Kim Alexis: Love Isn't a Mystery

How do I love Kim Alexis?  Let me count the ways . . .

The top fashion and cosmetics model from the 1980s that teenage girls wanted to be like and teenage boys wanted to be with turns sixty years old today, and the very mention of her name conjures up images of glamour, elegance, beauty, and sex appeal.  It also brings back memories of how enchanted and entranced males of my generation were by her when we were in high school and college.  She was the perfect woman in our eyes, and she brightened up our lives with her very presence on magazine covers. 

Of course, we would always sigh if we caught a glimpse of her smiling face looking back at us from the cover of a beauty magazine in the supermarket racks (such as above, which is taken from the cover of an issue of Glamour), but as we were of the wrong sex to be seen thumbing through Glamour or Mademoiselle, we would be rewarded every February with the annual Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue, in which Kim Alexis was featured in the magazine and sometimes on the cover as well.  

Okay, the annual Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue is misogynistic, it exploits exotic Third World locations, and most of the swimsuits the models wore in them wouldn't be suitable for aquatic competition.  But,as I've said before Kim Alexis is an accomplished athlete, and she could have been a champion swimmer in her own right.

I valued her appearances on talk shows.  They were one of the few moments where she was a living, breathing woman, and not a static photograph.  Like the guys at the bar in the series finale of "Cheers," who planned their entire day around watching an awards show when they knew that Kim Alexis would be one of the presenters, I always set my VCR every time she'd be on a late-night talk show I couldn't stay up late to see, like David Letterman's old NBC show.   Heck, even her TV commercials were entertaining.  And whenever you did hear her speak, you always got the impression that she wasn't playing a role or projecting an image.  She was the real deal.

And she remains the real deal today.  Still beautiful after three score years, she is a zealous health fanatic, a devout Christian, a patriotic American, and an accomplished blog writer.  And however nice she appears on television, she is so much nicer in person.  I ought to know.  Remember, as I wrote about when it happened, I met Kim Alexis back in 2016!

This is me with Kim Alexis at a photographic exhibition in New York in September 2016 in what was a heady week for me.  (The following day I took part in a press conference with another living legend, astronaut Buzz Aldrin, when a school in  his hometown of Montclair, New Jersey was named for him.)  Stan Wan, the fashion photographer whose work was being exhibited, took the picture.   I know I showed this picture before, but of course, on this festive occasion of her milestone birthday, I can't  help but show it again . . . if only to bask in the warm memory of a dream come true . . . meeting the most stunning blonde supermodel of the eighties.

I haven't crossed paths with Kim Alexis since then, but maybe I will again, once this damn pandemic is over and I can join my model friends for another get-together.  But for now, I can only offer this lovely and incredible woman from afar (she lives in Arizona) my best wishes for this day.  Happy birthday, Kim, and many more. :-)

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P.S.  My sister owned a copy of Kim Alexis's workout videocassette, which only goes to show that my sister wanted to be like Kim Alexis as much as I wanted to be with Kim Alexis.  So I guess the Maginnis siblings were typical of the times. :-) (I actually found that video in the house; I still hope to transfer it to videodisc and send it to Kim Alexis, whom I'm friends with on Facebook.)