The “most handsome man in the history of movies,” according to Quentin Tarantino
Beauty is always in the eye of the beholder, and as far as Quentin Tarantino is concerned, only one actor deserves to be called the single most handsome man ever to grace the silver screen.
Weirdly, though, it’s not the person he literally called a sexy motherfucker. The two-time Academy Award winner may have branded Clint Eastwood as “one of the sexiest motherfuckers during this time who ever existed” when celebrating Sergio Leone’s Dollars trilogy, but he didn’t deem him worthy of the all-time top spot.
While it’s entirely a matter of taste and personal preference as to which stars fit the ‘handsome’ bracket and which ones look like the inside of a discarded shoe, Tarantino clearly prefers the ‘Golden Age’ to modern Hollywood’s typical pretty boys, despite his overt appreciation for Brad Pitt’s undeniable wattage.
Eastwood was the “sexiest motherfucker” of his era, then, but there were two names out in front. One of them was an actor by trade, and the other was a full-time musician who occasionally dabbled in other performing arts. Gary Cooper or Elvis Presley? It’s the age-old debate that few people outside of Tarantino have ever had, but he knows how he’d rank them.
As is often the case when Tarantino talks about anything, his declaration came as part of a tangent. It’s always been impossible for the writer and director to focus on a subject without spiralling off in a thousand different directions, and his love for Josef Von Sternberg’s 1930 romantic drama Morocco was the catalyst for his eyelashes to flutter.
Marlene Dietrich stars as a nightclub singer who touches down in the titular country, where she quickly gains the attention of Cooper’s hedonistic soldier. Naturally, the sparks fly between the iconic pair, with Tarantino every bit as enamoured by the leading man as he was the film itself.
“Forget about even Marlene Dietrich, Gary Cooper may be the most handsome man, aside from Elvis, in the history of movies,” he told Elvis Mitchell. “In that movie in particular.” Using that logic, no actor has ever been better-looking in any picture than Cooper’s Morocco protagonist Tom Brown, whereas ‘The King’ takes the cake as the most telegenic of them all.
Technically, seeing as Elvis wasn’t an actor by trade, does that make Cooper the most handsome thespian in cinema history? Again, it’s different strokes for different folks, but when Tarantino considers Presley to be a movie star who had the potential to be an era-defining great if his music career didn’t keep getting in the way, he’s more likely to stick to his guns and consider him the winner of the handsome-off.
Was Cooper a better actor? Of course he was, and it’s not even close. Was he the best-looking star of his era? That depends on who’s asked. Either way, the High Noon frontman and Elvis remain more capable than anyone else to have ever appeared in any movie that’s ever been made to turn Tarantino into the live-action equivalent of one of those cartoon characters whose jaws drop on the floor when their animated heart almost starts beating out of their chest.
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