Sex Stars of 1983

The sex stars of 1983 proved again that those old organs can still play mighty tunes if properly serviced. Although middle age is only a state of mind, the calendar can nonetheless exact an annoying toll on some of us. Thanks to John Travolta, however, we physical wretches could sit back on our cellulite and be happy we don't have to stay in shape for sex stardom, great though the rewards may be. To get ready for Staying Alive, Travolta trained for four months under Sylvester Stallone, pumping iron for two hours each day, dancing for three. In addition to a limited high-protein diet, he stuffed himself with multivitamins, mineral pills, zinc tablets and wheat-germ capsules. Then, when his 29-year-old body was finally transformed, Travolta accented the new shape by waxing off a lot of body hair and undergoing special sun tanning.

After all that, unfortunately, some critics squeezed their pale flab behind their typewriters and found him too old for the part of an ambitious young Broadway dancer. Said one, ''Travolta does what his fans--at least his female fans--want: strut, dance and take a shower (seen from waist up). But the beefcake show worked better when he was younger and more beguiling.''

Those female fans, however, didn't seem to share the critics' complaints, especially when Travolta and Stallone showed up together for the premiere, tuxes bulging. Seven years (text continued on page 212) older than his latest protégé, Stallone seems determined to prove that physical fitness is the ultimate solution for everything from boxing to boffing. If he and Travolta do team up for Godfather III, as discussed, their gangsters will probably eat low-cal spaghetti and save the cement shoes for working out.

The women have been busy building, too. Jane Fonda, at 45, has fashioned an entirely new career with a best-selling exercise book, records, video tapes and salons. Turning 41, Linda Evans also had a big beauty book on the market, as did younger Christie Brinkley, including her secrets for ''navel maneuvers,'' a prospect that would enlist even the lazy.

With or without muscles, maturity has suddenly become sexy. It's truly amazing how many of today's sex superstars, across the board in film, television and music, are well into their late 30s, 40s or 50s.

One reason is that after the postwar baby boom, the audience itself has moved on in years, taking some favorites with it and rediscovering others. (The number of career comebacks in recent years--especially in soap operas--has been extraordinary.) If the trend continues, the Sex Stars of 1995 will be slipping into shawls instead of out of bikinis, and the word rocker will revert to its old meaning. Secondly, the younger members of the audience now seem totally confused about what is sexy. Given the relative enlightenment of society, they haven't had the fun of discovering smut that their parents did. That could explain why they are so excited by technology.

Still, the kids have good instincts. They are currently crazy about Michael Jackson, whose album Thriller was this year's multihit blockbuster, followed by a popular narrative record of E.T., which brought him into collaboration with Steven Spielberg, with whom he now hopes to do a musical. Having been a singer since the age of five, Jackson often refers to his yen for an acting career, but Hollywood remains dubious about the thespian possibilities in the high-pitched voice that's otherwise so popular. And since he's a grown man who still isn't shaving, it's hard to predict that his pipes will drop lower any time soon.

Youngsters also continue to yearn for the sexpots close to their own ages, such as Nastassia Kinski and Brooke Shields, remaining entranced by their exciting private lives if not keenly interested in their recent films. Kinski dropped another bomb with Exposed. Better luck may lie ahead when she appears with Jodie Foster (an old friend with whom she's long been swapping dirty jokes) in The Hotel New Hampshire. On location, the two girls shared an infatuation with handsome Rob Lowe, who previously was the unlucky one who had to play Jacqueline Bisset's son instead of her adolescent lover in Class.

Filming Sahara, Brooke and mother Teri were busy fending off older, admiring sheiks and princes, concentrating on her upcoming collegiate career at Princeton, which she chose after Harvard refused Mom's demand that it promise to admit Brooke before she applied. Although she now concedes that her first boyfriend was Robby Benson and her friendship with Christopher Atkins was close but brotherly, Brooke is still awaiting her first big romance, which she remains hopeful will be just like in the movies.

Eddie Murphy captured the imagination of both younger and older audiences; his first two films, 48 HRS. and Trading Places, were such smashes that they encouraged Paramount Pictures to nail down his services with an unprecedented $15,000,000 deal. Although his co-stars in each of the first two hits got the romantic roles, Murphy is expected to get his chance soon enough.

Blonds are still popular, too--even slightly emaciated ones such as David Bowie. Always popular, Bowie has soared in the past couple of years, both dramatically and unexpectedly onstage in The Elephant Man and in music, which brought him a $10,000,000 recording contract and more millions in concert appearances. Somehow, he also found time to appear in two movies, The Hunger and Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence.

Some prefer more traditional blondes, of course, such as lovely Kim Basinger, whose long tresses made an astounding Playboy cover in February (the rest of her was even more astounding in the layout inside). She co-stars with Burt Reynolds in The Man Who Loved Women and is Sean Connery's new woman in Never Say Never Again, his current return as James Bond. Oddly enough, she was spotted for the part by Connery's wife, whose taste is obviously as good as her husband's.

Inspiring other blondes who get tired of not being taken seriously, Jessica Lange became a rare double Oscar nominee this year for her performances in Frances and Tootsie. Ironically, in Tootsie, Lange portrayed a sexpot who didn't remove her clothes, but in Frances, she played a serious, troubled actress who bared all.

Twenty years ago, the sight of a naked woman onscreen was supposed to thrill the old man but threaten his wife, who was fearful that she couldn't compete with that perfection. The kids weren't supposed to care, because they were too young.

Now it's the women who are peering at Richard Gere's peepee in Breathless, while the men sit and sulk, convinced that none of that nudity is necessary to the plot, if there is one. One might suppose the younger generation had no such hang-ups; after all, the increasing leniency of the film-rating system theoretically takes into account the fact that kids are better adjusted and more sophisticated sexually than they used to be.

Alas, it hasn't turned out to be so simple for those who make those sexy, R-rated films whose box-office survival depends on those between 12 and 17, who are supposed to attend with their parents but always manage to lose them along the way. Today's big studios have expensive market-research departments pestering kids all over the country with questions about what they want to see in films. A couple of years ago, the experts found out quickly enough that young boys like the idea of being seduced by older women; the result was the highly profitable Private Lessons, starring Sylvia Kristel as the seductress. The producers wanted to do a sequel called Private School, about two beautiful young girls competing to seduce a handsome older guy, which the research showed was an attractive concept for both boys and girls. Then it got complicated.

According to the initial research report, ''Two sets of elements must be considered: raunchy sex that attracts the guys and puts off the girls versus innocent sex that attracts girls but is at best neutral for guys. . . . Girls don't mind nudity of females, as long as they like what's going on around them. . . . Girls are not interested in sex for sex's sake. . . . Girls like sex and raunch in context.''

Encouraged by the last comment, Private School's film makers went looking for sex and raunch in context, selecting for the competitive leads pretty and innocent Phoebe Cates and spicy Betsy Russell, who clinched the part when she removed her top in the producer's office.

Not surprisingly, the finished product satisfied no one, despite constant tinkering with such major questions as how much pubic hair was too much. In other words, what the boys liked, the girls didn't, and vice versa, resulting in only middling box-office report cards.

All in all, simple sleaze is a lot more fun, especially when it's running rampant on television's prime-time soaps.

What Dallas started, Dynasty has now perfected, thanks to deliciously seductive performances by members of a seasoned cast who've been around long enough to know what sexy really is. At 50, Joan Collins fully deserved a career revival as the conniving Alexis Carrington, even if it did cost her a third husband when she split with producer Ron Kass. (Much the same thing happened when Dallas' Linda Gray left her husband of 20 years.)

Dynasty has also been a big career boost for lovely Linda Evans, who deserved more than the publicity she'd been getting as John Derek's third wife, whom he left for Bo Derek, whose public attention has now paled beside Linda's. And at 65, John Forsythe finds that his part as the powerful, ruthless Blake Carrington has brought him more attention than did 30 years of playing nice guys.

Some youth is necessary on the tube, to give the old folks a rest if nothing else. At 22, beautiful Heather Locklear was Dynasty's darling slut, deserting a gay husband in search of new conquests, blackmailing Mom-in-law and having all sorts of similar fun. (Who could believe this Heather is the same sweet girl who's so wholesome on T. J. Hooker? Who, for that matter, could believe this is not the Heather Thomas who appears on The Fall Guy? Who cares? They're equally gorgeous.)

At 22, blond, beefy Christopher Atkins is joining Dallas to bed down J.R.'s wife, long-suffering Sue Ellen (Linda Gray), who shouldn't be suffering too much longer. Nor will Atkins' fans, since his contract calls specifically for him to bare as much of his body as TV allows. Having started in a loincloth with Shields in The Blue Lagoon, Atkins' body has been busy since, appearing in a magazine centerfold and as that of a male stripper opposite Lesley Ann Warren in a picture titled Heaven. In private, however, the bod still belongs to longtime girlfriend Cindy Gibb, who stars in TV's Search for Tomorrow.

Fourteen years older than Atkins, Lesley Ann is also nearly a decade beyond her housemate, Jeffrey Hornaday (and weary of talking about the age difference). But her years of experience proved plenty lucky for him when Warren's ex-husband, producer Jon Peters, dropped by to complain that he had to replace his choreographer for Flashdance. Warren generously suggested her current beau, and that's how Hornaday got his first big movie job, which turned out to be a major box-office hit (and nobody ever really complained that he used sexy Marine Jahan as a dance double for equally sexy Jennifer Beals).

All of which shows that Hollywood domesticity can be dandy at times. But back at the Peters house, Jon was having less luck with longtime ladylove Barbra Streisand, who had become a bit edgy with the pressures of her directorial debut on Yentl. Streisand built a fence at their ranch to separate her portion from his--and had his car towed away when he parked on the wrong side of it. That was Hollywood's best domestic dust-up this year, except for the subpoena Jeff Wald had served on ex-wife Helen Reddy during the reception after her wedding to drummer Milton Ruth.

There was even talk that Streisand was smitten with Richard Gere after he cooled his romance with Brazilian artist Sylvia Martins. But Gere's fans seemed more interested in whether or not he might rebound to his Breathless co-star, pretty French import Valerie Kaprisky. Their steamy nude scenes, however, didn't seem to carry forward, though she said they were fun while they lasted--insisting that lovers in real life don't cover themselves with sheets and she wouldn't, either.

Meanwhile, Gere's previous screen dalliance, Debra Winger, found herself in a whirlwind courtship, while shooting Terms of Endearment in Nebraska, with none other than the state's handsome governor, Bob Kerrey, who once edged out Tom Selleck on U.P.I.'s list of the world's ten most eligible bachelors. Although Winger's wickedly foul mouth shocked many of the Nebraska locals, the gov didn't seem to mind, and the romance flourished at a pace somewhere between that of Phyllis George's marriage to Kentucky governor John Y. Brown and Linda Ronstadt's breakup with California governor Jerry Brown--though the latter pair can still be seen together sometimes, now that he's out of office.

Romance blossoms a lot on location. Before leaving her native England to film The Thorn Birds in Hawaii, Rachel Ward was warned by a fortuneteller that true romance was on its way. But surely, the soothsayer didn't actually mean Ward's Thorn Birds spouse, confirmed Australian bachelor Bryan Brown. After their first romantic scene beneath a waterfall by night, Brown's bachelorhood washed away quickly, and the pair were soon married. A few months later, fiery Bryan was threatening violence to whoever was feeding breakup rumors to the gossip mags.

Dan Aykroyd married a very pretty blonde, Donna Dixon, while equally pretty and blond John Schneider of The Dukes of Hazzard found a bride in L.A. newscaster Tawny Little, a former Miss America, who was previously one of Burt Reynolds' many ladies. As usual, Burt himself stayed free after a fling with his Stroker Ace co-star, Loni Anderson, who played the most improbable screen virgin since Doris Day. As Anderson was added to the list of Reynolds' wraps, Stroker was added to the list of his film flops. But with that many beauties and that many millions, Burt has probably stopped counting both.

One of the traditional side effects of marriage, of course, is a demanding little creature called a baby, something that brings pleasure even to Sex Stars. Among the new crop were sons born to Lindsay Wagner and Jaclyn Smith and a daughter to Charlene Tilton. At 34, Wagner is still shaking her Bionic Woman image for more serious roles and believes she's in better shape to be a mom than she would have been while adjusting to fame in 1975. Dad, incidentally, is an American Indian A-Team stunt man, Henry Kingi.

Smith, married to cinematographer Tony Richmond, takes baby Gaston with her everywhere, even into the shower; given Dad's occupation, she has already collected more than 1000 photos, plus video tapes, of the infant. Her parental enthusiasm must have rubbed off on her Rage of Angels co-star, Armand Assante, who rushed home after each day's shooting to be with bride Karen McArn, who was expecting their first child.

Tilton's tot caused her trouble with the tabloids after she refused them pictures of the baby. According to her, they retaliated with a series of stories alleging that her marriage to country singer Johnny Lee was falling apart. But home life is solid, the couple insists, and having the baby even caused Charlene to lose a lot of that baby fat that filled so much of the screen each Friday night on Dallas. It will be a few years yet before we learn whether or not the little girl really likes being named Cherish, one of the most precious baby names since Cher anointed Chastity.

Speaking of baby names, one of the year's most dubious predictions came from Laurene Landon, one of several lovelies appearing soon in a rash of Amazonian pictures. She has been quoted to the effect that once the world sees her scantily clad, athletic form dueling, wrestling and riding its way through a couple of dozen male victims in Hundra, women everywhere will want to name their little girls after that mythical heroine.

Somehow, we doubt it. But if Landon's right, then first grades a few years from now may be full of Hundras, sitting side by now may be full of Hundras, sitting side by side with a lot of Sheenas (as played on film by tawny Tanya Roberts) and Ayeshas (brazenly portrayed by Sandahl Bergman in a new version of She, which starred Ursula Andress in 1965--though the name didn't quite catch on back then).

Or how about the melodic moniker Arianne, the name of a temptress played by statuesque Sybil Danning opposite Lou Ferrigno in Hercules? After reading the August Playboy, however, future moms may simply christen their daughters Sybil in tribute to the Danning dimensions.

We're hoping, though, that a new generation of parents won't be too influenced by Sex Star names, inspirational though their bearers be. It's bad enough to think of thousands of sweet little girls' going through life known as Hundra. But for the little boys, it could be worse. Getting through school as Mr. T could be tough.