The Whining Stranger's Pantheon of Great Heroes and Key Influences: Part 5: Marcello Mastroianni (1924-1996)

He makes the pantheon for his performance as Guido Anselmi in Fellini's 8 1/2 alone. When Mastroianni turns to the camera, wearing chunky dark shades at the spa, in the film's opening section, I coo, I melt. My man crush speeds like a runaway train. He's suave, with his baritone voice. He's dashing with his slicked back hair. But Mastroianni also offers a moving vision of vulnerable narcissism. (Spare me the invincibility of your Steve McQueens, this cat hurts.) His character is self-obsessed but recognizes that self-obsession as a potentially loathesome quality. He loves those close to him but inevitably disappoints them for not being able to slip the bonds of his own gigantic ego.

And those sunglasses! I always buy chunky shades--always!--in tribute to him.

The Whining Stranger's Pantheon of Great Heroes and Key Influences: Part 2: Woody Allen (1935- )

OK, so the WS is the first to admit that admiration for this pop culture icon has been a little bit of a tough sell since the whole "I'm-leaving-you-for-my-stepdaughter" routine of the early 1990s. (That episode, as much I'd like to forget it, certainly did cast a pall on one of my favorite of Allen's films, Manhattan. It used to be charmingly nutty that he was going out with a seventeen year old in the movie; suddenly, it was just, um, not-so-nice.) In any case, my fandom for the Woodman, which never completely dissipated, enjoyed a bit of a renaissance right around the time I defended my PhD and entered the academy professionally. Suddenly, the classic Allen films of the late 70s and early 80s were so soothing, turning as they often do on Allen's inability to suffer pretentious blowhards and egotistical intellectuals. That scene with Marshall McLuhan in the movie line in Annie Hall has such resonance for me. Trust me.

More superficially, I dig the tweed jacket, the nervous tics, the neurotic asides... And as if that weren't enough, this cat plays the clarinet. In public. Jazz, y'all.

And he gave us what is, in my mind, the best overlap between the absurd and the insightful in the commentary about relationships that closes Annie Hall. "We need the eggs." We do.

The Whining Stranger's Pantheon of Great Heroes and Key Influences: Part 1: George Plimpton (1927-2003)

This guy quarterbacked for the Detroit Lions, pitched to Willie Mays, watched over The Paris Review, was the embodiment of preppy chic (OK, I know that sounds oxymoronic, I know), boxed Archie Moore, tackled Sirhan Sirhan at Bobby Kennedy's assasination, offered the best description of Ali doing the rope-a-dope ("it looked like a man leaning out of a window to see what was on the roof"), rode a bicycle, appeared on film with John Wayne, and played the triangle.

Could there be a more obvious choice for the pantheon?