Women of the baby-boomer generation wanted their men to be like Tyrone, Cary, Clark and Paul Newman because these men single-handedly build up expectation of what is to be "the perfect lover". Men wanted a Lana Turner, Liz Taylor or Rita Hayworth to purr into their ear without ever having to take them to dinner or send them flowers. Despite the fact that these Hunks and Sirens of the screen are only an illusion created by Hollywood we want it larger than life and recreated in our own lives. Forget the fact that these movie lovers are just acting out a role and they’ve had every assistance to make them look as handsome and beautify as possible. We crave it and keep going back for more.

Now there’s nothing new about hero-worship since the dawn of man women have looked up to mythologized men for inspiration. Delilah had Samson and Josephine her Napoleon. But the real trouble started with Hollywood. The movies made it possible for actors to be seen by millions of impressionable morals. As the film industry flourished and audience multiplied movie stars acquired an influence out of all proportion to their personal worth. 

Although our mother’s were never privy to Bogart’s on-screen bedroom techniques, Errol Flynn’s rampant sexuality or ogled Robert Taylor below his belly-button, the after-glow on their leading ladies faces confirmed that these guys must have been pretty hot between the sheets. And it seems lusting over screen lovers is not particular to an age group or class status, they stay constant only the names change
 

As teenagers we never wanted to see Marlon Brandon naked. But this didn’t deter baby-boomers from turning fully clothed Hollywood lovers like Steve McQueen and Paul Newman into sex symbols. Today the sex symbol seems to need full exposure in glorious Technicolor from every angle.

Naked bodies, raunchy lovemaking, and explicit sex are what we are being served up on a regular basis for the price of a ticket. Gibson did it without exposing his lethal weapon whereas; Michael Douglas in Fatal Attraction filled in all the blanks and left nothing to our imagination.

Yesteryear, films offered us only a ‘what might have been’ glimpse into the bedroom antics of the on-screen lovers. The cut from Rhett scaling the staircase two at a time with Scarlet in arms to Vivien Leigh’s morning after smile told us everything. Lana Turner was magnetic in The Postman Always Rings Twice. Dressed entirely in white, she cut a provocative figure as the wife of elderly Kellaway, lusting after John Garfield while planning her husband demise. The 1946 version was less explicit than the Nicholson and Lange 1981 remake.

Famous Faces	Famous Portraits
Cary Grant - Audrey Hepburn	Tyrone Power & Rita Haywood

For lovers of the cosmopolitan man, Cary Grant ranks the perfect aristocrat. On-screen, he can single-handedly fight off the foe while bedding blondes, brunettes and redheads without discrimination. Women who identify with the damsel-in-distress usually have Cary Cooper as their hero. These women usually marry who are short on dialogue and strong on action. For the romantic at heart, Tyrone Power is a perfect prototype. The way Lamour (Johnny Apollo) and Tierney (The Razor’s Edge) lusted over him alludes to the women who want a pretty-boy with substance.

Like today’s teenagers, with their Cruise, Pitt and DiCaprio, baby-boomers would not have survived the trails of teenage hood without the likes of McQueen, Brando and Newman.

The difference being, today anything and everything comes and goes where moviemakers are concerned. Where once our parents were called upon to use their imagination, Generation Y is faced with blatant, dangerous and unsafe sex.

In its lust for the box-office bucks Hollywood writers are becoming more and more morally irresponsible in creating fantasies we cannot possible simulate. Because – they have couples falling in love – instantaneously! Sure it happens in real life, but unlike reality screen lovers are in-and-out of the soup with no need for foreplay and simultaneous orgasms in the time it takes to boil 3-minute noodles. Not even Woody Allen fails to perform in the movies. With a face only a mother could love, Diane Keaton and Mia Farrow seem to satisfied with Woody’s prowess in bed… and he gets the headache.

If we are looking to the silver screen for bedroom inspiration one thing’s for sure, film fantasies for the mere moral is becoming more and more impossible to fulfill. With screen studs such as Douglas and Swayze seducing women with monotonous regularity despite the conditions and location with no hassles with bra hooks, or sticking zippers is Hollywood teaching us that real sex is too humdrum and we should demand a more erotic scenario from our partner? We are lured to forget that real women (unlike the screen Siren) do not have perfect bodies.

They don’t have the benefit of plastic surgery to iron out the lumps. Because real women are not preened by expert make-up artists before hitting the pillow. And there are no camera filters to glorify the female form to perfection.

And if you think screen Sirens have given women unattainable expectations, Hollywood Hunks must have all mere males wanting to zip-up their pants forever. On screen, our heroes and sirens set the standards by which we measure our partners.

From fashion to folly, from sex to seduction, from humor to heroism. We put them up on a pedestal and worship them. For no matter what - they can never die, never disappoint us or break our hearts.

Most of all they leave us wanting more.