Picks and Pans Review: Top 10 Teen Idols on Film

>• The sighs, the squeals, the bedroom-wall posters: These heartthrobs made girls melt at the movies

1 FRANK SINATRA Ol’ Blue Eyes wasn’t always old. In the mid-1940s, his crooning made him the fave of screaming girls dubbed bobby-soxers. Next stop: Hollywood, and roles in On the Town and Guys and Dolls.

2 JAMES DEAN The poster boy for alienated youth, Dean starred in three movies, just one of which was released before his death at age 24 in a car crash in 1955. Seeing him in Rebel Without a Cause is a must.

3 ELVIS PRESLEY Those lips, that sneer. Rock’s first megastar swiveled his hips through 30-plus films—mostly flimsy excuses for Presley to sing and ogle babes—between 1956 and ’69.

4 TROY DONAHUE No one ever made great claims for Donahue’s acting, but he was blond and gorgeous and teen girls went weak in the knees for him during his heyday in the late 1950s.

5 MICHAEL JACKSON Yes, that’s how Jackson once looked. During his teen idol phase, he thrilled in just one film, The Wiz. He’d make his mark on another screen, with groundbreaking music videos.

6 JOHN TRAVOLTA Initially TV made Travolta a teen dream, but he went global once Saturday Night Fever raged in 1977. Who knew 30 years later he’d be just as endearing in a dress and a wig in Hairspray?

7 ROB LOWE Blessed with almost too much beauty, Lowe had ’80s girls swooning when he ambled through films such as Class and St. Elmo’s Fire. Actual acting came later.

8 JOHNNY DEPP Like Travolta, Depp transitioned from teen TV fave (remember 21 Jump Street?) to a formidable career. Early roles in Cry-Baby and Edward Scissorhands paved the way.

9 ZAC EFRON He’s another triple threat, able to sing, dance and act. And he has easily leapt from the Disney Channel to the big screen, with Hairspray, High School Musical 3: Senior Year and now 17 Again.

10 ROBERT PATTINSON With his sleepy eyes and bedhead hair, the British-born star of Twilight is the latest teen delight. No matter what age, ladies always love a sensitive vampire.