Fortunately, 1987 brought the brooding back to Bond as Shakespearian actor Timothy Dalton took on the role of MI-5 agent 007 in The Living Daylights (and again in 1989 in License to Kill). Now that was more like it, after years of Roger Moore’s too-lightweight take on Ian Fleming’s dark, self-destructive hero. And I had my new crush. In the meantime, technology blazed ahead at light-years per minute, creating more venues for in which to tend to my addiction.
We now had our first real computer, a blazing IBM XT (complete with a gigantic 10 megabyte hard drive.) I mean no disrespect to our trusty Commodore 64, which got both my husband and I through graduate school with its 64K of memory and cassette tape drive. After all, that computer linked us to the mammoth IBM 370’s at U of I enabling us to play endless hours of the classic text game “Adventure” in between seasons of Hill Street Blues, St. Elsewhere and Night Court. But I digress.
Our new super PC fully loaded with (trial) subscriptions to Compuserve and one or two other long defunct proto-Internet services connected me to other fans through Usenet and other such Internet antiquities. The new and readily accessible information superhighway was this kid’s candy store. By logging onto premium information services, I could discover simply everything there was to be found on the darkly handsome Dalton. Not that I was stalking him. I just wanted to know everything about him.
I chit-chatted via the old cumbersome Usenet with other fans, but, alas, there were few other females around the ‘net, and therefore had to couch my Timothy-love in terms of his greatness as a classical actor and his general Bond-ness. I haunted comic book shops to discuss the relative merits of the various Bond incarnations. I flipped through (very expensive) British Bond magazines seeking validation for my fangirlishness as I read others describe Timothy’s perfection as THE Bond for the 1990s, and secretly dreamt of a day when hopelessly hung up women could gather in some technologically fantastical place and openly extol the virtues of their crushes in anonymous abandon.
More years passed and Dalton, after another outing as 007 was banished to the world of Bond has-beens (and making some really bad movies). DOS gave way to Windows (giving non-Mac users a reasonable facsimile of a user-friendly Graphical User Interface) and the techie world of Compuserve and GE Genie gave rise to the more populist America Online. And life was good. My second child was born, and crushing on fictional characters was replaced the realities of marriage, work and raising two kids while trying to complete a seriously-past-deadline book.
Article comments
1 - grigorisgirl
Only the other day I was trying to explain my Bezuhov/Hopkin "thing" to somebody on-line and now I find him at the top of the page!
Kuryakin, Rochester, Dalton, Rickman, we must have been seperated at birth!
2 - Barbara Barnett
I have found (especially in the last couple of years) that a lot of women have followed a similar set of actors. I can post a comment making reference to Illya on a House, MD or a Hugh Laurie fan message board, only to have 15 people acknowledging that they, too, had a "thing" for Illya. My reason for writing this blog was to try to make some sense out of that exact phenomenon!
Barbara
3 - sdemar
Barbara, I, too, loved Illya Kuryakin and Spock. I even attended a Star Trek convention so I could meet LN. Luke, of General Hospital, was another one that tugged at my heart. And now, Hugh Laurie, and those beautiful blue eyes of his. He makes me sigh. You are in good company, my friend.
4 - genagirl
I hear you, Sister! My fictional boyfriends began with Jack Wilde on H.R. Puffenstuff (his cute accent made me fall in love with Brits for the next 40 years). I still get a kick out of David McCallum on NCIS though I was a Napoleon fan and my obsession with Hugh Laurie and House is as great as yours. What can you do, they're always sexy, complicated and usually wounded, they never make messes and they leave you alone when you turn off the TV set - the perfect man.
5 - Barbara Barnett
Thanks Sdemar!
Genagirl--You are so right. No muss/no fuss. Perfect men. It's funny how our tastes are established so early on. When I look back and think of how young I was when my attraction to a specific male type began, it's pretty bizarre. I don't think the same can be said for my daughter (although I don't know for sure).
But oh, my. Jack Wilde on HR Puffenstuff. Wasn't he also in the original Oliver! cast? I seem to recall something about that. But it's been (sigh) 40 years?
barbara
6 - Louise
Dear Sister Barbara,
You do have exquisite taste. I really thought I was past all this intense absorption until the additively fascinating Hugh Laurie brought his talents to House. But, I tend to be loyal--or obsessed--I just purchased a DVD to keep watching Peter O'Toole in Lawrence of Arabia--the VHS tape wore out. Ah, there along with Rochester is a prototypical wounded hero.
Louise
7 - Judy
ditto, ditto, ditto! I have found my true family!! welcome home girls!
8 - Barbara Barnett
But, I tend to be loyal--or obsessed--I just purchased a DVD to keep watching Peter O'Toole in Lawrence of Arabia--the VHS tape wore out. Ah, there along with Rochester is a prototypical wounded hero.
I did the same thing with the BBC Jane Eyre. And of course I absolutely HAD to have both the UK and US versions of Maybe Baby (with Hugh Laurie). And then get a region decoder for my computer so that I could watch the Region 2 version (and the director/actor commentary track with Hugh and Ben Elton)...ah, what we do for our men!
9 - iamdaffodils
My name is Cathy and I'm a Hugh-holic. Excellent blog Barbara! And yes, another Ilya Kurakin fan here. I was probably about 6 or 7 when Man From Uncle started. I never understood how anyone could have a crush on Napoleon Solo - there was just no comparison as far as I was concerned. I even had an Ilya Kurakin doll with the gun that really worked! Wish I still had that.
My first three childhood crushes were Richard Chamberlain, David McCallum and Davy Jones, so I had a thing for British accents early on - (Chamberlain moved to England after Kildare ended, so he had one too at one point!)
But back to the topic at hand - Mr. Laurie makes me feel like I'm back in grade school again. He's definitely the best crush I've ever had - even though I'm WAY told old to be a fan girl. What's the cutoff age on that by the way?
Cathy
10 - Barbara Barnett
Hi Cathy,
I'm "sasmom" on a fan forum which we both well (I think, anyway!)
I had an Illya doll too! And my older (musician) brother made me my own transmitter out of a 1/4 inch amplifier jack!
But, as you say, back to the subject at hand (and although this essay isn't part of "Welcome to the End of the Thought Process" my House feature here on BlogCritics, it's certainly the source it is certainly related to it). Hugh Laurie's splendid, nuanced and emotional portrayal of the (supposedly) unemotional Gregory House certainly spawned this most recent (and long-lasting) crush.
As far as an age cutoff, I'm ancient at 52, so... I say there is no age cutoff to this particular sisterhood!
barbara
11 - iamdaffodils
Hi Barbara! Yes I'm quite familiar with (like practically live there!) that particular fan forum (and the one we used to post at too - not sure if you still do since I quit going there). I always love your insight and analyses. You wrote such an amazing one for S3 - made me realize things that as many time as I've watched those episodes, had never thought about, and I understood the journey from Meaning to Human Error.
That is so cool that your brother made you a trasmitter! My brother is 6 years older so he was a teen and really into Man From Uncle back in the day...of course he watched it for very different reasons than I did!!!!
I like that you describe House as "supposedly" unemotional because we know how untrue it is to call him unemotional, or when someone says he doesn't care about a patient. We've had too many scenes of him in the hallway silently, intently watching his patients. We know better. Another thing I dislike is when he's described as a grouch or cranky. To me that's just too easy a label to put on the character. He's far more complex and layered to be explained away with an adjective. As he told Stella in Need To Know, "I'm complicated. Chicks dig that." Oh yeah!!!
Oh and glad to know there's not an age cutoff on fangirlhood - I'm 50 and so happy to be in the sisterhood of Hughlovers!
12 - Barbara Barnett
I like that you describe House as "supposedly" unemotional because we know how untrue it is to call him unemotional, or when someone says he doesn't care about a patient. We've had too many scenes of him in the hallway silently, intently watching his patients. We know better. Another thing I dislike is when he's described as a grouch or cranky. To me that's just too easy a label to put on the character. He's far more complex and layered to be explained away with an adjective. As he told Stella in Need To Know, "I'm complicated. Chicks dig that." Oh yeah!!!
The "supposedly" was placed in there for just the reason you describe so well. I've always contended that rather than House not being able to "feel," he actually "feels" too much. His attitude, the walls he puts up and the other defenses he employs are to prevent his feelings from both exposure and from getting in the way of the objective rational problem solving he needs for his job (and his passion.) We've seen House in situations where his emotions are too close to the surface; and like Mr. Spock, his efforts to submerge them behind rationalism and logic sometimes fail. It is then when we get those "moments."
Barbara
13 - iamdaffodils
"His attitude, the walls he puts up and the other defenses he employs are to prevent his feelings from both exposure and from getting in the way of the objective rational problem solving he needs for his job (and his passion.)"
Perfectly said Barbara. He won't ever let anyone catch him caring for exactly the reasons you said. But I would love for them to do an episode where we see him deal with his emotions in the aftermath of a patient's death, a child, who he had bonded with but of course never let on that fact to anyone. There's always fan fiction I guess!
Cathy