The Damned Don’t Cry

In a 1950s movie in which Joan Crawford plays a woman “as tough as a 75¢ steak”, the actress was forty-five years old.  She had been considered box-office gold in 1932, and then box-office poison by the end of the ’30s.  In fact, in 1944, at the age of thirty-nine, when Crawford wanted to play the title role of Mildred Pierce, she was thought to be too old to play the mother of a seventeen year old.  You do the math; the child would have been born when she was twenty-two!

Joan Crawford in Mildred Pierce.  Here at 39, the actress was thought to be too old to play the mother of a 17 year old.  Grrrrrrr.  This “cougar” prevailed and went on to win an Academy Award!

  

Thankfully, she eventually got the part . . . and went on to win an Academy Award.  Later, between 1944 and 1952, when Crawford was in her 40s, she was a top, box-office star.  She made almost a dozen films in those years, most of them blockbusters.

  

Crawford would throw her shoulder pads back and raise a disgusted eyebrow at the Hollywood of today.  A woman over forty in Hollywood has a better chance of being hit by a meteorite than headlining a movie.  A woman over fifty in Hollywood can be in a movie . . . if she plays the sexless grandma, or the bitter old crone.

  

Quick:  Name three Hollywood actresses over fifty?  Sure — Meryl Streep.  But, who else?  If you could name three over fifty — and that’s a big if — name three over sixty.  And, no, Meryl can’t be in both categories.

  

We'll be over here spackling the side of the house while you do that.

  

But in the 1940s and 1950s, there were plenty of older women headlining movies:  Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, Katharine Hepburn, Ginger Rogers, Greer Garson, Olivia De Haviland, Joan Fontaine, Ingrid Bergman, to name just a few.

  

Sure, Bette Davis and Joan Crawford played crazy sisters serving each other rat (that’s the bigger brother of glis glis) in Whatever happened to Baby Jane, but you put two egomaniacal menopausal A list actresses in a movie together and see what happens.

  

It’s not as if Hollywood is anti-aging.  On the contrary, look at Sean Connery.  He is well into his Medicare years and still playing the lothario on screen with women old enough to be his grandchildren.

  

Woody Allen would rather eat raw schmaltz than be cast opposite a woman within two decades of his age.

  

Or what about the grizzled but still-gorgeous Clint Eastwood?

 

 

Sean Connery, left, and Clint Eastwood, right.  Both are 80 years old and still going strong.  Of course, nearly every man looks great in a tuxedo!

  

To add insult to injury, not only is there a double standard as to aging, there’s the bizarre custom of casting women as mothers to male actors that are the same age as they are.  Just recently Hope Davis was justifiably upset when she was asked to play Johnny Depp’s mother in an upcoming film.  After all, Hope is just one year older than Johnny!  This is common in Hollywood where a 30+ woman can age seven years to every man year — just like dogs and humans.²⁴  So, basically, if you’re 40 - 50+ in Hollywood, and you’ve managed to dodge that meteorite, you may get a chance to play the mother of the guy who is the exact same age as you!

  

  

Actress	Role	Actress Age	Actor Age	Lunacy Factor
Angelina Jolie	Mother to Colin Firth in Alexander	28	27	Bat Shit Crazy
Glenn Close	Mother to Mel Gibson in Hamlet	43	34	Bag of Rocks Crazy
Taraji P Henson	Mother to Brad Pitt in Benjamin Buttons	38	46	Fifth of Jack Crazy
Sally Field	Mother to Tom Hanks in Forest Gump	48	38	Valium Popping Crazy
Lea Thompson	Mother to Michael J Fox in Back to the Future	24	24	Take to your bed for a week Crazy

 

  

  

  

  

 

Now, we're not trying to bash Hollywood.  In fact, while the big screen has been kryptonite for older actresses, the small screen has welcomed them with open arms.  Holly Hunter, Kyra Sedgwick, Vanessa Williams, Glenn Close and, most recently, Courtney Cox have all found successful runs on series television in their 40+ years.  It seems that television may be the Valhalla for older actresses — except for one little thing.  Many of the older actresses on television look as if they’re still in their twenties.

  

Compare, if you will, the new show Men of a Certain Age with Cougar Town.

  

Both shows deal with people in their forties.  Both shows talk about the highs and lows of getting older.  But, where Courtney Cox is a buff, fat-free, size 0 forty year old divorcée, Andre Braugher is a paunchy, bald, forty-eight year old happily married man.

  

Courtney = Buff.  Andre = Paunchy.  That’s the equation.

  

Holly Hunter still looks like a teenager, and Vanessa Williams — while stunning and curvaceous — hasn’t had a smile reach her Botox-enhanced eyes during the entire season of Ugly Betty.

  

Andre Braugher gets to eat cheeseburgers on his show.  Courtney Cox gets to eat . . . well, nothing.²⁵

 

Courtney Cox, left, in Cougar Town, looking like a teenager; at right, Andrew Braugher (far right), from Men of a Certain Age, noshing on a hamburger.

  

You might be thinking, “yeah yeah, but what does all this have to do with sex?”

  

Here’s the deal:  The fewer older women we see in the movies and on TV, the more women over forty we see with frozen faces and teenage bodies, the more we believe that older women who look their age are not sexy.

  

When normal-looking older actresses aren’t thought of as sexy, the trickle-down is that normal-looking older women aren’t thought of as sexy.  Also, the more we’re bombarded by images of women whose legal age is fifty but who have as many wrinkles as my dining room table, the more we make women who do look their age feel like crap — no matter how self-assured they are.

  

Just as we saw with advertising, above, Hollywood sells images.  And, when those images make getting older look unappealing, it’s only a slip and a fall to women hanging up their lingerie after 50, and taking up . . . well, whatever it is people take up when they give up trying to have a little nookie.

  

   

From left to right:  [Top Row] Susan Sarandon (64), Sophia Loren (76), Meryl Streep (61),
and [Bottom Row] Julie Christie (69) -- still the fodder of male (and female) fantasies!

  

We don’t know about you, but we think older women are hot as hell.  I’ve heard from numerous GrammaSutrians that women like Susan Sarandon, Glenn Close, Halle Berry, Meryl Streep, Sophia Loren, Julie Christie, and many others are in heavy fantasy rotation in test bedrooms all over America.

  

We think teenage boys and even not-so-teenage boys should have their bouncy, bubbly, buxom babes in the woods.  [After all, 61% of 18 - 24 year olds to to the movies at least once a month, versus only 24% of adults age 55 - 64.]  We just want to see some sassy, sultry, scintillating, sexy seniors up there too — and by seniors, we mean, like the AARP, everyone over fifty . . . or forty, if you live in the Hollywood hills.

Holly-would, indeed!

  

  

 

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