Sex Stars of 1985

Are we Really heading back toward the rock-ribbed Fifties, when, as the song had it, love and marriage went together like a horse and carriage? Could be, at least if we judge by the behavior of our Sex Stars of 1985, who've been engaged in a mad rush to the altar. If celebrities are trendsetters, bridal boutiques are in for a banner year.

Although hard statistics are impossible to come by there's no doubt (text continued on 268)Sex Stars(continued from page 177) that more celebrities have been joined in matrimony during the past year than in any other single period in the past two decades. Sure, this is breaking a few hearts among their young fans (and among a few older lechers hoping the odds of free love would still bring one or two movie stars their way), but that's the way it always has been. Did Elvis pass up Priscilla? Did Eddie duck Liz? Did Mickey Rooney ... enough of that; you get the point.

Granted, this year's matrimonial resurgence was not without its surprises. For commercial reasons, if nothing else, it was easy to see why Madonna would choose a Like a Virgin motif for her oceanside wedding to surly Sean Penn. But that voluminous veil was another matter. Even allowing for tradition and some maidenly pretense at mystery, it was a bit hard to understand what Madonna hoped to hide, since just before her wedding she had been featured in Playboy and elsewhere without the veil or anything else. But as the sun sank over the Pacific, the union of Mr. and Mrs. Penn was touching, except perhaps for the six helicopters full of photographers hovering overhead. (To make the editing of the evening news interesting, a thoughtful neighbor wrote Fuck You in six-foot letters on the beach below.)

Less exciting but no less significant was the wedding of Bruce Springsteen and actress/model Julianne Phillips in the wee hours of the morning in her Oregon church; they managed to evade the press pack completely. After all his bachelor boasts, Bruce's matrimonial urge was a bit surprising, even to the bride's parents, but he wore a coat and tie to their first meeting to put them at ease. They were additionally impressed when they learned that he doesn't drink or smoke and gives money to charities. Julianne's father even said Springsteen was a swell fellow. Ah, doesn't anyone remember that rock took its name from those things fathers threw at any musician who came near their daughters?

During the past year, a small horde has headed for the hitching post. Among them: Christie Brinkley and Billy Joel; Bette Midler and commodities broker Martin von Haselberg; Jamie Lee Curtis and Christopher Guest; Olivia Newton-John and Matt Lattanzi (at last); Charlene Tilton and Domenick Allen; Mariel Hemingway and club manager Steve Crisman; Sally Field and producer Alan Greisman; George Peppard and Alexis Adams (his fourth, her first); Christopher Atkins and Australian model Lynne Barron.

There's clearly a danger here of overdosing on rice, but making two hearts beat as one is at least an improvement over last year's outbreak of androgyny, the vain attempt to make one heart beat as two. Michael Jackson and even Prince faded from view for a time, prompting Andy Warhol to wonder if he'd been wrong in predicting a few years ago that someday everyone would be world-famous for 15 minutes. With increased competition, each may get less exposure, Warhol ventured. "There are more people now. So I guess there are more celebrities, so they have less time."

We warned in these very pages as far back as 1980 that celebrities were being consumed at an alarming rate, but we offered assurance that the truly sexy had staying power and, sure enough, Tina Turner has returned. In addition to her records and concerts, Turner roared to raves in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, with Mel Gibson. Tina says she's still searching for the man who's so ugly, he's pretty.

With Apollonia (Kotero) and Vanity (Matthews) no longer at his side, Prince maintained his arch distance--as far away, in fact, as the south of France, where he's reported to be working up a sequel to Purple Rain. On her own, Vanity turned out a naughty single, Pretty Mess, and a nice layout in Playboy's May issue. But Apollonia proved equally interesting, splitting from a secret husband, Greg Patschull, who said she had proposed on their first date, while she was still an unknown, then kept him hidden after getting her big break in Purple Rain. Patschull said they had both grown up in San Pedro, California, where he "remembered her as a fat little girl with blonde hair."

Speaking of blondes, which Apollonia is no more, and of celebs with sexy sticking power, Britt Ekland, who certainly is both, married Stray Cats drummer Jim McDonnell and discovered that they wear the same size-five trousers. She also found out that he's nearly 20 years younger and likes to watch The Flintstones on TV while she putters around the house. Not quite the same as her previous flings with Warren Beatty and Rod Stewart or her marriage to Peter Sellers, but McDonnell has more tattoos. (Another old favorite, Cher, acquired a tattoo but no husband, which may be more efficient.) Britt and Jim are even talking about having children, which seems to be another curious by-product of sex stardom these days. Model Jerry Hall added a son to her unwed family with Mick Jagger (Mick's had three daughters by as many women, but now that he has a boy, he's talking marriage). Farrah Fawcett had a son by boyfriend Ryan O'Neal. Steven Spielberg and Amy Irving had a little instant millionaire out of wedlock. Jessica Lange and boyfriend Sam Shepard are now expecting her second without benefit of clergy (daughter Alexandra is Mikhail Baryshnikov's). And although her relationship with Don(Miami Vice)Johnson was rumored rocky, Patti D'Arbanville made sure little son Jesse frequently journeyed from California to keep Dad company in Louisiana, where he was filming the TV miniseries The Long Hot Summer. Other new and adoring dads include Dynasty's Michael Nader (married a month before the birth) and The Purple Rose of Cairo's Jeff Daniels (wed five years).

Even such longtime bachelors as Richard Gere were running amuck with diapers in their dreams. "I think that something happens when you get to 35," Gere mused. "You start saying to yourself, 'Hmmmm, that wouldn't be bad at all, holding your own little kid and going "Goo-goo!"' When you're 20 ... you think someone should be going 'Goo-goo' to you."

Much less sentimental after a 22-hour labor, new mom Pia Zadora said she adores her daughter but doesn't do diapers. "Well, I did change one when I was posing for the Daily News. That was my first diaper, and my last."

Sometimes, unfortunately, a lot of guff goes with the goo-goos. Director William(The Exorcist, The French Connection)Friedkin finally agreed to share custody of his son with Lesley-Anne Down in a divorce action that drew lurid coverage by the British tabloids, hovering by closed courtrooms, where the actress grew faint from Friedkin's flailings about alcohol problems and a string of lovers, all denied by her attorney, famed divorce lawyer Marvin Mitchelson.

Lorenzo Lamas also went through a messy divorce suit with second wife Michele Smith, with baby A.J. in the middle. The Falcon Crest heartthrob admitted to a cocaine addiction, since kicked. Lamas himself, of course, is the issue of a famed acting couple, late father Fernando and Arlene Dahl, and stepson of Esther Williams, making him one of the more visible representatives of a growing group of famous offspring who are very busy.

Raquel Welch's daughter, Tahnee, enjoyed her first film hit, Cocoon.Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh's daughter Jamie Lee Curtis muscled into Perfect, with John Travolta, setting off more celebrity worship among the fan magazines than among the fans.

A founding member of the Brat Pack, Emilio Estevez (son of Martin Sheen) doesn't always get the girl in such films as St. Elmo's Fire and The Breakfast Club, but he-usually gets good reviews, as did Tommy Chong's daughter Rae Dawn in American Flyers.Greg Morris' handsome son Phil is now a soap regular on The Young and the Restless.Laura Dern, daughter of Bruce Dern and Diane Ladd, received considerable notice in a small part as a blind girl in Mask, competing for attention with Cher and Eric Stoltz. Born to Connie Stevens only two months before dad Eddie Fisher left home, teenaged Tricia Fisher landed one week's work with Burt Reynolds in Stick, a film that didn't. The late actor Vic Morrow's daughter, Jennifer Jason Leigh, was a hit as a good girl in 1982's Fast Times at Ridgemont High but is now playing a hooker in The Men's Club and a more-than-cooperative captive in Flesh & Blood. Madonna's co-star in Desperately Seeking Susan,Rosanna Arquette, is the pretty granddaughter of the late comic actor Cliff Arquette. Sean Connery's son Jason nabbed the lead in a British TV series, Robin of Sherwood. Budding actress Kate Burton, daughter of the late Richard, appeared with Dad in the miniseries Ellis Island and got married to stage producer Michael Ritchie. Nastassja Kinski, the daughter of actor Klaus, wed Ibrahim Moussa after the birth of their son; since, she's been busy making Harem and Revolution. Another experienced young star, Tatum O'Neal, turned 21 and moved in with tennis tyrant John McEnroe. Daughter of Ryan, step-something of his girlfriend Farrah Fawcett and half sister of their previously mentioned baby boy, Tatum was a bomb in an el cheapo picture, Certain Fury, raising questions about the promising career she appeared to have ahead of her when she won an Oscar at the age of ten.

It isn't always easy for children of the famous, as Tyrone Power's daughter Taryn recently bemoaned. An affair with musician Tony Fox Sales, son of comedian Soupy Sales, cost Power her marriage to photographer Norman Seeff. Trying to rebuild a career in Hollywood, Power has found poor pickings. "I talked about this to Rory Flynn, Errol's daughter.... We said, 'It's bizarre. We're the daughters of who we are, and we can't get a job in this town.'"

Sylvester Stallone, the big fellow with no famous parents, climbed back on top with the runaway hit Rambo, another character who can compete with Rocky Balboa, so he doesn't have to co-star with Dolly Parton in musicals between boxing pictures.

Always aspiring to new artistic heights, Stallone found a new fiancée in Brigitte Nielsen, who's two inches taller than he is. That, of course, means he's left wife Sasha again. And Gitte had to leave a husband (and child) at home in Denmark, but that's happened before, too. To recapitulate for forgetful readers, when Stallone took a fancy to tall golden girl Susan Anton in 1979, she split from husband Jack Stein, then found diminutive Dudley Moore on the rebound from Sly. Most recently, Anton abandoned Moore and has been dating chemicals heir Jamie DuPont, and Sasha and Sly are in the divorce courts.

A former model, Nielsen unveiled herself for Playboy in September, too late to save her film debut in Red Sonja, opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger. Schwarzenegger had more success in real life, getting engaged to pretty newscaster Maria Shriver, whom he took home to meet Mother in Austria. Maria is another famous offspring, a Kennedy-clan daughter of Sargent and Eunice Kennedy Shriver and cousin to John Kennedy, Jr., who made his showbiz debut in an off-off-Broadway play.

Another lovely European model, Kelly LeBrock, starred in one hit film for husband Victor Drai,The Woman in Red, followed by a flop, Weird Science, losing hubby in the process. Having better luck, Soviet defector Alexander Godunov added a smashing film debut in Witness to his ballet triumphs, at the same time holding on to Jacqueline Bisset, who still resists marriage.

Content to co-star with Tina Turner and take in more Mad Max money, Mel Gibson remained quietly out of sight down under, while Chuck Norris, getting plauditsfor a change for Code of Silence, still insisted he hated taking time from karate kicks and gunplay to do interviews.

Fortunately, Jamaican Grace Jones didn't mind the press, intimidating reporters everywhere to plug her appearance in the James Bond film A View to a Kill. Inspecting what she called "just the right amount of muscles and feminine qualities" for the part, the press could also endorse her addendum: "I looked believable, like I could kill." Turned out, however, that the body used in the ads wasn't Jones's. A scheduling conflict prevented her from posing, and model/weight lifter Stephanie Suthers was pulled in to substitute. The body you saw in playboy's July issue, of course, is the real thing.

Grace's grace also helped the career of her boyfriend, martial-arts champ Dolph Lundgren, who appeared with her in Kill. The brawny Swedish blond followed with a few rounds as Stallone's Russian opponent in Rocky IV. A much scrawnier blond, Sting, has been decked twice while trying to climb into the movie ring, following his flop Dune with Son of Flop, The Bride (which did not set Jennifer Beals's career dancing, either). Sting may get up from the mat with Plenty, in which he tries to impregnate Meryl Streep.

We're still waiting for blonde Kim Basinger's long-delayed 9-l/2 Weeks, the kinky sadomasochistic bondage picture that was due out this year but so far has proved to be too hot for stuffy MGM/UA to handle. Although Kim has talent to match her terrific looks, she may be a glutton for punishment. Her next outing is opposite Sam Shepard in the film version of his Fool for Love, in which, if it follows the play, she'll also be bashed around a bit.

Of course, it's normal for at least one film to be in trouble with the censors. If the country were really retreating into the Fifties, you'd expect an outcry over the dangers of rock 'n' roll. Well....

Over in the nation's capital, a group of Washington wives, including a Senator's and the Treasury Secretary's, has taken on "porn rock," forcing major record companies to put warning stickers on albums containing explicit lyrics. As usual, this will just help the youngsters find the records they're bound to like best. The moms will be happy, thinking they've done something to keep the kids' minds off sex, but rock is no more likely to rot their little minds than it was 30 years ago.

You can always count on a kid to keep things in perspective. Or, as Alan Thicke recalls his son's reaction to his explanation of the facts of life: "When I was through ... he asked why anyone would want to do that and how they keep from laughing."

After years of studying Sex Stars, I'm sure I know why they do what they do, though it's sometimes hard to explain, even to adults. But after all this time, it's still impossible to keep from laughing.

"A small horde has headed for the hitching post. There's clearly a danger of overdosing on rice."