Gods Of The Silver Screen
Now there's nothing new about hero-worship, since the dawn of man, women have looked up to mythologised men for inspiration - Delilah had Samson and Josephine her Napoleon. But the real trouble started with Hollywood. The movies made it possible for actors to be seen by millions of impressionable women. As the industry and its audiences multiplied, movie stars acquired an influence out of all proportion to their personal worth. The first time, most baby-boomers (like myself) fell in love, was at the movies. I still remember that moment of truth.
The movie was From The Terrace in which the youthful, incredible blue eyed Paul Newman made love to his co-star, whose name I can't remember because it was really me up there with him between the sheets.
And once under his spell, a sex symbol becomes a sex symbol for the rest of our life. Dates fade into oblivion. Husbands come and go. Kids leave home. Yet, Newman will always be Newman for me. Knowing he'll never send me flowers or take me to dinner, I still adore him. Despite the fact, he is only an illusion created by Hollywood.
Even after they die we don't let go, but create myths and legends around them to keep their memory alive... James Dean and Elvis Presley are perfect examples of posthumous sex symbols.
Good looks and talent is where adoration begins, not where the story ends - for not all movie stars join the lexicon of sex symbols.
Tyrone Power was a sex symbol but not Spencer Tracey. So too was Robert Taylor but not Robert Mitchum. For all his great talent there's no sense of romance about a Tracey, whereas you simply swoon the instant Tyrone appeared on screen.
With Mr. Taylor it's straight to bed, while with Mr. Mitchum it's hot chocolate after a long horse ride into the countryside. Why some particular actor's persona leaves you breathless is as mystifying as the myth itself. Nothing short of putting Gable on an analyst's couch could unravel this mystery of mysteries.
Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis examined the dynamics of hero-worship 50 years before "sex-symbol" became a household phrase.
He explained, "Our fixations echo our childhood fantasies" and that all figures of worship are closely based on parental prototypes.
In other words, most women have a father fixation.
When, I witnessed Clarke Gable's Rhett Butler in Gone With The Wind, I too, wanted to be whisked off my feet by powerful arms. I too, craved for a man to scale a staircase two at a time, throw me on a bed and devour me. But unlike Scarlett, I wanted my man to be there next morning, demanding another round of depravity.
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