The Men in My Life

From a very early age, I found them cute and funny. In elementary school, I fell for redheads with freckles and wide smiles; brooding artistic types; big bumbling boys with hearts of gold; and weedy bookish kids with glasses. I adored the tall good-looking star of the baseball team and the tousle-headed hand-me-down lad whose family ran the junkyard.

In fifth grade I loved a handsome, sensitive Native American boy named Ken and a softhearted boy named Chuck who reminded me of Charlie Brown. In sixth grade, it was Eddie, blond and tall and silent, and John, dog-loving, chubby, and generous. (I still have and cherish the gold turtle he gave me...forty-eight years ago.)

By junior high, I was noticing my teachers and the fathers of my friends.

In high school, I panted over a bad boy with windblown black hair, knowing blue eyes, and dirty fingernails; a Ray Bolger double with a wicked sense of humor; and a Greek god who looked down on me kindly but without interest from his Olympian heights.

It was a big school and what a smorgasbord! Italian boys who knew they were cool and Jewish boys so smart it didn't matter that they weren't. A trumpet player who kissed as if he were perfecting his embouchure, and a stunning science teacher all the girls were gaga over and, no doubt, some of the boys, too.

Later, in the Navy, I lost my heart to a pocket Apollo version of Robert Redford in The Way We Were; the morose, alcoholic commander whom I loved as if he were my fragile child; and the Navy chief who was as close as I'll ever get to Sam Elliott, with his moustache, laconic demeanor, and sinewy body.

Until the Navy, I was diffident, naive, eccentric, studious, and plain. I garnered a kiss now and again but publishers aren't beating doors down for the tell-all secrets of my youth. Any excitement of a sensual nature I had in those early days was mostly in my mind and prompted more by the boys and men I saw on television and movie screens than any I knew personally..

Screen lovers ignited my vivid imagination. The best kiss I ever got was from Gary Cooper, on a street in San Francisco, next to a parking meter. It may not have been in Technicolor but it was undeniably in Techni-Touch. I could feel its electricity from my hair ends to the tips of my toes - and I've never forgotten it. That it happened in a dream made no nevermind at all.

Being a participant in an on-screen kiss, though separated from the other person by impossible distances of time and space, is a tantalizing experience. Whether sharing Johnny Crawford's first tender kiss or being pulled tight against John Wayne's massive body, the sensations are real. (More real, judging by an article Maureen O'Hara wrote on kissing Wayne. Too many people, too much posing, an uncomfortable chair, hot lights - all done to get a publicity photo that looked romantic but didn't feel it. She said she was like every woman - she just wanted him to grab her and kiss her!)

• Harrison Ford, Brad Pitt, and George Clooney lack IT for me.
• Johnny Depp, on the other hand, reeks of IT, as does Mel Gibson. And I'm tempted to sell my soul for Daniel Craig, who bulges with IT in all the right places.
• David Niven, Hugh Laurie, James Garner, Edward G. Robinson, and Alan Ladd have more than their share.
• Burt Lancaster, Michael Douglas, Tony Curtis, Jimmy Cagney (whom I worship)...not so much.
• Jack Palance has IT in spades as does Steve McQueen (hubba hubba), and Jimmy Stewart (yowzah!).
• Even though I idolize them, Cary Grant, Richard Widmark, Clark Gable (except in GWTW), and Charles Bronson don't make my toes curl.
• Conversely, Red Buttons, Jack Soo, Buster Keaton, and Fred Astaire always do.
• Sean Connery is in a class by himself. He's cornered the market on IT.
• Humphrey Bogart has IT but, for me, Claude Rains has IT in a bigger font.
• John Lennon, one of my greatest heroes, doesn't, but one of my most despised politicians, Donald Rumsfeld, does.
• Gay guys have IT (Rock Hudson, Richard Chamberlain, Clifton Webb, Paul Winfield, David Hyde Pierce) and don't (Montgomery Clift, James Dean, Farley Granger, Rupert Everett, Raymond Burr).
• Elvis, LBJ, FDR, Harvey Keitel, Denzel Washington, and Dick Cavett have tons of IT.
• Richard Gere, Hugh Grant, Gregory Peck (one of my all-time favorites), JFK, and Bill Clinton...nope.

Strange, isn't IT?

So how 'bout you? Who has IT enough to knock your socks off? Who doesn't? Is your list as schizophrenic as mine? And can you figure out why?

The pictures and video below are of my most favored. Their IT factors are off the charts for me.