PLATELL’S PEOPLE: If THIS is what 81 looks like, then count me in!
PLATELL’S PEOPLE: If THIS is what 81 looks like, then count me in!
Jane Fonda is celebrating her age — 81 — in the way only she knows how. By looking utterly glamorous and totally magnificent
On the very day a survey revealed more than a quarter of women over 50 claim to feel invisible and are subject to daily ageism, up popped octogenarian Jane Fonda on the cover of British Vogue.
The actress is celebrating her age — 81 — in the way only she knows how. By looking utterly glamorous and totally magnificent.
In an accompanying interview, she reminds us that older women are the fastest-growing yet least-represented demographic in the world.
‘It’s time to recognise our value,’ she says. ‘I’m fond of age. I’m glad I lived this long.’
I never thought I’d find myself in the same camp as the woman once known as Hanoi Jane for her anti-Vietnam War antics.
Her Left-wing politics could not be further from mine, while her enthusiasm for plastic surgery I find faintly abhorrent.
But on this subject I couldn’t agree with her more.
What a dazzling champion for older women she is — contemptuously staring age in the face in her ninth decade. It is her irrepressible defiance that’s won me over — ironically the very qualities she showed throughout her years as a political activist.
Yes, she’s a rich Hollywood star, one of the Fonda dynasty who’s always had money to help keep her looking beautiful. Yet isn’t there something marvellous about the way this former sex-bomb — so sensuous in Barbarella — simply refuses to cave in to the ravages of time. As a feminist, she has of course championed the MeToo brigade. But she’s done so by taking on, in feisty style, the sleaze merchants of Tinseltown, while never playing the victim herself.
She’s never moaned about her tragic upbringing: a cold and distant father who only came alive in his movie roles, and a mother in and out of mental institutions before committing suicide when Jane was 12.
When her three marriages all ended in divorce, she joked she had a boob job with each decree nisi to make her feel better about herself — before admitting it didn’t help one jot. It was an admission that strangely made us warm to her.
The truth is that it’s not just money and surgery that have kept her looking so good. She’s also worked hard at it, exercised ruthless self-discipline and kept herself super-fit — let’s not forget all those Eighties work-out videos — and maintained her self-respect.
Jane Fonda’s a tonic for all older women who thought they were over the hill. As she says: ‘It’s never too late — never too late to start over, never too late to be happy.’
Wearing his trademark ‘lucky’ waistcoat, England manager Gareth Southgate picked up his OBE at Buckingham Palace for leading his team to a semi-final defeat. We last won the World Cup in 1966. Manager Alf Ramsey was rightly knighted in 1967. So, was Gareth’s OBE for sartorial services to the beautiful game?
4X4 Ulrika’s still better than Mick
Ulrika Jonsson posted a mournful picture of herself as her third marriage ended. She said: ‘OK, I’m biologically a 4×4’ (a reference to those, including me, who are uncomfortable with her having four kids by four dads). ‘Plenty of men father children and then disappear and they’re treated like lovable old goats. Women like me whose romantic dreams have fallen apart but who work hard to provide loving homes for their families are vilified,’ she added.
Well said. After all, who would a child rather have, a full-time mum like Ulrika or a part-time dad like Mick Jagger?
Hilarious that supremely athletic television star and ‘vegan prince’ Tim Shieff, who gathered millions of social media followers with posts about ‘plant-based power’ and the evils of eating animals, has admitted being a vegan made him physically ill. He’s now eating meat and his ‘fans’ are demanding he kill himself — odd, given vegans’ commitment to not killing animals.
Westminster notice board
+ Trying to sex up his image ahead of the leadership battle, Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt poses with Amal Clooney as they bid to fight for press freedom at the G7 summit. Amal looks glorious. Jeremy resembles the Madame Tussauds waxwork he dreams of being honoured with — if he becomes Prime Minister.
+ The Guardian front page with Jeremy Corbyn giving the thumbs up at Brexit talks with Theresa May should be pinned on our fridges — as a reminder of what the future may hold if MPs continue to refuse to back Mrs May’s deal.
+ Accusing the PM of betraying Brexit, Boris Johnson declared: ‘I can, under no circumstances, vote for a deal involving a customs union.’ Fine words, yet we should remember he’s been as faithful to his political principles as he has been to his two former wives.
Trying to sex up his image ahead of the leadership battle, Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt poses with Amal Clooney as they bid to fight for press freedom at the G7 summit
Lori Lightfoot, 56, won a landslide victory to become mayor of Chicago
Lori Lightfoot, 56, won a landslide victory to become mayor of Chicago, vowing to end the city’s gun violence and corruption and give hope to kids like her, the daughter of a janitor.
She’s never held elected office before but rose to become the head of Chicago’s police board.
She also happens to be black and a lesbian, and sealed her triumph by kissing wife Amy.
It’s images like these and that of our own Cressida Dick, the first female head of the Met who also happens to be gay, that truly advance the LGBT cause — not militant hetero-bashing.
Jeff’s ex-wife is standing tall
The picture of Jeff and MacKenzie Bezos at last year’s Oscars has the Amazon founder resembling a titchy circus penguin in his black tie, while his then wife, looking slender and gorgeous in slinky red, is on a level with his billiard-ball head.
Now they’re divorced — and with £27 billion she’s suddenly the third-richest woman in the world.
But best of all, she can start wearing real heels again!
The picture of Jeff and MacKenzie Bezos at last year’s Oscars has the Amazon founder resembling a titchy circus penguin in his black tie, while his then wife, looking slender and gorgeous in slinky red, is on a level with his billiard-ball head
Fashion website Simply Be has placed advertisements in Glamour magazine that celebrate larger ladies with the slogan: ‘Our bodies are nobody’s business but ours’. Are they serious? They’re selling clothes up to a size 32 — twice the nation’s average.
With obesity now costing the NHS £6.1 billion a year, surely the size of people’s bodies is every taxpayer’s business.
A Japanese survey concludes that while cats probably do recognise their names when called, they will often choose to ignore you, unless they want to be fed.
Unlike dogs, of course, which respond to every human command. What tosh — ‘catism’ at its worst. My cat Teddy responds every time I call him and he’s not that interested in food.
Time for bed, time to get up, time to play, time to watch Spurs on TV — one call and he’s by my side for all of them.
A lawyer who was horribly abusive to staff on a business-class flight and drank three bottles of wine with breakfast has been jailed for six months. Crikey! That doesn’t bode well for passengers on budget airlines this summer. Some drink that much before they even get on.
Britain’s Got Talent is back tonight with trailers showing returning and tearful Ant McPartlin hugging a five-year-old contestant who ‘spontaneously’ weeps in his arms, saying: ‘I’ve missed you.’
That’s something McPartlin might have wished he’d been sober enough to say to the nine-year-old boy who was a passenger in one of two cars he crashed into while driving drunk.
Can there be a more powerful argument for reform of the House of Lords than 95 Lib Dem peers who are part of a bid to scupper the PM’s deal, while the party has just 11 elected MPs?
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