Each issue, Crimespree asks authors a question. It seemed like an obvious question for the Jan/Feb issue (Our 50th issue!) . Who was your first celebrity crush?
Tasha Alexander: Mozart. Yes, I’m a geek. I was about ten years old and seriously depressed he was dead.
Lou Berney: My first celebrity crush was the Evil Queen in Walt Disney’s SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARVES. I had no interest in Snow White, but the Queen…wow. Everything I’ve always wanted in a woman.
Hilary Davidson: John Taylor of Duran Duran. He had soulful eyes, even if they were ringed by heavy eyeliner. Not sure why I thought that and the dyed hair was attractive, but I did. Mind you, I also thought David Bowie was hot as the Goblin King in Labyrinth.
Sara J. Henry: I am going to lose any cool points I may ever have had – or aspired to having – by admitting that it was Roy Rogers. Hey, I was 5.
Chris Holm: Carrie Fisher as Leia, no doubt, though only in that background sense that damn near every guy my age would have to cop to under oath. But since that answer’s so obvious, I’ll give you another: Sherilyn Fenn as Audrey Horne. Sweet googly moogly did I have a crush on her — although at the time, she terrified me as well.
Julie Hyzy: Dick Van Dyke (I *loved* him in Mary Poppins) and Peter Tork from the Monkees.
Jess Lourey: Leif Garrett. He was on the cover of TV Guide, back when it was a paper magazine. I ripped off that cover, rolled it gently, tied it with a purple ribbon, and kept it in the back of my sock drawer.
Val McDermid: Dusty Springfield. My gaydar developed at a very early age.
Todd Robinson: Pre-puberty? Kristy McNichol. Post-puberty? Molly Ringwald.
Simon Wood: Suzy Quattro.I was six years old and Suzy was playing live on Top of the Pops. She was wearing a black leather cat suit, banging away on an electric guitar, singing “Down on Devil Gate Drive.”I couldn’t take my eyes off her. The zip on her cat suit was provocatively pulled down and I had a funny feeling inside that I’d never felt before. I think it was a thing called lust.
And for the record, my first crush was Kristy McNichol when she was on FAMILY.
For answers from Mark Billingham, Chelsea Cain, Tess Gerritson and more, check out issue 50 of Crimespree.
Tinker Bell, and I’ve been looking for a small green woman ever since.
I was in love with future author, Judith Richards. I didn’t know her; but I knew she was out there somewhere — the perfect person, and she would love me. It all happened forty years later, a dream come true. She was, and is, the perfect wife.