List of sex symbols

For ♂, ♀, etc., see Gender symbol.

This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

Marilyn Monroe was one of Hollywood's most enduring sex symbols.

A sex symbol is a celebrity figure or fictional character who is widely regarded as sexually attractive. Sex symbols are generally found among popular actors, musicians, supermodels, teen idols and athletes. The term was first used in the mid-1950s in relation to the popularity of certain film stars, including Marilyn Monroe, Brigitte Bardot, Marlon Brando, James Dean, and Raquel Welch.

The following sections document the eras in which each listed individual became recognized as a sex symbol.

Before 1900

Person	Year of birth	Details
Mary Robinson	1757	The Times's Deirdre Fernand said Mary Robinson was "the feminist sex symbol who scandalised England" by having affairs with the man who would become King George IV of the United Kingdom.
Lord Byron	1788	The scholar John Lauritsen wrote in The Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide that Lord Byron was "the reigning male sex symbol of the early 19th century". His persona was nurtured by his "flamboyant lifestyle", his "sporadic personal beauty" where he oscillated between corpulence and gauntness, and his relationships with women. Author Mo Rocca said that Lord Byron turned into a sex symbol in 1811 after he authored the lengthy poem Childe Harold's Pilgrimage that featured an "intense brooding hero".
Franz Liszt	1811	Ivan Hewett called Liszt "the greatest sex symbol classical music has ever produced", which Hewett said "shows that looks are hardly the most important thing". As a youth, Liszt was very attractive, according to Hewett. Upon walking on the platform and soundlessly taking off his gloves, the women "swooned" over him. Although he had a wart on his face three decades later, women were still interested in him including one who pretended to be a male to travel through Europe following him. Music professor Craig M. Wright found Liszt to be "the musical sex symbol of the Romantic era" who was "handsome, supremely talented, and equally self-confident".
Lola Montez	1821	Irving Wallace and his coauthors wrote that Lola Montez was "the reigning sex symbol of her day" because her sensational theater acting captivated men and astonished women. The scholar Mary C. Henderson said Montez was "the female sex symbol of her age" who "carved a notorious reputation on two continents" and had a short stint in theater performing the "Spider Dance".
Adah Isaacs Menken	1835	Scholar Renée M. Sentilles noted that Menken was "a sex symbol who played male roles on stage". Author Justin Martin called Menken "one of the great sex symbols of the nineteenth century". The Central States Speech Journal said Menken, who became "a sex symbol in a time of Victorian prudery", was "the Marilyn Monroe of her day". Menken was similar to Monroe in that she was "known more for her voluptuousness than for her acting ability".
Sarah Bernhardt	1844	The historian Judith Bowers wrote that Sarah Bernhardt was "the greatest female sex symbol the stage had ever known". In his autobiography, the journalist Maurice de Waleffe said that around 1900, he was in his Sofia hotel room adjacent to a French couple who were on their honeymoon. The woman said, "Make love to me as if I were Sarah Bernhardt!" University of East Anglia reader Stephen Wilson commented that Waleffe's account demonstrated how Bernhardt had turned into a "popular sex symbol".
Lillie Langtry	1853	Critic Rosamund Marriott Watson, while writing under the pseudonym Graham R. Tomson, said that George du Maurier's illustrations of Lillie Langtry produced a "new standard of beauty", which was "modernist aesthetics meets sex symbol" according to scholar Paul L. Fortunato. Langtry exercised every day, giving her a strong figure.
Lillian Russell	1860/1861	Scholar Brett Silverstein said Lillian Russell "may have been the most popular sex symbol this nation has ever known".

1900s–1920s

The early 20th century saw the emergence of stars of silent films.

Person	Year of birth	Details
Mata Hari	1876	Mata Hari was a Dutch exotic dancer who performed at times partially nude. The author Joseph Bernard Hutton wrote in 1971 that said she despite her not measuring up to present-day standards of attractiveness, in her era she was "a glamorous sex symbol who excited the imagination of men of all nationalities".
Isadora Duncan	1877/1878	The biographer Axel Madsen called Isadora Duncan the "sex symbol of intellectuals", whose art enticed artists, authors, and rich benefactors.
John Barrymore	1882	A contemporary writer, Elinor Glyn, thought that he and Clara Bow were the only ones with a "sexual magnetism" Glyn called "It".
Douglas Fairbanks	1883	The biographer Eve Golden said that Fairbanks' sex symbol status "easily rivale[d]" that of the actors John Gilbert and Rudolph Valentino. The 1920 film The Mark of Zorro and the 1922 film Douglas Fairbanks in Robin Hood helped establish his status as a sex symbol.
Theda Bara	1885	Author Mary Flanagan wrote that Theda Bara was the "first cinematic sex symbol" whose "success as a sex symbol stems from her construction as a persona without a fixed personal history". Despite her being nearly 30 and having a background, for every one of her movie parts, Fox Film devised for her a new fake background related to the movie. Bara starred in the 1915 film A Fool There Was where she played a vampire, which resulted in the nickname "The Vamp". Bara's depiction in the film influenced women to choose "a new exotic look" that included "bobbed hair, thick bangs, pale facial makeup, dark red lips, and eyes accented with kohl liner and thick mascara". She maintained very long fingernails that had "sharply pointed ends". As "vampish women were viewed as mysterious, aggressive, and seductive", author Victoria Sherrow said Bara was "the movies' first sex symbol".
Mae West	1893	American actress, singer, playwright, screenwriter and comedian
John Gilbert	1897	The biographer Eve Golden called Gilbert "the screen's hottest hearthrob, the top male sex symbol of the late 1920s and one of MGM's box-office handchamps". She found him "handsome, mercurial, and very talented". Jeanine Basinger, a film historian, said Gilbert was "the male equivalent of the female sex symbol" who influenced women to have amorous thoughts about him. Gilbert was able to portray a "handsome, passionate, somewhat brooding man" who simultaneously was also genuine and approachable, not someone who would be unreachable.
Joan Crawford	1904/1908	Joan Crawford was one of the final flappers who were sex symbols. The author Scott Siegel said that she "soon crossed the fine line from sex symbol to glamour queen". The Mercury News said she was "MGM's reigning sex symbol" in the 1930s.
Clara Bow	1905	Clara Bow was the first cinematic sex symbol History professor Patrick Huber called Bow "the greatest sex symbol and the biggest Hollywood star of the late 1920s". Her portrayal of flappers, particularly her depiction of the alluring clerk in the 1927 film It, transformed Bow into a sex symbol who received the nickname "It Girl". The nickname "It Girl" was used instead of "sex symbol" since the latter terminology would have been deemed obscene in Bow's era. Frequently paid below-market wages and fighting to be given respect, she believed herself to be stuck in her sex symbol role, saying, "A sex symbol is a heavy load to carry when one is tired, hurt, and bewildered".

1930s–1940s

With the transition to sound movies, the Golden Age of Hollywood promoted a new generation of glamorous stars. The war effort ushered in celebrity status for pin-up models, and movie stars were sent abroad to entertain troops.

Person	Year of birth	Details
Greta Garbo	1905	Greta Garbo was recruited from Sweden to the United States as a "glamour sex symbol".
Louise Brooks	1906	Louise Brooks, one of the most acclaimed performers during the silent film time period, was a sex symbol who wore the bob cut. By 1928, the year she divorced film director A. Edward Sutherland, Brooks had experienced a swift ascent to stardom that made her a sex symbol. Film critic John Anderson called her "a sex symbol of disturbing volatility", while Kenneth Tynan said she was "the most seductive, sexual image of Woman ever committed to celluloid".

1950s–1960s

In the post-war era, the term sex symbol gained general acceptance. The sexual liberation of the 1960s allowed further free expression of desire and sexuality in popular culture.

Person	Year of birth	Details
Bettie Page	1923	American pinup model
Marilyn Monroe	1926	American actress
Sophia Loren	1934	Italian actress
Brigitte Bardot	1934	French actress
Raquel Welch	1940	A publicity still of Loana the Fair One in One Million Years B.C., portrayed by Raquel Welch wearing a fur bikini, became a best-selling poster and turned her into an instant pin-up girl and sex symbol.

See also

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• Bombshell
• Sex kitten

References

Bibliography

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