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October 10th, 2005 I don't care how old you get, we are never too old to have celebrity crushes. Our personal celebrity crushes, especially when we are children, are far more important than we often realize. For most of us it is the bridge to our first discovery of sexual emotions. The celebrity crush offers us that childhood fantasy where we begin to develop our sexual ideal and what we find to be desirable. It's where we develop our fetishes and, eventually, our own sexual identity. I have always found it fascinating to find out which celebrity's photos were hung up on the bedroom walls of friends, and who wandered in and out of the fantasies of people that I know. What I find is that often a lot can be said about an individual by the celebrity crushes they held/hold. The other day I decided to map out my own history of celebrity crushes. Join me and let's see what kind of patterns and conclusions we can find as we look at CONFESSIONS OF A POP CULTURE ADDICTS' CELEBRITY CRUSH A GO GO
"Well, I certainly hope that you got over it!" Sarah Sutton said to me. She wasn't snide, but I suddenly had no more to say. She signed my photo of her, "To Sam, Love Sarah Sutton" and that was about it. Sarah Sutton is now retired from acting and is actually a librarian somewhere in England. 2. Nancy Sinatra - I definitely wasn
"Dear Sam - A few weeks later a personalized, autographed copy of her auto-biography arrived at my door. Within it I found out about a wonderful woman with a wonderful career. I still think of Yvonne Craig as a real class act and still have a certain amount of adoration for her. Yvonne Craig recently retired from the convention circuit and, I believe, now lives in Florida. 4.
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6. Sherilyn Fenn - In 7.
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1. Miss Piggy - Okay, I'm not into bestiality or puppets but we
all need to start somewhere and I was about five or six years old. Now I know I
am not the only person out there whose first crush was a fictional character.
Admit it folks. As a small child growing up in the late 1970s/early 1980s the
influence of the Muppets in the media was inescapable and Miss Piggy was the
sexual icon of the rowdy bunch of puppets. Modeled after Farrah Fawcett, Miss
Piggy was spunky, temperamental and confident. She was definitely a modern 1970s
strong female, although her problem was that she probably came on a bit too
strong at times. Miss Piggy was my first poster girl, which I proudly hung on
the back of my bedroom door when I was about six. Miss Piggy was the final time
I ventured into the barnyard for romance, but I think the groundwork was set up
so that the type of women I would be attracted to would be strong, independent
women, and often the ones seen as a bitch, from this point on.
2. Sarah Sutton - Now, Sarah Sutton isn't exactly a household
name, especially in North America. However, Sarah Sutton was probably the first
real celebrity I was obsessed with. Sarah Sutton played Nyssa of Traken on the
classic British Sci-fi program "Doctor Who" in the early 1980s. When I was nine
years old my world stopped twice a week when Doctor Who aired and the name Sarah
Sutton was always on the tip of my tongue. I thought about her all the time and
it kinda confused me a bit. I really thought that I was in love. I guess you can
say Sarah Sutton was the first woman I fell in love with. Her character, Nyssa,
was not only a member of a influential political family but a scientific prodigy
as well. Although she often played the damsel in distress in the clutches of the
space creature of the week, she was often featured as an equal to the Doctor
when it came to scientific knowledge. Although she often seemed shy she was
hardly a wallflower. There was also something erotic about the burgundy velvet
outfit and the little tiara that she wore in her early episodes. Sarah Sutton
was also very 1980s with her mega perm and blue eye shadow but, well, we found
that
attractive back then. And then, in her final Dr. Who serial
she dropped her skirt and spent the next three episodes running around a space
freighter in a white satin chemise, even getting chained and shackled at one
point! That was early fan boy erotica for this Dr. Who fan! When her character
was written out of the show I was kinda heartbroken to the point that I didn't
follow Dr. Who much more after that. The magic was just gone and no other Dr.
Who star really held the same sex appeal to me after that (until the recent
series with Billie Piper). Interesting side note - About ten years ago I had the
pleasure of meeting Sarah Sutton at a science fiction convention. Although
thirty years older, I still found her to be attractive. However it was kind of
like meeting somebody's mom. Sarah Sutton wasn't the space babe I remember. Yet
I was still stunned to come face to face with my first childhood love. I
remember getting a bit lost for words. Finally I blurted out: "Ms. Sutton, I was
absolutely in love with you when I was ten."
't your average eleven year old. One day, while reading a magazine at
the kid next door's house, I came across a picture of a blonde woman wearing a
striped outfit, a red leather mini skirt and red boots. Her name was Nancy
Sinatra, daughter of the famous crooner Frank Sinatra. I immediately fell in
love and borrowed a magazine so I could draw a picture of her. Back then I was
always trying to draw pictures of the women I fell in love with (kinda Napoleon
Dynamiteish - isn't it?). Not long later, in a twist of fate, I saw Nancy's
video for "These Boots Are Made For Walking". Those legs! Those boots! Those cat
eyes! All that jiggling!!! VA-VOOM! For my twelfth birthday my Aunt Grace found
a copy of Nancy Sinatra's Greatest Hits on LP. On the cover was another sexed up
picture of Nancy in a white dress and large white leather boots which I would
spend hours looking at in my bedroom. I listened to that album until it wore
out. I was the only kid in school who knew all the words to "You Only Live
Twice", "How Does That Grab You Darlin'" and "So Long Babe". I thought that
Nancy Sinatra was the greatest musician in the world at that point. Today I
realize that she is actually, at best, lackluster - but I still have a soft spot
for Nancy's music and a fetish for boots and I'll notice a nice pair of boots
before I notice the woman in them. Nancy Sinatra is who is to blame for that.
Nancy Sinatra is also probably the only blonde that I ever had a thing
for.
3. Yvonne Craig/Batgirl - Around the same time that I was in love
with Nancy Sinatra I got a double shot of nostalgic love. WUTV-29 began to air
the old Batman series with Adam West and Burt Ward. Being a comic book fan it
was my duty to watch Batman each and every afternoon after school. However it
was like a crash of frikkin' thunder when sexy Yvonne Craig was introduced as
Batgirl. Now perhaps it was just the over-stimulation of seeing a leggy woman
wearing that purple and yellow bat suit, but my heart just swooned. Yvonne Craig
also provided the best of both worlds. While I was beginning to develop a
preference towards brunettes, at that time I had a certain fetish for redheads.
Yvonne Craig had short dark hair but would don a red wig when she put on the bat
suit. However I think the most wonderful thing about Yvonne Craig was the way
she seemed to have a smile on her face as she drop-kicked the villain of the
week's henchmen. It isn't a surprise that I have a Batgirl fetish to this day,
although the character herself isn't necessarily a favourite comic character of
mine. Yet Yvonne Craig in the role of Batgirl was
the
earliest introduction to what would eventually become some of my most evident
fetishes - gloves, boots and the full leather body suit. Last summer I wrote an
article on this website called "
Susan
Walters - Easily the most obscure of my celebrity crushes. Although she is
probably most known now as Young and the Restless's Dianne Jenkins I have never
seen her in the role. When I was fifteen years old I fell in love with the
southern beauty queen in her role as Mary Beth Sutton on Judd Hirsh's sitcom
"Dear John". The series was about the various characters that interact with each
other at a support group for divorcees. Susan Walters' character was the naive
yet sexy character who was getting proposed to each and every week but still
felt the need to go to the support group. Falling in love with Susan Walters was
definitely a result of my short-lived fetish for red heads. She also had this
thick Georgian accent that you couldn't help but find sexy. Susan Walters also
found her way into many of my early high school art projects but, eventually, I
forgot all about her when "Dear John" finally went off the air. A few years ago
I met Susan's "Dear John" co-star Harry Groener who played nerdy Ralph Drang.
These days Groener is probably better known for playing the villainous Mayor of
Sunnydale from the third season of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer". I only had a few
minutes to speak to him but I brought up "Dear John" and mentioned Susan
Walters. "Oh yeah. Susan Walters. She was a very beautiful woman," was all
Groener had to say. Mind you, what else should have I expected? There just
really isn't that much to say. The worst thing about falling in love with Susan
Walters when I was a kid, however, was that nobody knew who she was and assumed
I was talking about Barbara Walters. I got a lot of freaked out looks when I was
fifteen and talking about such things.
Shannon Doherty - It was impossible to be a teenager in the nineties
and not be in contact with the world of "Beverly Hills 90210". Now even as a
teenager I never much liked the show, but as for 90210's star Shannon Doherty...
well that was another story. Shannon Doherty set up a pattern that would be
evident in what I find desirable even to this day. That long dark hair, pale
skin, Bettie Page bangs, dark uneven eyes. Shannon wasn't a waif - she had
curves right where a guy wanted a girl to have curves. I still have the poster
of Shannon that hung in my bedroom when I was a teenager (although it does not
hang on my walls anymore) and I paid my friend's sister a dollar for every
picture of Shannon Doherty that she cut out from her Tiger Beat and 16 magazines
for me. Another quality which I found strangely attractive was that Shannon
Doherty was a bitch. The tabloids wouldn't leave her alone and her conduct
eventually even got her fired from her show. Still, despite the bad publicity,
Shannon Doherty was still my high school poster girl and girl of my dreams.
However, in my opinion, I think I finally lost interest in Shannon when she got
married to some dude in an overnight whirlwind ceremony. The marriage lasted
less than a year but, by that point, I had moved on to other things.
Furthermore, Shannon's good looks eventually faded. These days she looks dumpy
and trashy. Pity really.
1990 the whole world was wondering who killed Laura
Palmer. I wanted to know as well, but it was also an excuse to watch beautiful
raven haired Sherilyn Fenn in her role as Audrey Horn in the David Lynch series
"Twin Peaks". Sherilyn had even darker hair and even paler skin then Shannon
Doherty. However Sherilyn was not only kind of a bitch but her character was
incredibly quirky and insane - two traits that I found to be incredibly
desirable. Around the same time I saw Sherilyn in the trashy fantasy film "Kiss
of the Beast, or, Meridian" (when a film has two titles you know it's probably
going to be terrible). Although unwatchable at times, Sherilyn's "performance"
(*cough cough*) was the subject for many a teenage sexual fantasy for years.
Sadly I haven't seen or heard about Sherilyn Fenn these days. At least we still
have Audrey Horn and Twin Peaks.
Susan
Dey - Although she was winning Emmy Awards as Grace Van Owen on LA Law, when I
was in the eleventh grade, MuchMusic began to run "The Partridge Family" reruns
and I fell in love with the teenaged Susan Dey in her role as Laurie Partridge.
Susan Dey combined the dark hair and dark eyes with the retro look I loved in
women from when I was younger, like Yvonne Craig and Nancy Sinatra. Although I
knew that she was, in reality, old enough to be my mother, I thought Susan Dey
was the yummiest woman I ever laid eyes on. Around the same time I began to
develop crushes on other stars from the late sixties - Deanna Lunn, Olivia
Hussey, Peggy Lipton and such. Falling in love with stars from the past began to
become more and more frequent as I started to become more obsessed with fifties
and sixties culture. However, by this time, the classic look was dying in 90's
pop culture. Pam Anderson and Christina Applegate were becoming our sexual
icons. It's no wonder that I was fleeing to the fresh-faced innocence of Laurie
Partridge. Side note - I actually did, and still do, like The Partridge Family's
music and TV show and wasn't just watching it to look at Susan Dey.
Diana
Rigg - The obsession with actresses from the past continued when A&E began
rerunning The Avengers episodes after school when I was in my final year of high
school. As my sexual exploration evolved and began to twist into more
fetishistic directions, Diana Rigg, in her role as Emma Peel, wasn't much of a
surprise. Boots, leather and occasional bondage was the fashion on The Avengers.
Furthermore, she was beautiful, dignified, cultured, brilliant, witty, quirky
and slightly insane. All this and she could flip an attacker over her head and
knock him silly with a quick karate chop to the neck. Diana Rigg was the
ultimate woman to me at that point. An interesting side note though is that The
Avengers didn't just offer me an ideal woman to desire but also gave me a role
model in John "Patrick MacNee" Steed whose influence on me is evident to this
day.
Audrey Hepburn - Easily the one woman most
deserving of my adoration. I fell in love with Audrey Hepburn a bit too late. I
was sitting in the high school library in my final year and reading an issue of
People Magazine when I came upon her obituary. Those large eyes and narrow smile
haunted me. I remember bringing the magazine to the back of the library and
tearing out the picture although I wasn't entirely sure who Audrey Hepburn was.
That weekend PBS showed "Funny Face", "Breakfast at Tiffanies" and "Roman
Holiday" in tribute to her and I sat through all three. Although I didn't much
like Funny Face I fell in love with Audrey in the scene where she is in the
smoky night club dancing with beatniks while Fred Astaire looks on. The other
two films enchanted me. Next came Sabrina and don't even get me started on how
turned on by that film I was. Audrey Hepburn is sexy and sophisticated but, most
of all, she is a true lady. There is not a thing tainted or deviant about her.
However, as a result, Audrey Hepburn becomes a little too perfect. Easily the
closest thing to an angel, or even the Virgin Mary, that ever walked the earth
during our time. Audrey's haunting huge eyes still stare down at me from my
walls to this day. A piece of my heart will always belong to Audrey.
Bettie Page
- If Audrey is the saint then Bettie Page is the whore. I first discovered
Bettie when I was working at a collectables shop in university. It was hard to
escape her because her picture was everywhere although I wasn't quite sure who
she was or what she did. Once I found out the story of the reclusive model who
during the 1950s would do just about anything, I said to myself that I wouldn't
jump onto that bandwagon... but it was impossible not to. Bettie Page embodies
everything that I have desired over the years - the retro look, dark hair, pale
skin, the bangs (now I found out where they originated), gloves, boots and, in
what would be the height of my fascination with fetish and kink, complete and
utter deviance. However, what I love about Bettie is that there is something
natural and real about her. Bettie wasn't a celebrity as much as a normal woman.
She could be your secretary, the girl that serves your breakfast at the local
diner or the woman that lives across the hall. She can be sweet and delightful
or a domineering bitch. Bettie could be anything you wanted her to be - but she
wasn't the girl you brought home to Mom. Furthermore - she's all real. No
plastic surgery. No airbrushing. Her photos aren't overdone and most of them are
relatively primitive and she still looks THAT good. Bettie remains my dark angel
even now.
Michelle Trachtenberg - When I first saw sixteen year old Michelle
Trachtenberg as Dawn Summers in "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" I thought to myself
"Wow, that kid is going to be a knockout when she grows up." Now, she's at age
twenty, and I was clearly right. I have done a lot of writing about Michelle
Trachtenberg in the past and if you'd like a full run down on the history of my
affections for Michelle go
Soledad
Miranda - Soledad Miranda is not a household name, but over the last two years
she has managed to capture my imagination in a way that no other actress has in
a very long time. I first saw Soledad staring at me from the cover of a DVD box
on a shelf at "Have You Seen". The film was Jess Franco's "Vampyros Lesbos" and
the box promised that this beautiful woman would be playing a rarely dressed
vampire lesbian. How could I not rent this film!? However, imagine my surprise
when I not only found that the film was quite good, but I fell in love with the
dark-haired, dark-eyed, pale-skinned star. Soledad Miranda is like a drug. The
more you watch her and the more you look at her pictures the more of her you
want to see. I've spent nearly a year hunting down and collecting her films and
photos but many are not yet available in North America. Very few of her films
were released over here and those that were, were first available years, and
even decades, after they were made. Adding to the enigma of Soledad is her
tragic fate. In 1970, days after completing "The Devil Came From Akasva" and
only weeks after signing a contract to star in her first American film Soledad
was killed in a car accident in Portugal at the age of 25. Soledad left behind a
tragic angel (or perhaps devil) to haunt the dreams of cult movie fans forever.
Perhaps my love for Soledad goes deeper than just her long hair, pale skin and
dark eyes, it may be the fact that we barely got to know her and that she
remains more mysterious in death than in life.