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 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 as famous for her 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 she turned her back on showbiznearly 30 years ago to save seals.
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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 supernatural mojo and a 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 stunt his career (Michael Douglas' equity with older female fans took a nosedive when he married much-younger Catherine Zeta-Jones) the branding of Brangelina has only cemented his 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 bad. 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 said 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 Presley 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 she'd lived, she wouldn't be on this list. She'd be 80-years-old now, likely 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?
Sexiest alien
Most of the extraterrestrials Hollywood introduces us to generally belong to one of two categories: Monstrous entities who want to exterminate humanity; and benign advanced creatures who just want to be our friends. Rarely are either terribly attractive. Then there is Sil, the alien bombshell played by Natasha Henstridge in Species, who just wanted to meet guys to mate with. The catch? After the deed is done, she plays Hacky Sack with your internal organs.
Sexiest villain
Although women go weak in the knees for a man in uniform -- hence, our serious consideration to grant this honour to Darth Vader -- they also appreciate a sense of humour. So who better to show a girl the time of her life than the Joker, arch-nemesis of Batman? Too bad his dates tend to die laughing.
Sexiest politician
Handsome, young and a famed womanizer, John F. Kennedy never would have been president had it not been for TV. Kennedy's election inaugurated in a new era in which how our leaders appear and what they do in their bedrooms is as scrutinized as their foreign policy.
Sexiest playmate
Busloads of buxom blonds strip for Playboy, but Jenny McCarthy is distinguished by her creative ambitions (writing books and scripts) and bawdy sense of humour.
A Brief History Of Sexy Songs
Wicked Game -- Chris Isaak
Nobody Does it Better -- Carly Simon
I Touch Myself -- The Divinyls
Let's Get it On -- Marvin Gaye
A Girl Like You -- Edwyn Collins
Fever -- Peggy Lee
Sweet Love -- Anita Baker
Mercy Mercy Me -- Robert Palmer
I Didn't Mean To Turn You On -- Robert Palmer
Erotica -- Madonna
You Can Leave Your Hat On -- Joe Cocker
Try A Little Tenderness -- Otis Redding
I Was Made To Love Her -- Stevie Wonder
I'm On Fire -- Bruce Springsteen
Ordinary Love -- Sade
