60 and Sexy...Stevie at the Super Bowl

[JohnL]

Thanks to Greggo on another board for this info...

60 is the new sexy

New York Daily News
By JANE RIDLEY
Tuesday, January 30th, 2007

When the collective click of hundreds of camera shutters sounds like automatic gunfire, you can bet that Hollywood's hottest young starlet has arrived on the red carpet.

But not this season.

Helen Mirren, who has just been voted the world's sexiest older woman at the age of 61, fed the picture frenzy and was easily the most-photographed actress at Sunday night's Screen Actors Guild Awards.

Confident and radiant, the showbiz veteran bewitched the waiting crowds with her glowing complexion, expertly highlighted hair and striking choice of gown.

She has always been beautiful, but most fans would agree that, with her career now in orbit, she is at her most alluring.

Like Sophia Loren and Diane Keaton, who came in second and fifth in the poll conducted by Lovefilm.com, she epitomizes the growing trend of "Sexy After Sixty."

Their gleaming skin, trim figures and immaculate dress sense - as well as their acting talent, of course - make them flag bearers for the older generation, proving that surgery and gimmicks are not the only choice when it comes to being gorgeous.

They could certainly teach their twenty-, thirty- and even fortysomething colleagues a thing or two.

Let's hope, for example, that Katie Holmes and new best friend Victoria Beckham are the first to sign up for a Mirren master class on effortless chic.

Holmes could barely move in the hernia-belt-cum-girdle she wore to an Armani fashion show last week in Paris, while the rictus-grinned, overdone Posh looks more like her Madame Tussauds waxwork every day.

Teri Hatcher, meanwhile, who should know better than to exercise herself into skeleton mode, may spend hours preparing for an event, but often looks freakish and uncomfortable.

By contrast, timeless beauties such as Gladys Knight, 62; Sally Field, 60; Meryl Streep, 57, and Judi Dench, 72 (third and fourth in the survey) project an inner brilliance that should be bottled.

Perhaps L'Oreal, which, to the surprise of many beauty pundits, signed 61-year-old Keaton as a spokesmodel, is working on the project now. In her film "Because I Said So," opening Friday, Keaton plays a mother of three dealing with the approach of a "big number" birthday and dating in 2007. On Mirren's beauty, Keaton has only praise, saying: "What planet did she come from? She's fabulous. She carries being a woman like no one I've ever met."

The marketing power of sexy older women has not been lost on rival cosmetics companies such as MAC, which features Catherine Deneuve and Diana Ross in its ads, and CoverGirl, which brought '70s model Christie Brinkley out of retirement.

The fashion industry is falling over itself to dress glamorous baby boomers like Cybill Shepherd, 56, and Sharon Stone, 48. Carolina Herrera was thrilled when Streep wore one of her creations to the Golden Globes.

Liliana Casabal, the founder of Morgane Le Faye, who designed Mirren's $3,200 dress for the SAGs, was sought out by the actress' stylist, Alicia Lombardini.

"I'd already designed the gown with Helen in mind," says Casabal, whose other celebrity clients include Stevie Nicks. The iconic singer will wear Morgane Le Faye at Sunday's Super Bowl.
"The midnight-blue color is perfect for Helen, and the silhouette flatters her waist and torso. It's a gown with high spirits - just like her."

Although the chiffon shawl covers Mirren's arms and shoulders, Casabal insists that she designs "body appropriate" rather than "age appropriate" pieces. It's a key element when these women strut their stuff on the red carpets.

"Helen is a fabulous icon of beauty, which is a relief in many ways in a culture obsessed with youth," she adds. "She is in amazing shape and a pleasure to dress."

While younger actresses have confessed their terror at filming nude scenes - Kate Winslet, then 21, was wracked with anxiety before her full-frontal shot in the 1996 movie "Jude" - Mirren has never been coy about shedding her clothes and has bared her body in a total of 13 films.

She gained the most notoriety, at age 44, for the raunchy love scenes in "The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover" and marked her 50th birthday with a nude magazine cover.

The star has always firmly rejected plastic surgery and said of her image, "I'm very lucky to have a good constitution.

"I go to a gym very occasionally, but I get lots of exercise walking my dogs."

Incredibly, while the public adores Mirren's enduring good looks, she can't see them herself.

She once insisted that age "makes you feel less of a sexual being," before adding: "I appreciate beauty, and I know I'm not beautiful."

We and the rest of the world would beg to differ.