Because you can't have depths without surfaces.
Linda Grant, thinking about clothes, books and other matters.
Pure Collection Ltd.
Net-a-porter UK

Monday 24 December 2007

Book of the Week


Today's Book of the Week is all about the Thoughtful Dresser's muse, Helen Mirren

When she stepped up to get that Oscar last year, was there a woman over the age of 50 whose heart did not sing? She is said to have had no nipping or tucking. A make-up artist I met who has worked with her confirms this. Why does she look so fantastic then? Good bones and love of life. There was a series in the Sunday Times magazine which ran for years in which celebrities were asked to describe their normal day from waking up in the morning to going to be at night. In the entire history of the series Helen Mirren was the only person who said that the first thing she did every morning was have sex. She didn't even meet her husband Taylor Hackford until her late thirties, had to wait for him to have a very painful divorce, had to move to LA which she hated. But on she goes, indefatigable. Age has not withered her. And won't. (But she does say she's on a permanent diet.)



4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I really admire her as well, however – and I know I'll get SO slammed for saying this - she has no children. After I became a mother even the simplest aspects of personal maintenance and beauty become much much more difficult. First there is the challenge of seeing how much of your former self you can get back post pregnancy (it does change you forever physically in my opinion) and then there are the demands of parenting.

Anonymous said...

There are those people who have the luck of good genes...and then there are the rest of us. I am going to be 56 and I already look older than Helen Mirren(sex every morning or not) -- my Mum's face sagged in her 50s - my sister and I both are starting to get jowly. Every women in my Dad's family started losing their hair when they got towards menopause and, sigh, both of us have gotten thin in the front also.
Helen Mirren looks great - and I'll bet her mother and aunties looked great at her age also.
Genes - you can't beat them; you can only work with them.

Elizabeth said...

I really like her work.

I also appreciate that she keeps herself healthy and in good shape. She's a reasonable image of what being a woman is. There are other actresses her age who are not au naturel, and they seem to radiate la plastique.

Susan B said...

What phyllis and toby said. Plus, the "sex in the morning" thing gets a bit dicey when there are kids in the house.

Still, can't fault HM for looking great and escewing the plastic surgery.