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Female, forty and furious
smh.com.au ^

Posted on 01/18/2004 5:53:14 PM PST by Sub-Driver

Female, forty and furious January 19, 2004 - 11:24AM

On the attack ... Sharon Stone, Holly Hunter and Meg Ryan.

Hollywood's most formidable female stars have united to condemn "sexist" film moguls for failing to find roles for women over 40.

Meg Ryan, Holly Hunter, Charlotte Rampling, Sharon Stone and Whoopi Goldberg are among a group of 30 actresses who have taken part in a documentary by Rosanna Arquette to be screened in Britain this summer.

The documentary is seen as a thinly veiled attack on moguls such as Harvey Weinstein - the portly co-owner of Miramax - who control the film industry and the careers of Hollywood actresses.

Arquette, 44, who rose to fame when she starred opposite Madonna in the 1985 film Desperately Seeking Susan, said that her interest in what happened to 40-year-old women in Hollywood was sparked by the experience of

Debra Winger, the star of Terms of Endearment, who announced that she was quitting in 1996 aged 40. "Ageing," Arquette said this week, "equals career death."

In the documentary, called Searching For Debra Winger, Winger, who has been nominated for three Oscars, tells how she decided to quit and reveals that while she was working on An Officer And a Gentlemen the notorious producer Don Simpson told her that she needed diet pills.

Julianna Margulies, 37, who starred in ER opposite George Clooney, speaks frankly about the rigours of the casting couch. "You ask anyone that has been in those [audition] meetings. They say, 'Yeah that actress is great but would you f*** her?' And they ask all the men in the room."

The documentary will provoke heated debate in Hollywood, which has long been accused of discriminating against women for their age and beauty. Arquette told London's Sunday Telegraph that she had already received criticism from film bosses. "There are a lot of misogynistic men who are very angry about it," she said. "They've told me, 'It's just a bunch of chicks sitting around bitching about us'."

In the film, Daryl Hannah, 43, says that the root of the problem lies "with the guys who run the studios. They choose projects that they identify with and they say, 'I'd like to be that man having an affair with a chick of 18'."

Samantha Mathis, 33, agrees. "It's the revenge of the nerds syndrome, all these guys couldn't get a girlfriend in high school. They are smart but they have no social skills; suddenly they are running studios in a position of power."

Arquette's subjects are candid and often angry about the way the industry has spat them out once they have aged. Martha Plimpton, 33, says: "For women it's either, she's a starlet or she's an old hag." Whoopi Goldberg adds that film producers "want you to think that you're done" once actresses had turned 40.

Arquette, who is currently filming another documentary about musicians, continues to act and has recently been filming two comedies with the British actresses Imogen Stubbs and Jennifer Saunders.

She says that certain elements of Hollywood have always annoyed her. "I find it offensive that in Hollywood a 68-year-old movie star is paired with a 30-year-old, or someone even younger. You think, 'Come on, who are you kidding'. It is offensive."

Other interviewees said that they had financial problems when the parts dried up. Theresa Russell, 46, says: "It was really hard, I didn't get an audition for years and I started running out of money. I thought, what else can I do? I resent being in this situation. They want to put you out to pasture."

In any other profession, she says, "your work would get better the older you got". Holly Hunter, 45, who won an Oscar for The Piano, believes actresses are at their peak at 40. "The deal is that actresses who are good have probably never been better once they hit 40. Once I hit 40 I had charms that I didn't have when I was 30 and I want to use them."

Teri Garr, 53, who has appeared in more than 50 films, including Tootsie, insists that films should reflect the existence of older women in real life. "There are people who are my age and older who still exist in the world, so there should be writers who write stories that include them. There should be parts for us, even if they are smaller."

She adds: "I remember when I was young the great actresses telling me, 'Wait till they tell you your face has been ravaged by time'."

Diane Lane, 39, dislikes the vocabulary used to describe older women's looks. "If you want to live you must age. Beauty has to be a certain way [in Hollywood]." If you age, she says, "it is described as 'damaged beauty' or 'sad beauty' or 'aged beauty'." She adds: "Character actresses will always work freely because they are not coming from the immaculate time when one looked perfect." Adrienne Shelley, 38, the star of The Unbelievable Truth, tells of how much sex plays a part of being a Hollywood actress. She says: "I get a call in my car on the way to an audition from the agent. He said, 'What is really important is that they think you are f***able'.

"The man walks in and looks right at my tits and I saw in his face that there was no way I was going to get the part. And yet in the real world there is no way I would give this guy the time of day."

Lane urges women to make more of an issue of the problem. "When women don't want to talk about these issues it is so awful," she says. "Hiding away just perpetuates the problem.

"Women want to watch other women of their own age sometimes. All these young people are great but let them watch each other. We want to watch us."


TOPICS: Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: actress; aging; castingcouch; hollyweird; hollywood
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To: Oberon
Bingo.
361 posted on 01/19/2004 11:51:28 AM PST by wardaddy ("either the arabs are at your throat, or at your feet")
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To: RobRoy
Maybe these bitter old women shouldn't have aborted their children?? Maybe their clocks have shocked them into reality?? As if they didn't know the rules going in? These feminists flaunted their career before family lives and now we are supposed to feel sorry for them because it all proved empty.

Pray for W and The Women Fooled by Abortion

362 posted on 01/19/2004 11:58:24 AM PST by bray (The Wicked Witch of NY and Her 9 Flying Monkeys are In Flames!)
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To: BOOTSTICK
I saw plenty of twenty something babes at the home of sixty something business executives, doctors, lawyers

Thats because money and power are the most powerful aphrodesiacs. Look what it did for Theresa Hines.

363 posted on 01/19/2004 11:58:37 AM PST by metalurgist (Death to the democrats!)
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To: Sub-Driver
Teri Garr, 53, who has appeared in more than 50 films, including Tootsie...

There is some serious fudging of Her age going on here. Teri appeared in a episode of star trek in 1968, which according to My math would make her approx. 18 when she did the role. She clearly appears to be in her mid 20's in the episode. At least she tried this time to make it believable. At one time in her career she was quoting an age which would've made her 12 at the filming of that episode!. When called on the discrepancy, she denied having done an episode of star trek.

CC

364 posted on 01/19/2004 12:05:49 PM PST by Celtic Conservative
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To: RobRoy
Excellent points, all. And it sounds like Mrs. RobRoy is a lucky lady. Good luck to the both of you, and God Bless you both w/many years yet of good health and prosperity.

Regarding the aging of men and women: When men get older, they look like Sean Connery. When women get older, they look like Sean Connery.

That was funny! Although, lately, Sean looks like 10 miles of bad road.

365 posted on 01/19/2004 12:12:29 PM PST by AlbionGirl ("Ha cambiato occhi per la coda.")
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To: packrat35
The actors name was Robert Lansing and the name of the episode was Assignment: earth ,episode # 55 last episode of 1968 season.
366 posted on 01/19/2004 12:13:16 PM PST by Celtic Conservative
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To: packrat35
no it's not
367 posted on 01/19/2004 12:14:27 PM PST by Celtic Conservative
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To: reg45
sedagive!? SEDAGIVE!!!

CC

368 posted on 01/19/2004 12:17:27 PM PST by Celtic Conservative
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To: exit82
BS and the likes no it's the bottom line. They're afraid they'll lose money. On the other hand, SOMETHING'S GOTTA' GIVE is a great movie and it's about an older man who only dates young babes but falls in love with an older woman. It's not the older actresses, it's the scripts. And as long as people won't go see the movies unless they are babes to look at, the older actresses won't work.
369 posted on 01/19/2004 12:21:01 PM PST by Terry Mross
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To: MamaDearest
I can think of no sillier criteria for picking a spouse than "what she looks like."
370 posted on 01/19/2004 12:21:23 PM PST by Woahhs
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To: AlbionGirl
>>That was funny! Although, lately, Sean looks like 10 miles of bad road<<

Yeah, the joke was a lot funnier and a lot more relevant about ten years ago. Time is not very kind to anybody who tries to get by on their looks alone. Everyone needs an "alternate route."

I'll throw this out too. Most people who marry people old enough to be their parent are in for a rude awakening. The fact is that a healthy 55 year old can keep up fairly well with a typical 25 year old. Problem is, the 55 year old is headed for a "no matter what you do, you're gonna be spending a lot of time in a rocking chair" in the fairly near future. What, then, is this persons ~40 year old, healthy spouse gonna do?

It is a very slow health decline (slightly sloping plateau) from your mid-twenties on until you fall off a health "cliff" at some point. If you are on the front end of the plateau and you marry someone close to the back end, you are in for a very hard life when they "relatively soon" fall off the cliff. It will seem like you married your grandparent more than your parent.
371 posted on 01/19/2004 12:33:31 PM PST by RobRoy
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To: Sub-Driver
If these Ladys(?) weren't so self-indulgent with their money maybe, just maybe, they could start their own film companies and make teir ow movies. The way the Clint Eastwood and Mel Gibson have.
372 posted on 01/19/2004 12:35:53 PM PST by fella
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To: Woahhs
Prettiness in my way of thinking is internal as well as external. Some can be super attractive, but have hearts made in hell. Some can be downright ugly but be totally awesome human beings. It's the whole package that really matters. Greed, attitude, superiority complexes, dishonesty, selfishness, lack of charity, and ignorance tend to diminish beauty (in whatever form) a lot. These women would do well to do charitable works and gain recognition for good causes to keep them in the spotlight they seemingly crave (like Audrey Hepburn did).
373 posted on 01/19/2004 12:50:04 PM PST by MamaDearest (Make the CEO's who outsource move to their "favored" outsourcing destination)
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To: ThanhPhero
In a movie with some substance,plot, character development, etc, non fantastic story- then then age and looks matters insofar as they atre appropriate to the story and the characters. Movies like that are pretty much nonexistent these days. If the movie is basically fluff then there is no excuse for nonbeautiful nonyoung actresses because the picture is the whole value of the movie.

Then we should blame the lack of quality in movies overall on the movie studios.

P.S. I am a big Farscape fan and it has actresses over the age of 30 (maybe 40, this show loves taking risks) in the regular cast, and it works without a problem. I cannot wait to see the Farscape 4 part mini-series.

374 posted on 01/19/2004 12:59:11 PM PST by Paul C. Jesup
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To: Paul C. Jesup
I don't know about Farscape. It sounds like a TV show. I've not seen one of those in 14 years.
375 posted on 01/19/2004 1:09:43 PM PST by ThanhPhero (Ong lam hanh huong di La Vang)
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To: wardaddy
Well said, but alas I am the exception. I am over 40..only 4 years from an AARP card which I would burn of course, but I am utterly useless I confess.

In the eyes of my wife, I too am useless. I quickly learned that by blotching the various task delegated to me by the house Nazi, I could get out of them. It only takes a few plates stacked in the cabinet with gobs of food still affixed to them to get off of the "dishes list". The same goes for the the "trash taker outer list", the "hang this picture list", and the "can you run to the store list". Of course, I'm only kidding.......I need to get back to the dishes now.
376 posted on 01/19/2004 1:20:48 PM PST by Jaysun (The liberal mind is so open - so open that ideas simply pass through it.)
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To: ThanhPhero
"Sexism is terrible and all but who wants to go watch a womwn over forty?"

Have you seen Joan Collins? She's seventy something and still great looking...
377 posted on 01/19/2004 1:21:40 PM PST by marajade
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To: Jaysun
Shh, you're going to spoil our secret.
378 posted on 01/19/2004 1:22:38 PM PST by dfwgator
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To: AngrySpud
you have a point...
379 posted on 01/19/2004 1:22:59 PM PST by teldon30
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To: ThanhPhero
I don't know about Farscape. It sounds like a TV show. I've not seen one of those in 14 years.

Farscape, came on Sci-fi Channel, before the channel was dumbed down and now shows almost all BAD B-movies and reality tv shows.

Farscape was created by the Jim Henson Company, as a way to show the world what they can do. But this is NOT muppets in space, this is a very mature adult show. And a very good sci-fi series, maybe the best, in all catigories; action, plots, acting, characterization, linear plots, villains, heros, stage sets, enviroments, special effects, creatures.

The show blends, cgi, puppets, prosteitic make-up to a real quality show.

Any way, to start with, in the premiere, one of the main actresses (in her mid-30's) is a bald, blue alien priestess who is also an excaped convict and it is works for the show.

There are actresses through out that show that return that are in their 30's and 40's, and there is no problem with it.

When Farscape does make it to syndication, you need to watch it from beginning to end (4 part min-series raps up season four, but rumors they may continue it after that). You will not regert it.

380 posted on 01/19/2004 1:26:38 PM PST by Paul C. Jesup
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