I am getting obsessed with Humphrey Bogart. The love is gone. 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. Seasons where all I could do was try to believe my friends and family when they would say, “There is light at the end of the tunnel.” 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 delicate soul 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. And so I rented movies. That was all I was able to do. All the energy I had.
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, Lance Kerwin – does anyone remember that name??? 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 Me” (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 Me” 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, trying to crawl into the screen.
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, not giving a f***. These weren’t just crushes like: “oooh, they’re cute, I put my picture on the wall”.
They helped me to go on.
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): 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.
Last night I watched “To Have and Have Not”.
Tonight? “Casablanca” again.
“Ewan McGregor was the vehicle of that awakening.”
Rest safe in the knowledge that you are the only human being who can honestly type that sentece EVER.
How embarrassing. I was COMPLETELY sincere when I wrote that ridiculous sentence. I AM sincere!
In the context of your post, it makes perfect sense. Out of context, it just looks ridiculous, like the obsession of a teen-aged girl. :)
Don’t even try CHIPS. ;-)
Of course sentences like the one above and the Ewan one are (one of the) reasons your entire are so delightful.
Watching “To Have and Have Not” last night, like the wacked-out sexed-up obsessive that I am, it occurred to me what the appeal is, for me, in Bogey (besides his acting and stuff) – I’m talking about the crush now:
It seems to me that he falls in love without losing his self – and ALSO (and this happened in To Have and Have Not like nobody’s business – mainly because of Lauren Bacall’s character Slim, and who SHE was) – he allows women to fall in love with him without losing THEMselves.
It seems a requirement in his world. That nobody lose it. That love is better if you’re both just grown-ups, and honest, and stop it with the games.
African Queen had that, too.
It’s so attractive, it kind of kills me!!
And that Lileks quote is awesome. Especially his punch line. He’s classic.
Oh, and does anybody remember Lance Kerwin? James at 15?
I don’t remember him, but looking him up on IMDB, I was a little young at the time he was big.
Thanks for rubbing it in, Bill.
Well, I only missed it by a couple of years.
Didn’t mean to rub anything in.
Bill – ha!! just teasing!
Lance Kerwin was a very big teen idol for about 2 seconds … and I was with him, whole-heartedly, for each of those 2 seconds.
He did this ridiculous TV movie of the week called “Sideshow”. This was before my family had a VCR or anything – and I sat next to the TV, holding up a tape recorder so I could at least hear his voice whenever I wanted to.
I’m gonna be 80 and still behaving in this manner. I can feel it.
Actually, I never watched “James at 15” (and I believe it ran a second year, called “James at 16”. Where IS that d*mn TV reference?!?), but I remember Lance Kerwin for another reason. He starred in a completely vape-less made-for-TV movie called, “An Innocent in Love” or something like that. It was dumb, but the strange thing is that I connected with it. Kerwin played this young genius, a college junior at 15 or some such, who ends up tutoring a cute freshmen (played by Melissa Sue Anderson, who was big at the time because she was in “Little House on the Prairie”. Whatever happened to her? BOOK! Get the BOOK!).
Anyway, it wasn’t the overly cute and trite love story that struck me. Prior to tutoring this girl (which he does reluctantly, mainly to make some money to go to Canada to watch a total eclipse), he was a quiet geeky kid that people either ignored or sneered at. Now THAT I could relate to! The weird thing is, once he hooks up with the girl, who’s an athlete of some type (volleyball, field hockey, something like that), he gets noticed. The girl’s boyfriend is a total jock, and he includes Kerwin’s character in some of their escapades, including taking him out for his first beer. The kid gets accepted merely for stepping outside of his norm. I liked that! I WANTED that! I tried that. I didn’t have the same level of success (not NEARLY the same level of success), but it gives ya hope, you know?
The same type of hope you get, Red, from your celebrity crushes. Today’s society does its best to squash hope. They want the citizens stupid and desperate, so that they’ll clinch to the most pathetic lies told by those in charge. Don’t be ashamed or embarrassed about your crushes. Relish them! Spread them around! We need more hope in the world, and I personally don’t care WHERE they come from!
Aceman:
yes, indeed, it ran a second year, and embarrassingly: I saw that movie of which you speak! Hadn’t thought of it til just now, though.
There was definitely something very appealingly honest and vulnerable about Lance Kerwin – sounds like you got that too.
I wonder where he is now.
My housemate has a book on TV series – the stars, the premise, major plot twists, etc. It even includes what happened to some of those stars after they left the series. I can take a peek tonight and let you know (I’m kind of curious about Melissa Sue Anderson, now that the movie sprang to mind). I think his edition is a few years old (circa 1996 or 1998), but it should have something.
You know, it occurs to me that it doesn’t matter what happened to certain stars — the magic is rarely as good as the place you first saw them. I know someone mentioned that a couple of years about about the guy who played the lead male in the original SAVED BY THE BELL series. He had joined the cast of NYPD BLUE after a short-lived series on one of the two minor networks (UPN or WB) failed. My acquaintance mentioned that the guy seemed brilliant in SAVED BY THE BELL, because he played such a wonderful range of emotions and behaviors for such a young man. Her complaint about his NYPD BLUE character – “he’s too stony and predictable.” She came to dislike his performance as much as she loved his earlier work.
Ah well, sometimes we shouldn’t take all of this too seriously.
Sheila,
First, you’re much braver than I am. I tried telling one person about a movie that gave me hope. She pretty much laughed at me. You’re telling EVERYONE. That’s heroic.
Second, I read a quote years ago (can’t find it on the Web) that I think I have word-for-word or close: “The trouble with Humphrey Bogart is that after a few drinks he starts to think he’s Humphrey Bogart.”
God, Michael – THANK you for telling me that. I didn’t feel heroic. I felt kind of embarrassed … but thank you.
And the Humphrey Bogart line is GREAT. Cary Grant said something similar. “Everyone wants to be Cary Grant. Even I want to be Cary Grant.”
So funny.
For the record, I can honestly say that I have never wanted to be Cary Grant.
Oh, and Michael: feel free to forward this post to that unsympathetic friend of yours. :)
Emily, me neither, actually.
I suppose we can’t fault Cary for being a wee bit out of touch with reality.
Red,
What an amazingly cool post. It’s spawned any number of threads in my own stream of consciousness, which I may have to try to blog about myself…
Too many to comment on, anyway!
Sheila,
That woman and I have lost touch. Hard to believe, I know.
Bogart is a guy that other guys will respect you for having a crush on. Lance Kerwin, or Ewan McGregor, etc. etc. etc… no.
Having a crush on Bogie, however, is worthy of respect.
CW – I totally see what you’re saying, but I laughed a bit because it seemed to assume that I choose crushes based on whether or not a guy will approve.
I know that’s not what you meant, but still …
I’ll have a crush on Ashton Kutcher if it gets my DNA a-tingle!!
However: one question: do you know who Lance Kerwin is???
And please, I know none of these men can hold a candle to Bogie, but hormones know no logic.
Hey – I remember “James at 15”. If I remember correctly, I was the same age as that James.
And you are entitled to have crushes on whomever you like, of course, but would you rather go to the movies with a guy who likes Bogart, or a guy who likes Ewan McGregor?
Just a couple thoughts here.
– The more I read some of your posts, red, the more I want to take you to dinner just to prove that there’s a man alive that can have a normal pleasant meal out with you. :)
– Bogie gets huge guy cred. Ewan McGregor does too because he was a Jedi. Any man who is a man has to admire someone who was a Jedi and danced so well with Nicole Kidman. Mmmm…Nicole Kidman.
– I’ll see your Lance Kerwin and raise you my own Tracy Gold.
For the record, I wish to second the above “Mmmm…Nicole Kidman.”
Tracy Gold? You mean the gal so skinny you could practically see through her? That’s like having a crush on Calista Flockhart!
Now I’ll put up my crush on Kim Richards. Remember the girl in many Disney movies? I always thought she was so cute. She left the business for a few years, and when she returned, in her early 20’s, she was in a movie where she wore a skin-tight leather outfit! Just the thing to help a horny college student re-establish a young crush!
CW:
I gave the matter an embarrassingly large amount of thought – and I have to say “Bogart”.
Ewan also plays strong unembattled kind of guys – and obviously I like that. Men who are men.
But nobody’s a man like Bogie.
Tracy Gold!! Ha!!
Kim Richards, I believe, was the immortal Tia in Witch Mountain – a character that has been discussed many many times on this here blog.
I had a crush on her too.
Kim Richards. (Sighs)
I saw Tracy Gold on episode of the Mole – she looked ok, at least like she finally figured out where the kitchen was.
I’m talking the “Growing Pains” era Tracy Gold – the one who was cute and vulnerable and smart and witty and just my age and oh I could make her happy if I could only meet her and just let her that she really was pretty and that being smart was such a good thing to be and that her older brother really was a jerk and her glasses gave her that look that was just so “sexy young librarian” and…
…perhaps I’ve said too much.