A History Of Celebrity Crushes

Sheila-style. I’ve had intense celebrity crushes all my life. It’s fun, it’s an escape. Other women read romance novels. I throw myself into sweeping crushes with movie stars. I’m vaguely embarrassed by this tendency. But I do it anyway.

Off the type of my head, the progression of crushes through my life has been this:

— Han Solo was the first big ol’ crush I had. This came about after seeing Empire Strikes Back. Kissing Leia in the asteroid belt. I was 11 or 12 years old when I saw that. I thought it was the most romantic amazing thing I had ever seen. I joined his fan club. I went crazy.

— Ralph Macchio. This came about because of his stint on Eight is Enough – where he played the ninth child … because obviously, after a bunch of seasons, eight kids were NOT enough to keep the ratings up. I just fell in love with that skinny dark-haired big-eyed kid. God. I wrote him fan letters. I lost my shit.

— this cute actor who was in a TV movie back in the early 80s starring Bette Davis – I think it was called Wings? No idea. No memory of any of it except for him. It was about a paraplegic girl who becomes a pilot, and this hottie hottie hottie played the guy in the high school who starts to date her, and the second I saw him, I felt a hormone surge like no other. It ushered me into adolescence.

— Sting. Not his self-conscious ikky kama sutra solo shite. But when he was in The Police, with the blonde bowl cut, and he was serious, intense, and HOT.

— John Stamos as Blackie Parrish in General Hospital

— James Dean. It took me weeks to recover after I saw East of Eden one night when I was babysitting.

— Chevy Chase. I think seeing Foul Play was the one that brought this one on.

— Bill Murray from his time on SNL. His scenes with Gilda Radner were so delicious – I wish I had them all on tape. Bill Murray, at that time in his life, was (and is) pretty much my quintessential type. Big, crazy, pale-faced, funny rubbery face. Blurpy. I lerved him. I’m also a sucker for a purposefully funny man.

— John Taylor from Duran Duran. This was a pretty mild one.

— Mickey Rourke, pre-surgery. Angel Heart was the catalyst. Suddenly I had to see every movie he ever made. I was in college. His performance in Diner remains a classic, in my mind. It’s got everything: he’s tough, sexy, wounded, suddenly tender … I mean, he was MADE to be all crushed over at that time.

— Matthew Broderick. I saw War Games when I was in high school and my heart just ached in my chest.

Interjection: I am not fickle, although it may seem like it. I am very loyal to ALL of these people, to this day.

— Jeff Bridges. This one was particularly intense. I had always liked him … and Fearless is one of my favorite movies ever made. But it was years after Fearless came out, that I randomly rented The Fisher King one night … and felt it start to happen. The crush. Holy crap. The Fisher King made a particularly deep and intense impression on me. I’m not kidding: I lay in bed, thinking about Jeff Bridges. I was then in my late 20s … just so you get the perspective that I am not a moony-eyed teenager. It took a whole summer for that crush to burn itself out.

— But then along came Russell Crowe in LA Confidential and that one made the Jeff Bridges thing seem like a schoolgirl crush. I’d never seen anybody so hot, so intense … so perfect. That performance was sheer GOLD in terms of star power and sex appeal. Then began the work part of the crush, which I had, by now, honed down to a science. I rented every movie he had ever made. Most of them, by that point, were New Zealand films. Romper Stomper just blew me away and made me realize that we were looking at a major talent here. But it was The Sum of Us – a SWEET SWEET little NZ movie that clinched the deal for me – and made me a Russell Crowe fan forever. I LOVE that movie. Crowe plays a sweet shy insecure gay kid living with his father. It’s just a gem of a film and Crowe is great in it. Then also there was Proof – quite a success for a small independent film from New Zealand. He’s amazing in it – simple, with a kind of wordless animal charm. I lost my mind over Russell Crowe.

— I thought the Russell Crowe thing might be the be-all end-all of celebrity crushes. But that was until I saw Moulin Rouge. Now – I saw Trainspotting when it first came out, and obviously McGregor made an impression. He’s great in that film. I love that movie. But no crush developed. It was the mixture of Ewan McGregor and the role he played in Moulin Rouge that tipped me over the edge. I saw it at one of the lowest points in my life, and I latched onto this film as a kind of savior. I watched it every day. My roommate and dear friend was very patient with me. She did not judge. I had to see that movie every day. It (and McGregor) gave me so much pleasure and solace. That movie still remains a favorite – flaws and all. It has a special place in my heart because of the hope it gave me at that time. I’ll write more on that in a bit.

— Then along came Humphrey Bogart. By that point, I had my blog here … which brought about a huge change in my celebrity crush habit. Because now I got to write about it – and not just in my journal (which always made me feel slightly pathetic. I’m a grown woman … writing about Ewan McGregor in my journal? Ew.) I could get it OUT. I treat my celebrity crushes like a second job. “Okay. It’s Bogart now. I know what I have to do. Get crackin’, Sheil-babe!”

— Then I moved to Cary Grant. The guy is literally the. best. there. is. No contest. At least not for me. Here’s where I get crazy: I feel like all the other celebrity crushes were just lead-ups to this one. I was honing my craft with the rest of them … I was figuring out my own process … so that when I came across Grant, I was good to go. Ready to do what I needed to do. Cary Grant is one of my favorite topics (along with Central Asia, and the downfall of Communism.)

I’m talking about this because I have an idea for a project – and I wanted to get my thoughts organized.

I wrote a long piece a while back, when the Humphrey Bogart thing was heating up, about how I saw these periodic flaming crushes as healthy and why … so I thought I’d post it again. I had forgotten half of what I had written – interesting to go back and see what I said about all of it.

Click below to read it:

I am getting obsessed with Humphrey Bogart. The love is gone, folks. The obsession blossoms. I can feel it growing. Like some beautiful poisonous plant, expanding exponentially.

This is a very familiar sensation to me, as I have had INTENSE celebrity crushes since the first achey twinges of puberty.

And maybe because I have a little bit of a complex about being “too much” for whatever guy I’ve been involved with (and I’m not delusional, by the way – More than one man has said to me, point-blank, “You’re a bit much” … One actually said to me, in kind of a dry tone, “I guess I feel that dating you is too much for one man, and I feel like I need to call in some help”. My point is is that my complex does not exist in a vacuum) … maybe because of all of that, my celebrity crushes get ALL of my passion. I will never be “too much” for them!

Maybe this should be an embarrassing admission, but it’s not. At least I don’t feel embarrassed.

Let me go to a deeper level for a moment:

Like most of us, I have gone through some rough seasons. One such rough season was a couple of years ago, directly prior to starting up my blog in 2002. This “season” was different from others I have experienced, because it showed no sign of ending. A grey blanket lay over the world.

Now, multiple things went into me climbing out of the black pit … one was starting the blog, randomly.

But another thing was seeing “Moulin Rouge” and succumbing, whole-heartedly, to a “crush” on Ewan McGregor which – it’s hard to describe without feeling silly. Maybe people think because I wear leather jackets and have a tattoo that I’m a tough chick, and on many levels I am. You must not mess with me. I do not give too many second chances. But on another level I am really just a mess, and the tough facade is necessary because I’m all shattered-up inside. Like that great Bonnie Raitt line: “She’s fragile like a string of pearls. She’s nobody’s girl.” There’s nobody tougher than someone who’s been messed about, and who has survived a couple of dark seasons.

Okay, so I’m going to stop being embarrassed at what I want to write. Because who knows – maybe somebody out there will relate, maybe somebody out there will read what I write and think: “Wow, I know just what she means!!” – and that’s who I’m writing for right now.

In 2002 I lay on my couch for 5 months. That was it. That was all I could do. The reasons why are multi-faceted, one thing folding into another, and I can’t really explain it without talking for 2 hours. It wasn’t that I was depressed. It was that I felt nothing. Everything went dead and dull and grey. The spinning top of life slowed down to a complete standstill.

I don’t remember much of that year.

Then I saw “Moulin Rouge” and it was as though I had been plunged from the sunlight into ice cold water. It was like being born again. That is how intense it was. I watched the film and here, exactly, is how I felt (and it won’t be all that articulate, but I’m sure you will get my meaning, coming, as I was, from my dark season of nothingness):

oh my God … love exists … love exists … I can feel it in my heart again … it is real … it is real … maybe not for me … but it is out there … and maybe … maybe … I will feel that again … maybe … it’s not IMPOSSIBLE … it’s not IMPOSSIBLE …

(The second you stop believing things are “impossible” is the second that the dark season ends.)

I will always have a soft space in my heart for that film because of what it provided me. It helped bring me back to life.

Ewan McGregor was the vehicle of that awakening.

I think sometimes that there are certain performances which shift the tectonic plates a little bit, and make me get my eyes up above the muck of my own life. This is one of the beautiful and healing things about theatre/art/movies, what-ever.

I can track certain eras of my life based on whichever “crush” I had going at that time.

“Crush” is appropriate, only if you think of it in terms of what the word ‘crush’ actually MEANS. Being “crushed” is no picnic – it would hurt to be crushed, in actuality. My teenage celeb crushes (Ralph Macchio, James Dean…) were barely fun. I could barely talk about these people. There was nothing casual about any of it. I NEEDED these people. I NEEDED to know that there was good in the world, and that maybe some of that good would come my way some day. To me, these young actors embodied that. James Dean’s performance in “East of Eden” – I can’t be too dramatic about this – it changed how I looked at life. It changed how I looked at acting, yes – but more than that: I got my eyes above the emotional-paucity of high school, of feeling alone, of feeling ugly, of feeling on the outside of things, of wanting desperately for love and approval and acceptance … and I felt: There. THERE. There is a PERFECT expression of EXACTLY what I am going through. He has DONE it. He has SAID it. What a comfort!

Certain books can do this as well. It can usher you through a rough patch, it can let you know: “It’s okay, this is well-traveled ground…” Not in a heartless, “Buck up, kid, life sucks, and it sucks for everyone” way. But in a way that lets you know you are not alone. You have not invented heartbreak.

And this, too, shall pass.

With James Dean – with Ralph Macchio – with Han Solo (not Harrison Ford, really, but Han Solo) – there was no more scarcity. There was only abundance. I already had a complex in high school that I would be “too much” – and the sterility of my high-school romantic life seemed proof of that. So whenever I had a crush on a “real” guy, 90% of my energy went to keeping myself in line, with holding back, with not letting him know how much I REALLY felt, for fear of scaring him off … whatever.

Putting the reins on my own behavior – had the inverse effect of putting the reins on what was going on inside. I was always “in line”.

There is no abundance. If I lose control, I do so very very privately.

This is kind of who I am, I guess – and how I’ve lived my life. I’ve lost men I love because of this nonsense.

Over the years, like the tide going in or going out, I succumb to random “crushes” on actors. (As will be obvious by now: one of the things I love about these crushes, is I can let myself go without any repercussions.) Usually the crush comes upon me suddenly, catching me unawares. Like: I randomly rented “Fisher King” one night some years back, and suddenly – as though I were riding a wave into shore – I became overWHELMED by Jeff Bridges. OVERWHELMED, and suddenly I needed to see every damn movie the man had ever made in his life.

Usually, with these actors, I have already seen a lot of their films … but … for whatever reason … I was never “struck” by them. Obsession did not bloom.

And suddenly, whaddya know, there I am renting films where Jeff Bridges has 2 lines.

It’s like an assignment. I take it seriously.

“Okay. So I’m into Jeff Bridges now. Fine. It is a fact. I must accept it, and not fight it. And now I must set myself a syllabus, in order to handle and focus this out-of-control obsessive energy – give it a POINT.”

And then I’m off to the races.

One couple of months it was Russell Crowe. I guess I’m the same as 85% of the other women on this planet … but there I was, renting the kids movie he made in New Zealand about the silver horse … and The Quick and the Dead … all because … dammit … seeing the man provided me with something.

Seeing him in “The Sum of Us” (one of my favorite films that he did – before he became a star) got me through many a dark hour. His character in that film – I related to it so much, even though he plays a jocky gay kid from New Zealand, and I (to put it mildly) was none of those things. He’s tender, inside – he’s kind of shy – he’s looking for something – he’s got no self-confidence … It’s a beautiful performance. One night I watched “The Sum of Us” back to back with “LA Confidential” and that convinced me: “Okay. This guy is a GIANT talent. GIANT. I have absolutely NO idea who he is now.”

Ewan McGregor’s almost operatic performance in Moulin Rouge convinced me that life would, indeed, go on … and not only would I actually “feel” stuff again … but that I would actually experience things in bright vibrant colors again. The color scheme of the movie.

The movie validated my despair. It said to me, “Life is tremendously unfair sometimes, and love rarely feels good, and you will be changed FOREVER by loving someone fully …”

The dark season came about because, basically, I no longer felt that I had the energy for such things. I could not put myself through it, ever again. And so the spinning top slowed down – and then stopped.

There is one song in the film – one moment – when the two of them are at a rehearsal – and they are singing a duet, trying to pretend that they’re not in love, trying to hide what is going on, but they cannot …

Now I’ve seen this movie hundreds of times, obviously – because the second I saw it, during the “dark season” I realized: “Health. This is health. What I feel now is healthy – because I FEEL it” – and so I just kept watching it. And I kept getting better, miraculously.

Ewan McGregor’s face – during the scene I describe above – I mean, I’ve always thought he was a wonderful actor – inventive, funny, courageous, sexy … but in that scene, all I saw was his openness. This … vulnerability. But not in a wussy way. Just the openness in his heart. I think the openness in his heart shows so clearly in that scene because the character’s main action is to try to HIDE it.

I watched that scene over and over and over, sometimes sitting on the floor in front of the television, basically trying to crawl into the screen – because the elixir of life was in there.

Can I be that open again?

Will I ever feel anything that strongly again?

Can I be that open again?

I did not know the answers to those questions … but watching the movie gave me the hope that the answer might be “Yes” and so I kept watching it.

When the dark season finally ended … around November of 2002 … I looked back on the Moulin Rouge orgy as though it were a particularly psychedelic dream. It didn’t seem quite real – almost immediately following. And I don’t think I’ve done a very good job in describing how bewitched I was by that film, and by Ewan McGregor in particular. Calling something like that a “celebrity crush” seems completely … inadequate.

It was life-affirming. That was what it was.

It told me I was going to be okay. I was going to be okay.

And it’s all in a continuum for me … that was how I felt watching East of Eden, too. That was how I felt watching Han Solo, being snarky and smart-alecky, shooting across the universe. These weren’t just crushes like: “oooh, they’re cute, I put their pictures on my wall”.

They helped me to go on. They helped me to see out of whatever muck I felt mymself to be in.

And so now Bogart.

I just know that, throughout my life, when one of these obsessions sweep me away – it’s always for a reason. A reason I usually won’t understand until it’s all over. “Oh, so that’s what was going on then!”

The Moulin Rouge thing got me ready to join the land of the living again.

I couldn’t just pick myself up by my boot straps – because, frankly, I have no boot straps and I don’t even know what boot straps are.

I was immobile. I felt like my back had been broken, finally, by one too many disappointments. I gave up.

Moulin Rouge eased me back into life. That was its purpose, it was a harbinger. A harbinger of health, love, and living a messy open life again. It prepared me, again, to get the top spinning, to get off the couch, to (in the immortal words of that great Smiths song, written “for” me): Sheila take a Sheila take a bow … Throw your homework onto the fire … Come out and find the one that you love

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and sometimes a celebrity crush is just a celebrity crush.

But sometimes it’s a signal (for me, anyway) that something else may, actually, be going on, something else needs to happen, perhaps it is time to move to the next level. Perhaps it is time to open up the heart again, to passion, to other human beings, to surprise, to healing. Perhaps it’s time to let go of the pattern that I feel defines me, and see what else might be possible.

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5 Responses to A History Of Celebrity Crushes

  1. Stevie says:

    My first crush was on Julie Andrews, much to my mother’s chagrin. Julie was tall and thin and blonde, and my mother was short and stout and dark. I had a picture of her I had cut from a magazine where her eyes followed me around my room. Really spooky. I’d sing along to the album from The Sound of Music while wearing multiple aprons as a skirt and twirl in front of the mirror singing, “I have confidence in sunshine, I have confidence in rain . . ” and my mother would holler from the kitchen, “Stevie, get in here and set the table.” Anything to shut Julie up. God, I loved her. Everything about her. Then I went to third grade and my new teacher was her spitting image, so it was all over between Julie and me. After that, it was all about Mrs. Midtmoen. Sigh.

    Then I came out of my brief heterosexual period and in rapid succession had crushes on:

    Donald Hollinger from That Girl
    The three brothers from Here Come the Brides
    Greg from the Brady Bunch
    Tom Jones during his TV show
    Davy Jones from the Monkees
    David Cassidy in the Patridge Family
    Parker Stevenson (but definitely NOT Shawn Cassidy)
    Michael Douglas from The Streets of San Francisco
    Kristopher Tabori (anybody else remember him?)
    Tim Matheson from Animal House (and before that, Yours, Mine and Ours)
    Rex Smith from Sooner or Later (swoon)

    Yes, I had eclectic but pedestrian tastes in those days.

  2. red says:

    Stevie – Rex Smith from sooner or later! Oh my God – the memories just came rushing back ..

    “You take my breath away
    And I don’t know what to say …”

  3. Just1Beth says:

    Wasn’t River Phoenix in there? Or was that just an admiration? I woke up at 4 this morning and couldn’t sleep and found “Stand by Me”. He was like 12, but a MAN! Damn shame.

  4. red says:

    I love River. It was Running on Empty that really solidified my admiration for him … even though I love Stand by me too. It never really blossomed into a full-on celeb crush, though – maybe because he hadn’t done enough films yet, so I couldn’t spend obsessive amounts of time going through his whole body of work. And now – there will be no more work – RIVER: YOU SUCK. I MISS YOU.

    Dogfight is another great River performance. Sexy, sexy, sexy. Have you seen that movie, beth?

  5. Just1Beth says:

    It is my FAVORITE River Phoenix movie. He was amazing. Poor thing.

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