Grace Kelly, Debbie Reynolds and Audrey Dalton, by Clive James

Grace Kelly’s career began as a 10-year cluster of roles for US television, but we didn’t see those in Australia, so her first movies made a terrific impact. She arose out of nowhere. I was still wearing short trousers, but I fell romantically in love with her when she arrived at James Stewart’s apartment in Rear Window and crossed the room fluttering. Hitchcock did something to the camera so she seemed like an angel landing through a storm of desire. The desire was from me: I vowed from the second I saw her that there would never be another.

But in real life she had already met Prince Rainier, whose trousers were long. And anyway, in the same cinema, I saw Debbie Reynolds in Two Weeks With Love. Playing her boyfriend, Carleton Carpenter had long trousers, but I calculated that his height advantage wouldn’t matter if I could just write her a sufficiently adulatory letter. Then I saw Singin’ In The Rain and realised that my real male rival for Debbie’s hand was Gene Kelly.

While still practising the knee slide at the end of my dance routine, I saw Titanic. The greatest filmed version ever of the tragic story, it starred Clifton Webb and Barbara Stanwyck, but it also featured a young lady who left both Grace and Debbie in the dust. Her name was Audrey Dalton and I instantly realised that my lack of physical resemblance to the shyly smiling Robert Wagner was an irredeemable tragedy. I could just about imagine myself in long trousers, but where would I get such a chiselled jaw? I practised shy smiles in front of my dressing-table mirror until it cracked, but there was nothing left to do except fall for the British star Patricia Roc instead.

Grouped around me as I write this under close supervision, the females of my family are disabled by laughing pity, but they understand. They understand too damned well, in fact.

• Clive James’ most recent book, The River In The Sky, is published by Picador.

Marc Bolan by Julie Burchill

They say you never forget your first love, but in my experience one’s first flesh-and-blood romance is eminently forgettable – that’s why so few people end up with them. The sex was probably fumbly rubbish and neither of you were likely to have much money, and if there’s a combo guaranteed to make affection go awol, that’s it. No, in my opinion, the love you never forget is your first famous crush – the one who effectively ended your childhood and set you on the rocky road to becoming yourself. Mine was Marc Bolan.

As an 11-year-old determined to flee a provincial 1970s working-class home, it was about more than sex. It started there, yes, but it travelled all the way up into my brain; it allied sex and Getting Away, where previously I had associated sex with Getting Pregnant and Getting Trapped. As well as personifying sex for me, Bolan embodied London – that mythical land where I would finally become Myself. Indulging in yet another bout of self-abuse beneath a poster of him and a map of the underground, they seemed to merge and become one.

From the first time I saw him on TOTP singing Ride A White Swan, I was Silly Putty in his silky paw. It was as if Clara Bow and Chuck Berry had been on a shopping spree in Biba; one minute a hoof-stamping stud, the next minute a bouncy, flouncy little girl at her own birthday party. But by the time I was 13, two much more serious and sexy love objects hove into view, creatures of substance as well as style. The ascendence of both David Bowie and Bryan Ferry exposed Bolan’s flimsiness; a chiffon flag bedraggled but fluttering gamely on in the hard rain of Three-Day-Week Britain. Ferry was a clever art-school boy and Bowie a hardened thespian, whereas Marc gave the impression of having not much hinterland to fall back on. When the beautiful view in the mirror withered, it would have been hard for him to find solace in books, to put it mildly. Sad to say, death became him, and he died a suitably Hollywood Babylon death in a car crash, driven by his lover, at the age of 29.

My feelings for him had been extreme. As a Christian, I am not proud of the fact, but a few times – OK, maybe 20 – I drew pentagrams on my bedroom floor in chalk when my parents were out and promised my soul to Satan if we could get married when I was 18. Which makes it extra perverse that when I was 17 and he tried to chat me up in a club – not in a sad old lech way, either, but so sweetly and politely – I snubbed him. I was Myself now; he was a reminder of the time when I hadn’t been. A few weeks later he was dead. I’ll never forget him, because in a way I owe my life to him, almost as much as to my parents – not the life I was born into, but the one I wanted all along.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Young loves (from left) Audrey Dalton, Richard Madeley and Marc Bolan. Photographs: Getty Images

Richard Madeley by Joe Stone

In a television career spanning more than thirty 40 calamitous years, Richard Madeley has become known for his inimitable presenting style – whether interviewing Pprimordial dwarves (“Do you find people patronise you? That means they talk down to you”) or conducting casual drive-bys on his long suffering wife (“Remember when you had thrush, Judy? You had a terrible time of it”). But Richard isn’t just the man behind some of the greatest on-air gaffes of all time. I’m sorry to say that he’s also the man behind my sexual awakening.

I can’t remember a time when I didn’t fancy Richard. I know it was around the age of 10 that my fixation began impacting on my school attendance, as I found missing an episode of This Morning increasingly unthinkable. (As a result, I may never have developed an adequate grasp of algebra, but my knowledge of late-90s pet psychics is beyond reproach.) By the time Richard and Judy launched their book club, my crush was so established that I felt no shame in asking my local WHSmith to save me the promotional posters. I’d cut them down the middle, putting Richard’s half above my bed, and Judy’s in the recycling. While other teenagers argued with their parents over curfews or smoking, the source of contention in my house was the phone bills I ran up trying to secure a slot playing You Say We Pay live. I wasn’t even interested in a cash prize. I just wanted to speak to Richard.

He was the pinnacle of debonair masculinity, the James Bond of daytime. Armchair psychologists may deduce that I had daddy issues, but I think that would be an oversimplification of my emotional issues. Perhaps my crush wasn’t particularly “healthy” in retrospect but, I still maintain that Richard is very, very handsome. Yes, age has rendered his personality increasingly Partridge-esque – but looks-wise, he’s holding up remarkably well. The lustrous side parting persists, an air of regality lingers.

It’s said that love arrives when you stop looking for it, and I did eventually meet Richard, some years after my crush had begun to dim. In my early 20s, I did an ill-advised stint as a TV runner, despite not being able to drive, hold a camera the right way round or conduct rudimentary social interactions. When Richard arrived at my production office unannounced on an unremarkable Wednesday, I initially assumed it was some kind of fever dream, or possibly the first indication that the rapture was upon us. I’d like to say I played it cool, but you’d know I was lying. “Hello,” said Richard. “Fine thank you,” I replied. After a heavy beat of mutual confusion he was whisked away by a producer, my opportunity lost, Judy’s reign as the luckiest wife in showbiz unchallenged.

• Joe Stone is commissioning editor on Guardian Weekend.

Bobby Gillespie by Olivia Laing

As a teenager, I had a type. Dark hair, very thin, unhealthy, melancholy and androgynous. Luckily for me, indie pop in the 1990s was built around high-cheekboned boys with hair in their eyes, home counties carbon copies of Bowie’s thin white duke, each paler and skinnier than the last. Mark from Ride, Brett Anderson, Jarvis Cocker, Richey from the Manics. I pored over pictures of them in Melody Maker and the NME, bought what records I could afford and taped the rest off John Peel, poised over the stop button on my Sony ghetto blaster.

But I wasn’t satisfied with mooning at a distance. In the early 90s, I had a fanzine I deployed to get me into gigs for free. Pre-internet, that meant calling directory enquiries to get the number for Rough Trade or Muse records, and then persuading a sceptical PR that I needed tickets, maybe even an interview, though I was patently only 14. I met a lot of my crushes this way. Jarvis Cocker complimented me on my kipper tie, a thrill abruptly curtailed when later that evening the gig was stopped and the lights turned on so two of my friends’ dads could reclaim their wayward daughters, plus furious me. In 1993, I played pool with Radiohead, flush from the success of Creep, and was briefly pen pals with Thom Yorke (he suggested I call my band Polly Pecker). As for Richey from the Manics, I gave him a demo tape of my terrible songs and in return he signed a pair of pink charity shop shoes that a few days later I wore to sit my GCSEs.

But my real crush was on Bobby Gillespie from Primal Scream. Beautiful Bobby, with his long legs and greasy hair, inhabiting his own ecstatic planet. I listened to Screamadelica constantly, especially Damaged, a love song as fragile and perfect as the Velvet Underground’s Pale Blue Eyes. I had a long-running fantasy of such innocence that I wince to record it now. I liked to imagine Bobby Gillespie picking me up from school. He’d probably be driving an American car, maybe a green Thunderbird. He’d pick me up, everyone would see, and then – well, I wasn’t sure. We’d kiss, but I’d also be transformed, into my adult, rock-star self. Kiss the prince and stop being a frog.

In 1992, Bobby Gillespie made a mixtape of rock’n’roll love songs that was won by a reader of Select magazine. He put it together in his flat in Brighton: Scott Walker, the Faces, Dennis Wilson, Big Star. I wanted a copy so badly I wrote to the magazine pretending I was Spanish, explaining my devotion in broken English. I don’t know now why this seemed a good idea, but it worked. I kept the tape for years, until some boyfriend (high-cheekboned, skinny, pale, borderline alcoholic) taped over it with Miles Davis. It was my talisman, my transitional object. Even now, I sort of think Bobby made it for me.

• Olivia Laing’s novel Crudo is published by Picador.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Teen dreams (from left) Bobby Gillespie and Frank Ocean. Photograph: Rex/Shutterstock

Frank Ocean by Chidera Eggerue

What’s not to love? He is incredibly beautiful, because he’s enigmatic. There’s something about him that says, “I’m a little unsure of myself, but know I deserve to be here.” I feel the same, and believe we develop crushes on the people who show us reflections of ourselves.

I still remember when I fell in love, and wish I could go back and experience it all over again. I was 17 and studying visual arts and design at the Brit School, and Tumblr was the platform to be on, and he was there. It was a digital environment where quirkiness and individualism were encouraged, a space where kids could find a sense of community while harnessing their creativity. I would rush home from college to spend hours on end trawling it for inspiration.

Frank was part of a group called Odd Future, with Tyler, the Creator. They were all about youthful exuberance, being carefree, causing loads of trouble. My entire reality shifted when Frank released his debut album Channel Orange, music that was all about storytelling through the lens of a sceptical romantic. I too, am a sceptical romantic, except when it comes to Frank. I saw him live for the first and last time in 2013, at O2 Academy Brixton. It was one of the best days of my life; I’ll never forget fangirling in front of my dad, who had surprised me with tickets.

My love for Frank ran so deep that my first romantic experience was with a boy who loved him as much as me. Our 17-year-old summer romance revolved around Channel Orange, and was perfect. We would meet after college, go to a field and lie there listening to the album. We’re still friends.

And Frank Ocean is still my crush. Channel Orange remains my favourite album. If you’re reading this, Frank, I still hold a lot of space for you in my heart.

• Chidera Eggerue is the author of What A Time To Be Alone and blogs as The Slumflower.

Mr Motivator by Bridget Minamore

My first crush has become family folklore, one of those stories my parents laugh about every Christmas, but I take it all on the chin. How can I not? Even I have to admit that the idea of a primary school kid obsessing over an early morning aerobic workout TV star in his 40s is pretty funny.

As a kid, I was obsessed with Mr Motivator. I say obsessed, I mean infatuated: I would tell my family that he was the man I was going to marry. I remember getting up early to watch him on GMTV and memorise his steps so I could perform them at school to an only half-bothered playground audience. I only wanted to wear florals, or Lycra, so my wardrobe grew heavy with 90s leggings in garish prints. Perhaps the worst thing I did was advising my mum’s mates to do more exercise, which, for obvious reasons, didn’t go down well.

The crush dissipated before I hit double digits, and Mr Motivator’s popularity similarly waned. I’ve never been more embarrassed, more perplexed: why him? Why a man who, worryingly, was not unlike my dad and uncles? Now, I’ve realised that was perhaps the point. A few years ago, an uncle pointed out that my memory had a few holes. I didn’t just say I wanted to marry Mr Motivator, I said I could also marry one of my uncles, or my dad, or one of his friends. Suddenly, it made sense. Mr Motivator wasn’t just a celebrity, he was a black male celebrity with an accent – one of the few I would have seen on 90s telly. Growing up in south London, I was surrounded by black men like him – every version of a husband I knew looked like Mr Motivator. It stands to reason that, when I thought of marriage, he was the only man on TV who made sense.

Since then, thinking about my old crush feels a little sadder, and sweeter. Today, the artist formally known as Mr Motivator is a 66-year-old grandfather called Derrick Evans, who splits his time between London and Jamaica, occasionally bringing out the spandex for festival appearances. Whenever I spot him on a lineup, I smile. My heart doesn’t quite skip a beat, but it’s nice to know that kids have a few more options when it comes to fancying famous people who remind them of their own lives.

• Bridget Minamore is a poet and critic.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Heart-throbs (from left) John Taylor and Mr Motivator. Photographs: Rex/Shutterstock; Getty Images

John Taylor by Grace Dent

One evening in Carlisle in 1984, my mother returned to the settee, back from washing the dishes, to find her 11-year-old daughter curled in a ball weeping. Small sobs of despair emitted from beneath my wilted home demi-wave, as the closing credits of Duran Duran Live played on VHS. The video had been bought with saved-up pocket money, along with a bag of pick’n’mix jelly snakes. Neither of these things was making me happy. “What’s wrong?” asked my mother. “I’ve just realised something,” I sniffed, “I’ve realised… I will never marry John Taylor from Duran Duran. He lives in Birmingham. And even if I did meet him… loads of other girls fancy him, too.”

The VHS in question, the one that pushed me over the edge, reveals a lot about the innocence and the intoxication of the crush. Yes, the live show was banger after banger, but it was the backstage footage of John, Simon, Roger and the boys simply existing that sent me quite haywire. The camaraderie and the in-jokes. The highs of the sold-out stadium show and the lows of touring; tears, homesickness, shots of them being overwhelmed and vulnerable. I was overcome by a feeling that I would die for this band, and, more specifically, that I had to protect and love John Taylor at all costs.

I loved his pretty cheekbones, his lovely full lips, his slightly lanky stature and the fact he sometimes wore glasses which, of course, meant he was a great thinker. Frontman Simon Le Bon was wildly confident, and guitarist Andy Taylor had an appealing loose-cannon vibe; but John, oh God John, who rarely said anything, was a precious, smouldering slice of pop heart-throb. I wanted desperately to… well, I wasn’t sure. Sit close to him? Sniff his hair? Scream “I love you John Taylor!” and rattle a sign at him.

Crushes like this are an explosion of confused longing. They are largely innocent and wholesome. And at some point I grew up and moved on to worshipping Morrissey and Andrew Eldritch from the Sisters of Mercy. Nevertheless, I still remember being unreasonably irked when John Taylor wed Amanda de Cadenet in 1991. She was a British TV presenter, not some American supermodel, and exactly my age. “I took my eye off that ball,” I fumed.

In 2011, I went to a private viewing in an art gallery in London, and my friend said, “I have someone for you to meet,” and swung me around and there was John Taylor. He was 100% John Taylor. Tall, great cheekbones, gorgeously preserved. “Hngngngngngngnngngn,” I said and shook his hand a bit like the Queen Mother. My ear lobes went red and I fled to the other corner of the gallery and stood feeling devastated, joyous and cross all at once. I still do not know what I want to do to John Taylor. Maybe in another 30 years, I’ll figure this out.

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