All of the above named middle-aged female celebrities have spoken out against how their industry pressure —along with the culture—women to resort to cosmetic surgery to continue appearing marketably youthful. Jane Fonda, who is pictured above, once made similar statements and then had herself surgically transformed into a walking, talking, Madam Tussaud’s exhibit. She is in her mid-eighties, and that’s what is regarded as good cosmetic surgery.
Turlington, the supermodel who is now 54, disagrees.“Women who have stayed away from augmentation of themselves — those are the women I really admire,” she told Marie Claire.” I love seeing a real face. A face of someone who’s lived life. They have the kind of faces I like to see, and we don’t get to see as many of those in the world anymore….I will be one of those faces. I am one of those faces.” She added, “I don’t think it looks good. Maybe I would think differently if I thought it looked good, and it didn’t hurt and it didn’t send bad messages to young people. But I’ve never seen someone who I’ve been like, ‘Oh, that’s a good idea.’ It looks freaky to me.”
Kate Winslet, 47, told the media that plastic surgery “goes against my morals, the way that my parents brought me up and what I consider to be natural beauty. I’ll never give in. I am an actress, I don’t want to freeze the expression of my face.” Roberts, 55 now, has notably appeared in recent on-screen roles with barely any make-up, never mind botox. She said told Elle magazine,
“It’s unfortunate that we live in such a panicked, dysmorphic society where women don’t even give themselves a chance to see what they’ll look like as older persons. I want to have some idea of what I’ll look like before I start cleaning the slates. I want my kids to know when I’m pissed, when I’m happy and when I’m confounded. Your face tells a story … and it shouldn’t be a story about your drive to the doctor’s office.”
Meryl Streep, 74, agrees. “It’s not a good thing….When I see it in people I meet, it’s like an interruption in communication with them,” she told Vanity Fair in 2009. “It’s like a flag in front of the view, and that, for an actor, is like wearing a veil…I just don’t get it. You have to embrace getting older,” she told an interviewer.
I was drawn to this topic after a particularly harrowing week of streaming in which a whole virtual train of once lovely actresses paraded before our eyes looking frighteningly unnatural, trying to perform with paralyzed and pumped-up faces. In addition to Fonda, the horrors included Faye Dunnaway (a particularly sad case), Courtney Cox, Jennifer Jason Leigh and others.
The aging actresses who buck the trend are doubly heroic. They have the courage to accept the march of time across their faces, and their stand may give younger actresses courage to do the same.
Ethics Alarms 
This is so very sad.
The first time it really startled me – That I was taken aback – Was with Kim Novak.
Dear God. She can’t be “Picnic” beautiful forever.
So – Natural aging vs. being disfigured?
However, I wonder how much was unknown at the time, regarding the result of early cosmetic surgery….
Not that it works today either, but..
Please add Jamie Leigh Curtis to your list. “As the 64-year-old actress reminisces about all she has learned, she says, ‘That’s the beautiful gift of aging: The things that are unimportant slip away. That is the essence of the truth that sets you free to manifest your destiny. Carpe diem — seize the day. And I am seizing the day daily because I have no fucking time to waste.'” (Personal note: very early in each of our careers I had the chance to work with Jamie. I remember talking with her off-set about the low-budget horror movie she’d signed onto named “Halloween”. She was a class act then and from all I’ve read she remains a class act today.) https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/jamie-lee-curtis-aging-hollywood-1235312402/
Cool. I actually though about JLC while I was writing the post, but I was in a rush and didn’t have a quote handy. I remember she did a series showing how an actress uses make-up, in which he let it all hang out. She’s quite an anomaly in Hollywood, but then she would have to be to be married to Christopher Guest.
1 Samuel 16:7
But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.
These ladies are true heroes indeed.
On the other hand, there’s a reason Kelly McGillis was not in the sequel to Top Gun. For whatever reason, Tom Cruise has managed to keep his looks, or most of them. By her own admission she is now old and fat, and not believable as a love interest.
I do believe all these actresses are being somewhat brave by not continuing to use artificial means to try to make themselves look younger than they are, but, most of them have one thing going for them that most people don’t. They are rich, in the case of Julia Roberts very rich, and they really don’t have to worry. They can afford to step aside and let the next generation of young hotties have at it.
Of course, it would help if the audiences didn’t have unrealistic expectations, but that’s probably at least partially Hollywood’s fault, for constantly selling unrealistic standards.
It’s a good point, Steve-O, and one that I started thinking about after I posted the story. Stars like Streep and Roberts are not only rich, they are big enough names that they know they will get hired even as the wrinkles multiply. Lesser actresses—I’d put Courtney Cox in that category—face career extinction in middle age. They are the real courageous ones if they eschew the scalpel. McGillis is an extreme case. She was a lot older than she looked when she became a star in “Top Gun,” “Witness,” and “The Accused.” She also is openly gay, and preferred the stage, where age is much less of an issue for actresses, to the screen. She also didn’t age very well at all. A contrast would be Rene Russo, who also didn’t become a star until her mid-thirties, did submit to cosmetic surgery to keep her years as a love-interest artificially long, and, sadly, didn’t come out of it too well. Sigourney Weaver, on the other hand, has just let the years pile up, looks great, and moved to villainess and character roles seamlessly.
The Brits just don’t have the same cultural attitude: their aging actresses look their age: Judy Dench, Helen Mirren, Maggie Smith…
I’d say Maggie Smith is an actress. Most of the others are movie stars and celebrities. And British trained stage actresses are in a class by themselves. They’re pros. So many stars these days are acting dilettantes.
I had a comment about the difference between the US and the UK almost written before I saw this comment, so I’m adding little.
I thought of all three examples of English actresses you mentioned, especially Maggie Smith. I think I mentioned here that I saw her as Desdemona opposite Laurence Olivier’s Othello a few weeks ago: the perfect ingenue. But if there’s a more lived-in face than hers today, I haven’t seen it. I’d add a few more names, too, just off the top of my head: Diana Rigg, Joanna Lumley, and Celia Imbrie all look(ed) their age.
Part of the reason, of course, is that there are actually good roles in Britain, on both stage and screen, for talented actresses who don’t happen to be young and beautiful anymore. Another reason is that they seem to like good actors who happen to be beautiful, whereas Hollywood is more concerned with the latter over the former, with story-lines to match.
I also wonder if geography matters. As you say, the theatre is at least a little less concerned with youthfulness than are TV and especially film. In the US, you have to pretty much choose between NY and LA, whereas in Britain, everything is centered in London… and you can even do a run of a play in Stratford or Bristol or Birmingham and commute from London by train.
I saw Maggie Smith with Ralph Richardson in a West End sex farce in 1973. She was then young and radiant and also “regal” and “haughty” incarnate, all while being incredibly funny. Richardson played an elderly gentleman, so he just bobbled his head as if he had Parkinson’s the whole time he was on stage to great effect. Also saw Diana Rigg in the MacBeth at the Old Vic. As I recall it was fairly clumsily staged. All of the “ghostly” Banquos appeared on stage, one after the other, shoulder to shoulder in full military garb. They could barely fit. It struck me as being kind of ridiculous.
And that is one reason I enjoy British t.elevision. Their leading characters are real with all their physical flaws unmasked. Additionally, they have very diverse casts without over kill although homosexuality is portrayed a little more than I think is necessary in programs. But, that’s just me and studios have to do what they think is necessary to gain viewers.
Mrs. OB and I have been enjoying watching Perry Masons. The character actors working at that time were countless. They’ll play three or four different characters in various episodes. Casting must have been easy with all those people to call upon.
The shows are also interesting in terms of how Perry Masons were the template for the original Law and Orders. Paul and Perry do all the sleuthing, but they’re otherwise identical. And Law and Orders pay homage to the Perry Masons with details in their courtrooms and even names of characters. There’s an assistant DA in a Perry Mason who’s name is Cutter. Hilarious.
British television, Canadian television, Australian television, I would rather watch just about any other country’s tv shows over US television these days. American television shows have morphed into the equivalent of PSAs they are so oppressively moralizing. British television shows are quite refreshing in comparison.
It’s OK, they can use AI to alter their appearance so they won’t need surgery any more.
A minor point: let’s not forget the heroines listed above all won the gene pool lottery. They were gorgeous young women. Beautiful women can more often than not age gracefully.