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 Pamela Anderson has more spare parts than the Bionic Woman, but we still love her. |
With apologies to pop wuss Justin Timberlake, he never had to bring sexy back. Sexy, if you look anywhere around you, never went away.
Today the Sun continues 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.
30: STING: You'd guess anyone born with the name Gordon Sumner would be destined for dorkdom. And, in a way, Sting -- despite fronting The Police, his solo success and austere, intellectualized mystique -- has turned out to be just that. A dork. Who just happens to be the thinking woman's lust toy. Rather than boast about the number of groupies he's been with, Sting touts his, er, sustainability by preaching the virtues of tantric sex. Moreover, his wife has confessed the two are, to dip into 1970s lingo, "swingers." Wondering what celebrity couples have attended the duo's car-key parties? So are we.
29: BURT REYNOLDS: Back when hair adorned many a male lip -- yes, girls and boys, moustaches were once the requisite grooming staple of the hirsute, medallion-wearing cosmo-man of the 1970s -- Reynolds lorded over all with such redneck-as-superhero movies as Smokey and the Bandit and The Cannonball Run.
28: DAVID BECKHAM: Every sport needs an ambassador and while soccer isn't the sensation in North America that it is overseas, its cause is aided immensely by, like him or not, fashion plate Beckham. Hate him? Does it matter? As long as he and wife Victoria remain the sport's photogenic first family, the answer is no.
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27: BETTIE PAGE: It's no surprise when Page was finally immortalized in a biopic, the movie would be entitled The Notorious Bettie Page. The pre-eminent 1940s pin-up girl of fetish photos and soft-core pornography, Page was reportedly photographed more times than even Marilyn Monroe. A generation before Jenna Jameson, Page would end up branded as the poster girl for the stranger avenues of sex.
26: GRACE KELLY: She was director Alfred Hitchcock's breathtaking blond of choice in such classics as Rear Window before she wed Rainier III, Prince of Monaco in 1956, elevating her from the status of mere Hollywood royalty to the glamourous real thing.
25: VANESSA PARADIS: A huge celebrity in her native France, this singer and actress is best known on this continent for being the woman who pirated away Johnny Depp. He has said he was smitten as soon as he saw her. He's not alone.
24: DIANA RIGG: We're catnip for catsuits, especially when they're filled out as well as when Rigg played sexy secret agent Emma Peel in the British 1960s television series The Avengers. Even Uma Thurman couldn't live up to Rigg's legacy when she played Peel in a 1997 remake (with Ralph Fiennes and Sean Connery) that was almost as unpalatable as English food.
23: ROCK HUDSON: What's this? A major movie star hiding his true sexual identity? Thank God that could never happen today in our just and tolerant society. Before Hudson became the face of AIDS and closeted Hollywood, he was the square-jawed man's man who starred (opposite Doris Day) in a string of 1960s romantic comedies and then in the TV series McMillan & Wife. You can't blame Hudson for pretending to be straight. Odds are audiences weren't ready for McMillian & Life Partner.
22: THE SPICE GIRLS: If you wanted crazy, there was Scary Spice. If you wanted trampy, there was Ginger. And if you wanted voluptuous, there was Baby. (We assume no one wanted Sporty.) And then there was Posh (aka Victoria Beckham), who you just wanted.
21: RICHARD GERE: Few probably thought Gere, when he was starring in American Gigolo and An Officer and a Gentleman, would ever age into a social activist and devout Buddhist, especially since he's the most effective on-screen when he's being callow. But hey, chicks dig a cad. Especially when he's pals with the Dalai Lama.
20: GEORGE CLOONEY: Before there was McDreamy there was Clooney. Does this mean Patrick Dempsey is fated to leave Grey's Anatomy and win Oscars and direct movies? Are you drunk?
19: BRITNEY SPEARS: It seems like decades since Britney's school-girl shimmy and patented low-riders made her synonymous with sex. Even after her album sales began to slip, the pop tart -- or rather, her puppet masters -- were crafty enough to make the masses wonder "What will she do/wear next?" The answer, it seems, was turn into Flo from Alice. Next album title? "Kiss my grits."
18: SEAN CONNERY: In the jungle, a lion gets old and is eventually run out of the pride by a younger, more virile rival. Unless the older lion is named Connery, in which case he scoffs, sneers, beds the younger lion's woman and shoots the upstart between the eyes. That's why Connery will forever be the one, true Bond.
17: CATHERINE DENEUVE: She was hailed as the world's most elegant woman after she signed on as the pitchwoman for Chanel No. 5 in the 1970s. A respected actress before she became an icon, Deneuve remains both to this day, appearing in films and modelling. She is so well-renowned in France, she was even used to personify Marianne, the country's national symbol of beauty and virtue.
16: OLIVIA NEWTON JOHN: Along with Jane Fonda, Newton John popularized the 1980s aerobics movement with the song Physical. But for a generation of guys, when they think of her, Grease is the word.
15: ANNA KOURNIKOVA: What? She plays tennis too?
14: JOHN TRAVOLTA: As Vinnie Barbarino on Welcome Back, Kotter, Travolta was the Ashton Kutcher of his day. But while Kutcher has all but jettisoned any hopes of a serious career thanks to trite rubbish like Guess Who's Coming To Dinner?, Travolta became an idol when he signed on to the phenomenally popular film Saturday Night Fever. Two decades later, he would again epitomize cinematic cool in Quentin Tarantino's landmark Pulp Fiction.
13: CINDY CRAWFORD: There had been models, even supermodels, before her, but the arrival of Crawford and her signature mole signalled the beginning of the era of Naomi, Heidi, Tyra and Elle. Crawford's fame came untranslated in silent, wordless images -- ideal for our culture of pop-sensory overload.
12: JOHNNY DEPP: Depp is the bad boy girls, and women, swoon for -- the scruffy hotel-trashing rebel who settles down, makes millions and matures into a responsible, respected dad. For years, Depp eschewed the superstardom that has come to him now with the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, making his current run of extraordinary fortune feel all the more earned.
11: PAMELA ANDERSON: It had to happen. Eventually some nerd was bound to make a robot Barbie in his basement. She'd jiggle, laugh, inflate and deflate her cleavage at will, run on the beach in a red bathing suit and have sex on tape again and again. And again. Too bad her inventor couldn't see the inevitable coming -- that despite her programming, she'd ditch his geek ass for the first rock star who came to town. This isn't the real Pamela Anderson, of course, the Canadian who rode the wave of Baywatch to stratospheric success. In reality, she's a savvy businesswoman -- richer than either you or I will ever be -- social activist, and the creator of that very robot Barbie we seemingly can't get enough of.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF SEXY
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