Margot

I dream about sex, flying, and being chased by Nazis.
Margot Kidder, “The Education of Margot Kidder, Rolling Stone, 1981.

Picture it: The early 1980s, somewhere in the sprawling suburbs of America. You’re just a geeky kid, reading Batman comic books and playing with Dukes of Hazzard action figures. Over the next few years you’ll crush on a two-dimensional character from the pages of Uncanny X-Men and swoon over Bailey Quarters from the sitcom WKRP in Cincinnati, among several others. The first of these crushes that really ignites your sexual awareness, though, was Margot Kidder as Lois Lane from the Superman movies. That husky voice, those chiseled cheekbones, legs that seemed downright dangerous, and a mouth so sexy you’ll soon be daydreaming in class about it wrapped tightly around your…

Who-boy. Better hold your Trapper Keeper over your midsection for the rest of study hall period. Yeah, you have it bad for Margot Kidder.

A childhood crush that still burns brightly.

I think about that Rolling Stone quote up above all the time. It’s amazing. Succinct, yet packed with power. Margot evocatively strung together these unrelated words—sex, flying, nazis—and made pure poetry. It never fails to thrill and titillate every time I think about it. And neither does Margot.

Hold that pose, Margot. We just need another few seconds…

That’s my relationship to the late Margot Kidder in a nutshell; ever since I was a child she has intrigued me with her refreshing and eccentric candor—and her forthright sexuality. It all started when I fell for her as Lois Lane in Superman (1978). I was maybe five the first time I saw the film on a network television broadcast. That initial, innocent schoolboy crush eventually led to much stronger, much more R-rated feelings by the time I saw Margot’s perky breasts in The Amityville Horror (1979) on VHS sometime in the mid-‘80s. The kind of feelings that my younger self had never felt before. Margot blew the doors off my G-rated childhood.

Before Michelle Pfeiffer took her rightful place as my forever movie star crush, Margot was my first celebrity crush. I adored her performance as Lois, and still do, especially in the first film. She is so full of life and brimming with sass and sarcasm, plus an underlying sweetness that shines through when she falls head over heels for Christopher Reeves’ Superman. As the tenacious, cigarette-smoking, coffee-chugging ace reporter, she’s a screwball comedy heroine for the ages. Years later, viewings of Margot’s work in Sisters (1973), Black Christmas (1974), and The Amityville Horror (1979) only reinforced what my young heart and mind already knew while watching Superman, even if I didn’t yet have the language to express it: Margot was a total effing babe.

This scene from The Amityville Horror was primo “pause the VHS tape” material among young boys in the ‘80s.

Sweet Jesus, Margot. Have mercy on our souls.

During the 1970s and into the 1980s she radiated sex—not just sex appeal, but straight up sex. She felt dangerous and alluring to me in a way no one else had at that point. Check out articles during her Superman fame years. She’s astonishingly candid, both in her answers to interview questions and in her photo shoots. I highly recommend you read the essay she wrote for Playboy in 1975. She agreed to pose nude for the famous men’s magazine on the condition that she write a deeply personal and refreshingly honest essay about how the perfect bodies of Playboy models negatively impacted her own body image.

I certainly dreamed of Margot stripping the pants off me!

During that time, she granted a racy interview to “The Great American Sex Magazine” Partners. She’s dressed up like Lois, but a sluttier, softcore-porn version of Lois. It’s hot. She’s hot. Her sheer blouse hides nothing as her pert breasts and erect nipples threaten to burst through the flimsy fabric. Up, up, and away, indeed. “What color underwear am I wearing,” she flirtatiously asked Superman in the first film. Well, based on her Partners photo spread, I’m guessing she’s not wearing any underwear. This is Margot at her most sensual, and it’s utterly, outrageously breathtaking.

What time is it? Well, of course it’s tits o’clock, followed immediately by legs o’clock. Margot bringing the HEAT, my gawd.

I can’t imagine a star of a massive mainstream movie today, one with such broad appeal to both kids and adults, doing anything remotely similar to Margot appearing in dirty magazines. Sure, Maxim and the internet have shown off plenty of celeb’s exposed bodies, but Margot’s early ‘80s forays into sex mags still feel different, hotter. Her nipples standing at attention must have caused some major anxiety among Warner Bros. executives at the time. This only makes Margot cooler and more badass than ever in my eyes. She was not apologizing for showing off her slammin’ body, and nor should she have.

“Read all about it, read all about it: Lois Lane is hot, Lois Lane is HOT!“

Even Margot’s Superman publicity shots in 1978 were jaw dropping. Her nipples are not exposed, but the pictures knowingly highlight two of her other best assets: those alluringly naughty legs that seem to go on for days.

She also made sure to keep those previously mentioned pert tities standing at full attention, as the buttons on her tight blouse came dangerously close to popping right off.

Superman never had a chance, and neither did we Gen Xers.

Is it any wonder this woman kickstarted my puberty? I wasn’t alone, either. Margot ushered an entire generation (X) into sexual maturity. It was gratifying to read interviews with her later in life where she acknowledged this, like when she said of her fans, “Superman was their first movie, the first movie they saw … I was their first love. They were little boys when they saw it.” She got it! I love that she got it.

Thank you, Margot. You were good. Very good.