11 Hotties That Turned Your Great Grandpa On

Erections and old people are like human trafficking in Eastern Europe – you know they exist but it’s generally frowned upon to bring them up in polite conversation, which is precisely why you will be reading about them here, on Uproxx. Not the human trafficking bit, that’s just depressing. No, we decided to do the impossible and combined the world’s two most opposing substances known to Man: sexiness and people over 80. The results were a disturbing, incredibly graphic webcomic and a list of sex symbols from days past. We will only show you one of those.

11. Greta Garbo (1920s – 1940s)

Born in Sweden as the much less marketable Greta Gustafsson (a name more befitting a herring fisherman in some racist play aimed against Swedes) this Viking beauty was pillaging the hearts of America and setting fire to our groins as early as 1927. Although her Hollywood career was a short one, Garbo is still considered the quintessential movie star, not only for her looks but also for her legendary ovaries of steel, which she used to clubber any and all who dared to oppose her. Rumor also has it that she used to swing both ways, which (to use a technical term) is “totally hot.”

10. Joan Crawford (1920s – 1940s)

During the 1920s actress Joan Crawford (originally Lucille Fay LeSueur) Charlestoned her way into the public consciousness when she became known as America’s most famous flapper, which is something like a female hipster with a shred of dignity if you can believe such a thing. Opposite to her screen persona however, the real Crawford was a hard working Texas girl who had to flaunt her ass off for many years before someone finally decided she wasn’t too monstrously ugly to star in a movie’s leading role.

Fun fact: She was briefly on the board of directors over at Pepsi. Huh…

9. Anna May Wong (1910s – 1930s)

Wong’s story is a truly inspiring one. Back in the days when every Asian more than 20 feet away from a Laundromat was shot dead on sight, this actress shook her money maker at movie audiences country wide, achieving international stardom before she was even 20. OK, most of Wong’s roles were horrible Asian stereotypes, but considering the time she was working at (when, all jokes aside, kissing a non-Asian actor on screen could get her arrested) it’s suffice to say she did alright for herself and… Wait a minute… Anna May Wong… A… May Wong… Amay Wong… AMy… Wong…

Holy crap.

8. Pola Negri (1910s – 1930s)

Pola Negri was the stage moniker of Polish actress Barbara Chalupiec, presumably adopted to honor the mighty polar bear, Poland’s deadliest natural predator [citation needed]. In accordance with the ferocious origin of her name (which, btw, we completely made up) Negri quickly became known for her femme fatale image, despite the fact that in real life she was an obnoxious, attention seeking brat if the word of her bitter rivals is to be believed (and why shouldn’t it?)
Sadly, Negri’s career went down the proverbial “hole to the secret basement under the house where you keep teenage runaways” when they put sound in movies and it turned out this foreign woman spoke English with an accent!!

7. Marlene Dietrich (1920s – 1940s)

Many of you might have heard the name of “Dietrich” before, like maybe in Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds perhaps? (Now that we referenced a movie you know and got your attention, let us tell you more about this actress). Marlene Dietrich was a foreign import from Germany, brought over to America to rival Greta Garbo, because as far as movie producers back then were concerned, one Germanic actress with strong facial features was as good as the other. They were of course right, because pretty soon Dietrich became one of the most famous and best paid women of her era, proving once and for all that all foreigners are interchangeable.

Fun fact: Dietrich wore a crude face-lifting mechanism in most of her movies, composed of a set of hooks borrowing into her skin, hidden safely away under wigs and such.

6. Myrna Loy (1920s – 1940s)

A few decades ago the last thing you wanted was Yellow Fever, mainly because back then that actually was a real and deadly disease, but you didn’t even want the metaphorical one, what with the whole rampant racism bit we talked about earlier. And yet, the (very confusing) demand for hot Asian ladies was there and that is when Myrna came in. Myrna’s “thing,” you see, was playing roles of alluring vamps of Asian descent, which was often done by putting her in “yellowface,” allowing men worldwide to safely fantasize about non-whites and not feel too weird about it. When asked for comments, Anna May Wong had this to say: “The f$%@?!”

5. Clara Bow (1920s – 1930s)

Rumor has it that this undisputed sex symbol of the 20s got into the Hollywood game when at age 18 she entered the office of a studio exec dressed in her high school uniform, landing on their payroll just a few days later. Hell, if that’s true then Bow’s stint as an actress could not have gotten more stereotypical unless she had to work at Starbucks for a couple of years or endure vicious accusations of her perverted sexual inclinations… which she totally did (the newspapers loved to write about Bow’s alleged love for orgies, bestiality and incest). So what do you know, it turns out humanity has been taking out their sexual frustration on celebrities pretty much the same way for 90 years now.

4. Louise Brooks (1920s – 1930s)

Louise Brooks was one actress who knew how to tighten gentlemen undergarments the world wide. On the geek front, as you can see, she was sporting the Spock haircut, which fans of SF cannot resist even in a time when Star Trek hasn’t been invented yet (such is the sex power of Spock). On the redneck sporting aficionado front, you have that sexy photo of her sexy self holding a pair of sexy guns, and for everyone else there was… well, everything else about her. Just look at Brooks! Really soak it all in. She looks like a sober, non drowsy Uma Thurman, doesn’t she? That must have counted big time in her days.

3. Mae West (1910s – 1930s)

Flipping pancake Jesus, if you only knew how much society and pop culture owes to West you’d be masturbating in her honor right now as we speak (if you are then God speed, soldier). Mae West was not only an early cinematic sex symbol, she was also a crusader against censorship (because if we don’t allow women to tantalize us with their half naked bodies, the terrorists win), an activist fighting for the rights of homosexuals (when being gay was only slightly less unsightly than molesting blind kittens) and a quip quipping quip machine. You might have even bastardized her more famous quote at some point: Is that a pistol in your pocket or are you just glad to see me?

Drop your pants this instant and show your appreciation for West, in the only manner she’d truly appreciate.

2. Evelyn Nesbit (1900s)

According to our 2-minute research (which we admit right now we mostly faked), Nesbit was the first Suicide Girl in recorded history. She worked primarily as a photo model, her standard look being the very alluring “Oh woe is me” visage. But unlike the modern Suicide Girls we all love (to touch ourselves to), Nesbit actually did have good reasons to be depressed about sh-t, including but not limited to her sadist, cocaine-addicted husband who murdered her ex-lover. See, when your great grandpa polished his tallywhacker to pictures of Nesbit he was working with the genuine article. They just don’t make suicide porn like they used to…

1. Theda Bara (1910s – 1930s)

Bara has the honor to be one of the few people in history who actually helped create a new word in the English language, right beside Robert Freebasing and Juliette Murderhomicide. The story goes thusly: thanks to Bara’s roles of sexually provocative women, she quickly became known to movie audiences as “The Vampire” because same as female empowerment, vampires are terrifying monsters. Then, seeing as all of the country was too busy oppressing minorities to properly pronounce words, the nickname was shortened to “vamp” and a new word was born. Yay for progress (in sexism)?

But it’s not like Bara ever had anything against that. Actually she did everything to maintain her reputation as a lustful poison in female form, often showing as much as a 1 square foot of bare skin in each movie (the full frontal spread eagle of her times, we are sure).

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