It’s hard getting old in America. We’re youth obsessed, without regard for the wisdom that comes with age. That’s not exactly headline news, except that in Hollywood these days you must never be seen to age, full stop. Especially if you’re a woman.
I speak from experience. I’ve been a Tinseltown denizen since my university days, working as a creative executive, a term that only with age strikes me as slightly ridiculous.
And I got married at 40. Whew! No woman feels older than a 40-year-old singleton.
I remember getting the call from a New York Times reporter who was writing the wedding announcement. This was no small thrill. I’d been following the so-called “women’s sports page” for a decade or so. Finally, my time had come.
Or had it? When he insisted I disclose my age for the piece, I couldn’t believe it.
We are the paper of record, he explained.
I am a woman in Hollywood, I explained.
It wasn’t an ego thing – it would simply be in my very worst interests to proffer the F-word – forty – widely considered to be Hollywood Woman’s expiry date.
He said he understood, but he had to clear it with his editor. I guess it worked because the announcement ran without my age.
I had broken the age ceiling… But was it really a breakthrough? Or was I just furthering the Hollywood myth of perpetual youth?
These days, even the best Hollywood PR cannot spin the raw data on age-exposing websites (my go-to being PeopleFinders.com). Nor can you rely on plastic surgery without the world knowing – just google Ivanka’s infamous before-and-after images.
And it’s not just the women. Last autumn I went to a concert at The Hollywood Bowl during which the headline singer projected videos from his childhood. I am here to tell you that John Legend (magnificent, btw) has had a nose job.
I am also here to tell you that a woman would never have projected such images to the world. They’d not only age and embarrass her, she’d be vilified.
A friend from Santa Monica celebrated her divorce by having her vagina rejuvenated
Poor us. A dollop of Nivea cream and a pair of Jackie O shades used to be enough. But now it’s all lasers, zappers, fat transfers, tucks, nips, hacks, threads and lifts, via furtive trips to the outpatient surgical centre on Rodeo Drive, followed by the posh after-care boutique hotel a couple blocks south on Olympic.
That’s where a friend from Santa Monica celebrated her divorce by having her vagina rejuvenated. (What is that anyway? Do your labia go on a booze cruise?) She has had a younger man ever since. We call him 28. Because he is. She calls him that, too. I wonder if he calls her 56. I guess not.
She continues to maintain her appearance, and the myth of perpetual youth, with regular “procedures” (once you’ve had one, you stop calling them “surgeries”) lest an eyelid or a nipple dare to droop. It’s no different to seeing the dental hygienist, she says.
Will I ever have the guts to tell her that what’s ageing her is the Farrah Fawcett hair she’s worn since college? Probably not. No one wants to hear that they look old.
There is only one thing about ageing that even the most successful high-flier cannot change. It’s breakfast in America, friends: I’m talking eggs. We are born with all we’ll ever have, and they age as we age, no matter what we do.
Yet in Hollywood, women still do their damnedest to defy this reproductive destiny.
I should know. No birth announcement ever followed that marriage announcement. I was 41. Yeah, old. So I bought an egg from a younger woman. Eight, actually. That none of them took is another matter. (I wish I’d given that arrogant fertility doctor a piece of my mind for all the age-shaming he gave me when it didn’t work.)
Here’s the truth. Hollywood women having their “miracle” twins at, oh, 54? It’s a lie. They actually use a younger women’s ova. These older moms – it’s called a geriatric pregnancy if it happens after 35 – might admit to using a surrogate carrier, which makes them seem honest and open, if stratospherically privileged. But they neglect to mention the surrogate egg. Because women in Hollywood must appear forever young, forever fecund.
There’s no menopause in LA, by the way. Just look at J-Lo – what, 54? With that J-Glow and a bod the envy of all Malibu, she defies us mere mortals. A beauty journalist friend told me The Glow is the result of three major and many lesser procedures, not to mention what amounts to a full-time job maintaining a body like hers. True or not, that’s one tall order, a Trenta if you’re a Starbucks regular like J-Lo herself. She looks so chic striding into the gym with said Trenta in hand. And if she can look that good at her age? Well then, we should too. Sigh.
It should be said that even Hollywood made a bit of an effort to embrace age during the pandemic, when downtowny women (none famous) let themselves go grey. I considered it too. The time and expense of keeping grey at bay is the soft tyranny of beauty. It’s something you just do – like keeping up with a sibling you never truly liked – just because you’re so used to doing it.
Actually, it’s been easier to ditch my asshole brother than my master colourist. I just can’t quit her. It is also not lost on me that my husband prefers I stay brunette – even though he salt-and-peppered years ago, and these days is all salt.
Lockdown aside, going grey in Hollywood means crossing the Age Rubicon, and I fear the consequences. I do my best to look my best, Hollywood Woman that I am, with a home gym and friends who bring back pharmaceutical-grade Retin-A from Mexico.
Then again, who am I kidding? I think about the time I took our then-young nephews to the horror that is Circus Circus, the family-friendly arcade hotel in pre-Sphere Vegas. Rides and clowns. Nobody really likes clowns.
I thought I’d found my salvation when I came across an age-teller sitting right by the palm-reader. I’d never heard of such a thing. For 20 bucks, he’d guess my age; if he got it wrong, I’d score $100. Easy!
It took him two seconds to spit out 36.
I was. I was 36! I asked him how he knew. Hands, he said. They’re a dead giveaway.
In that moment, I learned that we all have a dead giveaway, be it our hands, our hair or PeopleFinders. Age is a fact of life no matter who you are or where you live.
It’s also a fact that those of us who get to grow old are the lucky ones, so we might as well embrace it. Well, most of it. I’m 63, and I’m seeing my colourist tomorrow.
Joan Harrison is a veteran media executive and longtime Angelena
