Cool! James Dean had it, not that I remember him from his brief heyday, but his legacy of pictures/posters coolness exudes from every pore, the white t shirt and the ability to have a fag dangling nonchalantly from the mouth, the derision for cigarettes was light years away, smoke away like a chimney and they did, the tagline was "cool as a mountain stream". He only made 3 movies so maybe it was the tragedy of dying young whilst still in the first flush of youth that kept that image alive. Other super cool men from a slightly later era would be Alain Delon and Steve McQueen and I think I'd also like to nominate Thierry Goddard "Gilou" in Spiral, he kind of looked like he needed a damn good wash, but part of his Gallic anti hero charm. Dying young and a Lord Byron legacy of bad, mad and dangerous to know, keeps the images of Kurt Cobain, Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix and Dylan Thomas even, right up there on the top shelf of coolness. And Che Guevara who adorned thousands of walls mainly because of his ability to wear a beret with panache, unlike hapless Michael Crawford in "Some Mothers Do Have 'Em" who didn't! Some can be cool in their lifetime, David Bowie, innovator extraordinaire and master of reinvention. The much mentioned Brian Ferry, wasn't it amazing how Jerry Hall worked her way downwards from super cool Brian via not so cool Mick, Keith always had the edge on him, to ending up with, well almost, it was the fags that done for her with Rupert allegedly! to the antithesis of anything but cool, the sublime to the ridiculous six degrees of separation or less maybe. Retrospectively Elvis is now cool, but somehow he wasn't then, I think maybe Austin Butler's cinematic performance helped that along. Having said that it would never work for Cliff Richard I'm afraid to say! should there be a biopic made of his life. Mystique in the answer it was easy to be James Dean without any social media, before we all knew what they're inclined to say and think a positive myriad of "my truth" and at times a load of woo woo and way too much information that just makes me grit my teeth and think "go away Lily Allen" I don't want to hear anymore about your non monogamous marriage that's gone tits up what do you expect it was even in the ST the other day! is there no escape from the trials and tribulations of the over exposed these days?
Here's "cool" from Anthony Hopkins who when asked to comment about something political he said something along the lines of "don't ask me, I'm an actor, that's what I do I act"