The Hottest Actor of All Time

Many actors have come and gone over the years, but few ever caught my fancy and scared me half to death because of his drop-dead handsome looks as John Gavin.  The actor, who had a brain as well as outrageous looks, died today at the age of 86.  He was arguably the most handsome actor in the history of the movies and television.  He was the apex of male pulchritude in an era that was full of handsome actors, and he kept his looks well into old age.  He not just had the looks--thanks to having Latino heritage--but he had the height at around six-foot-three or four, depending on the source of the information.  He was handsome to the point of intimidation.  He was the rarest of the rare, the genuinely "hot" man.  In my 63 years I have known only two men who were handsome to the point of intimidation, which might better be described as awe.  This is after having seen tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of men, both public figures and private citizens, over a period of a lifetime.   Gavin was one of the two.  The other is someone who is not a public figure but had worked in law enforcement for a southern Oregon police department in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and he was as unbelievable in his prime in the late 1970s as Gavin.  He scared me to death because he was just gorgeous, plus he had the height like Gavin. Just incredible anybody could possibly look like that.  Both he and Gavin were enough to give me a heart attack. 

Gavin was in movies like Sparticus and he played the hero in the Hitchcock classic Psycho.  He starred in a television western lasting only 13 weeks, Destry, back in 1964.  I was little girl then, but I loved the show.  He played a Maverick-type of character, complete with James Garner-type looks, a strapping build, and a tongue-in-cheek delivery of his lines.  The western was sort of a sequel or something of the 1939 classic, Destry Rides Again, which starred James Stewart and Marlene Dietrich.  Anyway, I enjoyed Gavin's portrayal of the title character.  A few years ago I bought the DVD of the series.  The show was still okay, but I had one hell of a time looking at Gavin.  He was so goddamned hot, he damned near burned up my television set.  Gavin was probably at the peak of his looks back then, in his early thirties.

Gavin, though, wasn't just another pretty face.  He earned an undergraduate degree from Stanford.  He had extensive experience in the military.   While it is unfortunate he was a Republican, sometimes party affiliation doesn't mean a shit, especially if one has the looks like he did.  Gavin had political ambitions.  He could have easily been elected president if he had wanted the job--hell, I probably would have voted for him if he had--but his real desire in life was to be ambassador to Mexico.  He did serve in the post during the Reagan years and not without controversy:

The Los Angeles Times characterized U.S. Ambassador Gavin as an “activist envoy to Mexico” who “won praise in many circles for his handling of such issues as trade and illegal drug dealing as well as for speaking out against anti-American sentiment. But his candor and meetings with critics of the ruling party prompted accusations by Mexicans of meddling in the country’s domestic affairs.”

As the article mentions, he did consider running for the U.S. Senate, but he decided to scrap the idea.

Gavin was married twice, the second time for good.  His wife was Constance Towers, an actress frequently seen on television during its first couple of decades.  She, like her husband, was involved in many community organizations.  She was an attractive woman, but she wasn't beautiful the way he was handsome. Nobody was.  However, she got him off the market, which was a good thing.  They were married for around 44 years.

More:

John Anthony Golenor was born in Los Angeles, a fifth-generation Angeleno on his father’s side, descended from early Spanish land owners in colonial California; his mother was a Mexican-born aristocrat. His father, however, changed the family surname to Gavin.

He graduated from Stanford University with a B.A. in economics and Latin American affairs, completing senior honors work in Latin American economic history; Gavin later said that while in college he had no interest in acting whatsoever. Gavin told the Washington Post in 1960 that despite the history of his family on both sides, he was not rich and in fact had attended Stanford on scholarship.

Gavin reportedly died of complications from pneumonia.  He also had suffered from leukemia for several years.