as Usual" by Linda Wisdom (Sept. 1984)
SILHOUETTE SPECIAL EDITION #381
"The Star Seeker" by Maggi Charles (May 1987)
SILHOUETTE SPECIAL EDITION #402
"Breaking Every Rule" by Victoria Pade (Aug. 1987)
SILHOUETTE SPECIAL EDITION #408
"A Family of Two" by Jude O'Neill (Sept. 1987)
SILHOUETTE SPECIAL EDITION #411
"Thunderstruck" by Pamela Toth (Oct. 1987)
SILHOUETTE SPECIAL EDITION #469
"One Lavender Evening" by Karen Keast (Aug. 1988)
If you know of any other Harlequin (or Silhouette) covers on which Fabio appeared, or find any errors listed here, then feel free to share this information in the comments section below.
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