Cut it out, Christie. Knock it off, Raquel.
Just in case you avoided the lines at the checkout counter a couple of weeks ago, People magazine was featuring former supermodel and Billy Joel muse Christie Brinkley, encased in a form-hugging swimsuit and splayed across its cover, along with the headline: “Christie at 60!”
Sixty indeed — or as Brinkley herself burbled: “I’m actually excited about turning 60.” You bet.
Inside, the magazine attributed Brinkley’s youthful appearance to a regimen of diet and exercise. No going under the plastic surgeon’s knife for her, Brinkley swore, though she did admit to regular visits to her dermatologist. Botox, fillers and thread lifts were neither acknowledged nor denied.
Now here is a woman who’s had three kids, divorced four men, and smiled for decades under the white-hot lights at God knows how many photo shoots. And yet she looks half her age. Airbrushing? Perhaps. But she also looks great, I am told, on the non-forgiving HDTV screen.
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Then there’s Raquel Welch at some pre-Emmy bash last fall, still stunning at 73 in a leopard-print dress that outlines every carefully coached curve. Above the curves, her smile beams forth, framed by a face that looks, at most, about 40.
Good Gawd, here is a woman whose “kids” are in their 50s. You have to wonder who looks older, Raquel or her 51-year-old daughter, Tahnee Welch. Ah, well, if the younger Welch needs a little, um, touch-up, her mother should be able to point her in the right direction.
Then again, Welch, also a four-time divorcée, swears she, too, has forgone plastic surgery — something numerous plastic surgeons have cast doubts upon, citing her filled-in cheeks and nipped-upon nose.
Instead, Welch credits her age-defying looks to a gluten-free, low-carb diet and daily two-hour workouts.
All cattiness aside, I say good for Brinkley and Welch and their emphasis on good health habits. And if, in some teensy-weensy moment of weakness, they did succumb to the knife, I also give them kudos for courage.
Years ago I churned out a series on plastic surgery, which necessitated me being in the operating room for the whole gruesome procedure. This is no little nip and tuck. Instead, think cutting the skin along the hairline, stretching it back behind the ears, reattaching it to the scalp and snipping off the excess.
No, thanks. I’ll live with the wrinkles. So will, apparently, actress Helen Mirren, who at five years younger than Welch looks every bit of her 68 years. Here, after all, is a woman who played not one but two queens of England — roles that require a certain, shall we say, gravitas.
So keep it up, Helen, or rather, er, let it slide. You, after all, are the cover girl all the rest of us of a certain age can aspire to.
As for Hollywood’s leading men, there’s definitely a double standard. When George Clooney turns 60 seven years hence, do you think People magazine will stick him on its cover in a Speedo while he extols the wonders of yoga and a gluten-free diet?
Doubt it, though one can never discount the lure of the knife, even upon Clooney’s gender. Witness Michael Douglas’ and Robert Redford’s less-than-optimal transformations.
If only they’d consulted Christie and Raquel’s nonexistent plastic surgeons.