| 4th October 2006 10:03 AM |
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| Ten Thousand Motels |
Sexiest celebrities
Wed, October 4, 2006
By KEVIN WILLIAMSON, SUN MEDIA
London Free Press
Today, Sun Media concludes a three-part series looking at the 50 greatest sex symbols to ever hold the popular culture sway -- from movie stars and singers to athletes and models.
They are the individuals who, thanks to good genes and more than a little of that elusive ingredient we call charisma, really are too sexy for themselves -- and everyone else.
10. ROBERT REDFORD: The industry's golden boy is also its most stubbornly independent outsider. Loved by the camera, Redford could have settled for life in the Hollywood hills, cashing in on his sterling DNA. Instead he went to Utah and, in the spirit of the scoundrel he portrayed in 1969's Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, kickstarted an outlaw movement which would later solidify into the Sundance Film Festival and mark the birth of the American independent film movement. His own career also surpassed the expectations afforded most marquee dreamboats. In 1981, he won the best directing Oscar for his debut, Ordinary People. Since then he has gone on to helm his own productions, notably A River Runs Through It, in which he cast a barely-known Brad Pitt. Still, whatever his accomplishments behind the camera, Redford -- at least in the minds of millions of women -- will always be the fair-haired romantic centre of such lovestruck weepers as The Way We Were.
9. Farrah Fawcett: Her red swimsuit poster sold 12 million copies in 1976. Nearly 20 years later, her appearance in Playboy sold more than four million copies, making it one of the best-selling issues in the magazine's history. Add to this the hairstyle named for her and it's remarkable Fawcett was only on Charlie's Angels for one season. But in the 1970s, before television imploded into a 500-channel universe, the small screen could create an icon overnight. Fawcett spent the 1980s trying to prove there was more to her than her much-copied mane, specifically in the TV movie The Burning Bed. And while she received an Emmy, she'll never win a reprieve from being Charlie's most famous angel.
8. Brigitte Bardot: These days, Bardot is more famous for espousing her political views -- specifically for animal rights -- than for her past as France's pre-eminent sex kitten. Yet that's precisely what she was in the 1950s before turning her back on the entertainment industry nearly 30 years ago to save seals.
7. MICK JAGGER: Jagger is 63 years old, but would you trust him with your 19-year-old daughter? Didn't think so -- unless, of course, you want to risk ending up the grandparent of his latest offspring. That the Rolling Stones' sneering frontman continues to symbolize rock god decadence -- something he satirizes to glorious effect in the fall series Knights of Prosperity (formerly Let's Rob Mick Jagger) -- is overshadowed only by bandmate Keith Richards' inexplicable foothold among the living. Jagger's continued virility and boundless energy is reason enough to wonder if he, as goes the popular urban legend, did seal a deal with the devil in exchange for some kind of supernatural mojo and that famous face that's all mouth.
6. BRAD PITT: Once merely the washboard-torsoed hitchhiker from Thelma and Louise, Pitt has ascended to a level of celebrity that's increasingly rare in our fragmented, ADD-afflicted society. He is, simply, the biggest film star in the world -- and one whose appeal, particularly with the opposite sex, cannot be overestimated. Case in point: Splitting from Jennifer Aniston to hook up with Angelina Jolie. Rather than stunting his career (Michael Douglas's equity with older female fans took a nosedive when he married much-younger Catherine Zeta-Jones) the branding of Brangelina has only cemented Pitt's perch atop Tinseltown's fickle food chain. Short of being caught on tape with Lance Bass and Screech, he's untouchable. And maybe not even then.
5. THE BEATLES: When you strip away the classic songwriting and impeccable musicianship, the fab four amount to the world's first boy band. As derogatory a term as that may be now, the biological fact is John, Paul, George and Ringo didn't have girls fainting because of their melodic craftsmanship. It was because the girls thought their mop tops were cute. Music may change; teenage girls do not.
4. Sophia Loren: She possesses the kind of beauty tenors are meant to sing about. Even the Vatican apparently considers this Italian import a gift from above. The Archbishop of Genoa once conceded that while the Vatican opposes cloning, "an exception might be made in the case of Sophia Loren." Amen.
3. ELVIS PRESLEY: Presley is remembered these days as much for his hefty, drug-addled middle age -- and the subsequent sightings of him in the years following his death -- as for being modern music's original sex symbol. Yet the impact he had is immeasurable. The template for all the rock stars who would follow, he forever married sex to the populist soundtrack. This isn't to suggest he was a visionary -- he was, in the end, a remarkably charismatic kid who entered the eye of a perfect storm. His signature whiplash style and dark good looks made him born to be on TV, just as that medium was reshaping the landscape. By putting Elvis the Pelvis, as he came to be known for his hip-swivelling performances, in living rooms everywhere, TV anointed him the record industry's young, doomed king. And the one all others, even now, would stand in the shadow of.
2. Marilyn Monroe: If Marilyn had lived, she wouldn't be on this list. She'd be 80 years old now, probably forgotten, resigned to the meagre existence of a mortal. But in death -- alongside James Dean and other perished-too-young stars -- she was harnessed in time, as much an ideal as a person. Could she act? Does any one even remember? It doesn't matter. What they do know -- even those born decades after her death -- are the freeze-frames and flashbacks: Monroe with her white dress blown up around her hips, Monroe singing Happy Birthday to J.F.K., Monroe cooing in newsreel footage. She's a T-shirt, a stamp, a logo, a brand -- and one of the most recognizable and replicated brands on Earth, whether it's Christina Aguilera echoing her now or Madonna channeling her in 1984's Material Girl video.
1. MADONNA: Don't mistake Madonna's position here as our endorsement of her as the world's most beautiful, desirable woman. Rather, consider it an acknowledgment of her extraordinary aptitude for using sex to provoke and promote. While others have been sexier, none has been more cunning in needling and nudging popular tastes to their own commercial gain. Certainly, timing was on her side. She arrived at the dawn of MTV when how you looked and what you did became as important as what you sounded like. Madonna was never a great vocalist, but coupled with videos that bedeviled parents and censors, she established herself as agitator and artist. And, as opposed to certain bubble-headed hicks whose managers pull all the strings, no one was in control of Madonna except the Material Girl herself. And isn't that sexy?
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| 4th October 2006 10:04 AM |
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| glencar |
Funny howe it takes 4 Rutles to defeat one Stone. |
| 4th October 2006 10:21 AM |
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| Gazza |
It's not often I would expect myself to be agreeing with the Archbishop of Genoa, but - just this once..... |
| 4th October 2006 10:22 AM |
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| jb |
Beatles sexy-what fucking crap!!! |
| 4th October 2006 10:23 AM |
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| glencar |
Ding ding ding!!! |
| 4th October 2006 10:26 AM |
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| FotiniD |
Another crappy list. There must be a job: listmaker. They sit in the office all day downloading some obscure series while mixing up old lists to make new ones. |
| 4th October 2006 10:28 AM |
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| GotToRollMe |
quote:
Gazza wrote:
It's not often I would expect myself to be agreeing with the Archbishop of Genoa, but - just this once.....
Indeed. Sophia shoulda been Numero Uno.
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| 4th October 2006 10:29 AM |
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| glencar |
quote:
FotiniD wrote:
Another crappy list. There must be a job: listmaker. They sit in the office all day downloading some obscure series while mixing up old lists to make new ones.
And we'll always have TTM to give us these silly lists. |
| 4th October 2006 11:18 AM |
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| Some Guy |
The Beatles are bringing sexy back? |
| 4th October 2006 11:59 AM |
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| GotToRollMe |
Here's a little something for Gazza (and any other Sophia fans out there). They just don't make 'em like this anymore...*sigh*
             
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| 4th October 2006 12:07 PM |
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| Gazza |
Mammaria mia!
[Edited by Gazza] |
| 4th October 2006 01:14 PM |
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| Dan |
Kim Deal will always be number one in my heart.
And howe could they miss Kevin Dubrow from Quiet Riot?
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| 4th October 2006 04:40 PM |
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| Ten Thousand Motels |
quote:
glencar wrote:
And we'll always have TTM to give us these silly lists.
Yup. Glad to oblige. Silly lists are VERY popular. |
| 4th October 2006 04:49 PM |
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| caro |
So you people are supposed to be cool and none of you has even thought of posting a Rosario Dawson photo yet! When I'm big I wanna look like her.
 
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| 4th October 2006 06:38 PM |
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| Ten Thousand Motels |
quote:
GotToRollMe wrote:
Indeed. Sophia shoulda been Numero Uno.
Sophia with her "other half."
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| 4th October 2006 08:00 PM |
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| MrPleasant |
Sophia: good.
Madonna: ugh. |
| 4th October 2006 08:14 PM |
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| luxury1 |
Sophia has the most perfect tits I have ever seen! And I am not a breast man.
[Edited by luxury1] |
| 4th October 2006 08:17 PM |
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| pdog |
quote:
luxury1 wrote:
that list is made up of predominantly old or dead people!!
Still, I must comment on Miss Sophia's boobies--perfection!
Even today, she still looks hot! |
| 4th October 2006 08:18 PM |
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| luxury1 |
pdoggie-dog--stop quoting me before I am done with my editing... |
| 4th October 2006 08:19 PM |
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| telecaster |
quote:
luxury1 wrote:
Sophia has the most perfect tits I have ever seen! And I am not a breast man.
Seems Sophia is!
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| 4th October 2006 08:48 PM |
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| GotToRollMe |
quote:
luxury1 wrote:
Sophia has the most perfect tits I have ever seen! And I am not a breast man.
[Edited by luxury1]
All natural, too! |
| 4th October 2006 10:34 PM |
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| Mahatma Kane Jeeves |
Madonna????
I don't need no trip to the clinic!!! |
| 5th October 2006 12:14 AM |
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| Taptrick |
you just need a shot of rock n' roll
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| 5th October 2006 12:17 AM |
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| glencar |
Why is Sophia looking at Jayne Mansfield's bazooms so intently? And why didn't her(Jayne's) daughter Mariska Hargitay inherit some of that! |
| 5th October 2006 12:23 AM |
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| GotToRollMe |
quote:
Ten Thousand Motels wrote:
Sophia with her "other half."
Yep, Mr. Ponti is a very lucky man. 
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