Most people seemed to be enamored with Movie Stars, Music Stars, Sports…etc.
Me I never really wanted to be another person. There are only 2 people whose skill impressed so much I wanted to emulate it.
George Edward Hurrell was a photographer who contributed to the image of glamour presented by Hollywood during the 1930s and 1940s. Wikipedia was one.
Maurits Cornelis Escher was a Dutch graphic artist who made mathematically inspired woodcuts, lithographs, and mezzotints. Despite wide popular interest, Escher was for most of his life neglected in the art world, even in his native Netherlands. He was 70 before a retrospective exhibition was held. Wikipedia was the second.
The part I don’t get is that I admired their talent and vision. I don’t care who or what they slept with. Could care less about their gender identification. Don’t give a damn about their nationality or religious beliefs. None of that has bearing on why I admire them.
Who were your idols? How much did they influence you? How much did you want to know about them outside their profession and why?
No, apart from the monkeys as a young girl.
I have never idolised any movie star or singer…it’s the media who wants to make money , by hyping all these so called celebrities up!!..
I spoke to him once, when they were staying at the Hilton Hotel I think it was, a few of us girls phoned the hotel and spent my friends mums shopping money on the phone call, we got through, I can’t remember what I said to get through, it was definitely him on the other end of the phone, he said “ Hello” then we all started screaming, to which he put the phone down…
…sadly he has now passed over.
I remember my older sister had the biggest crush on him. Her room was plastered in Davy Jones. Then Andy Gibb came along! 
yes…the entire Welsh rugby team from the 60’s 
Yes I had David Essex all over my bedroom wall.
Me too!
I remember Richard Chamberlain was close to my heart . 
What interesting people you admired. I’d seen those paintings and photographs before but never connected them to the names of their creators. Two different types of genius, good choices to admire.
I was a hopeless romantic in my early teens and wanted to be a romantic writer or painter.
But unlike you, I really dreamed of having their lifestyle and wanted to be friends with Renoir, like Berthe Morisot, or be married to Percy Byshe Shelley and hang out with Lord Byron, like Mary Shelley!
I wanted to be like Blondie too and sing like her on stage in black leather
And later on I was in love with Steve Harley. I didn’t want to be him, but I did want to be his girlfriend
If I could I would ask either one of them (my idols) the same question.
What inspired you to see the images you saw?
Sir Robert Charlton, greatest English footballer imo.
Good question but I wonder if they’d be able to tell you?
Artists inspiration seems to be more instinctive than definable, even to themselves and I think they probably tell you through their work rather than words
In my late teens, my walls were covered with images of South African motorcycle racer, Kork Ballington. Everyone seemed to follow Barry Sheene, who for a while lived just outside Wisbech, which was not too far from me. But Kork Ballington, was for me the best.
But most of my heros were the guys who did radio from ships, especially the engineers.
Their work has definitely driven me. I will never achieve the command of perspective the way M.C. Escher did, nor will I ever be able to control light the way George Hurrell did. I aspire to be competitive in my own way.
Some people are inspiring and I suppose if you can see the skill in their work and aim to include something like it in your own, then in a way they’ve already told you how they visualise the world
I idolised the Beatles and George was my favourite.
F1 played a big part in my childhood … Brabham, Surtees, Moss, Stewart etc ruled the world.
It wasn’t particular pop groups or artists or individuals that I adored as a young boy but Western society and culture in general. Some of you may know by now that I grew up under communist (Russian) rule in eastern Germany living there until the wall came down in 1989. At least I was among those who were able to watch west German TV from the beginning in the 50s.
I used to adore the US for its history, scientific achievements, nature, living standard, etc. getting some glimpses about it through movies, westerns, crime movies and TV-series (e.g. Congressman, Flipper, Fury, Lassie) and, later on, through other, more demanding movies and TV documentaries and I tended to be quite uncritical at that time. I also admired Britain with its Carnaby Street fashion, music, and stuff.
As a teen, besides longer hair, it was all about clothes such as worn-out Levi’s jeans, preferably the 507 with a red or orange tab ideally to go with a T-shirt and a genuine US-Army parka or field jacket. That’s basically all you needed to be accepted by almost everybody. And that was hard enough, almost impossible. If you didn’t have relatives of the same age who’d send you stuff or visit you so that you could strip them, you’d have problems being accepted. Finally, I got the Levi’s but never had a genuine US parka or field jacket which I’d have killed someone for.
My elder brother belonged to the Elvis generation and also styled himself with a duck’s tail whereas we belonged to the beat generation (Beatles, Beach Boys and the like). As a twenty-something it became more relaxed in every respect.
I favored Ringo myself.
yeah well it was just a kinda pre teen crush, no foundation.