THE LEADING MAN

All men envy the handsome, square-jawed kind of man (above) referred to as..."The Leading Man." The term Leading Man obviously comes out of theater and film, but it isn't confined to that. A man can be a leading man even if he sells pizza for a living.  It's a physical type.

In the film industry I'd say Rock Hudson (above) was the quintessential leading man. He had the jaw, the physique and the self-confidence.

The jaw is important. No jaw...no leading man.

Leading man is a rare physical type and film studios gobble up every one they can find; every one that can act, I mean. That's because you can do things with leading man types that would be implausible if done by anybody else. No behavior is too over-the-top for this kind of guy. 

In "Magnificent Obsession" Rock (above) becomes the greatest surgeon in his field just so he can operate on his girlfriend, Jane Wyman (above). When the time comes he throws his shirt on the floor and operates bare-chested. Lesser doctors in the room are fully clothed, but not Rock. Surrounded by admiring nurses, with superhuman concentration and with sweat glistening on his pecs, he saves the life of a woman who inferior doctors had written off as inoperable. 

Of course he did. That's what a leading man does. 

I digress here to explain that leading men, star-types and chick magnets aren't exactly the same. Chick magnets and stars like the young Brando (above) are merely handsome. Sure, they have appeal but they have to work at it, they have to..."turn on the charm." Leading men don't work at it. It just is. They have the jaw. It's something they're born with.

 One thing all leading men types have in common is that they're invariably really nice people to know. That's unusual because it defies the odds. Every group contains defective personalities, that's to be expected. How come leading men are the exception?

I don't know, but I'll hazard a guess. Leading men-types are nice because they're so universally appealing that, ever since childhood, everyone they've ever known has been kind to them. They've never seen the harsh side of life. They've never felt the sting of rejection.  Never having been treated badly, they naturally tend to be unguarded and friendly. After all, their only competition is other leading men and they're rare as hens' teeth.

'Just a guess.