MAN - when I was an entertainment reporter, one of the annual events I covered was the AFI (American Film Institute) Lifetime Achievement Award ceremony. Lifetime achievement means the honoree is - well - older. This is not the kind of event where the 20-somethings congregate. It always brought out what was referred to as "Old Hollywood."
So we'd all be clustered outside, behind the red ropes at the entrance, so we'd all get the arrivals. And often one or more of them would stop for a moment to say a few words about this wonderful night and the wonderful person who was being honored and the tradition snd history and other such niceties. So we all got soundbites to use. But we also got front-row views of this "Pageant of The Elders" - and close-up looks at the parade of facelifts, neck lifts, boob jobs, hair transplants, toupees, wigs, eye jobs, you name it - nips 'n' tucks of EVERY imaginable kind. And later on, of course, injectables and fillers too. HORRENDOUS. I realize it's a youth market in Hollywood, as everywhere else. But SHEESH - sometimes aging gracefully is a good thing.
Walter Matthau's wife, Carol, had had so much face-work done that she really didn't have a "face" anymore, after awhile. She had a table with eyes and mouth painted on. Her face on either side was FLAT. Her features GONE. The skin stretched so tight, so many times before, that it had NO elasticity, NO suppleness, NO texture, NOTHING. You could see the discolorations and capillaries that had been so stretched to such an extreme, over many "procedures", how it was mottled and icky-looking and no applications of foundation or makeup or even Spackle would have been able to help conceal it. That poor woman was a gargoyle. A frozen gargoyle at that, because all those surgeries steadily removed her face's ability to move, to show expression, even to smile naturally. If you Google her you'll find photos of her as a younger woman, when she was actually quite lovely. Sadly, she was ruined. Absolutely ruined! NOBODY deserves that.
The first time I saw that, I resolved right then and there that I'm gonna let Nature be my "plastic surgeon." I do NOT want to mess with it. Because all that effort, agony, and expense will only gain you a couple of years, tops, before you have to go in and get "tweaked" again. And after repeated rounds of that, pretty soon YOU wind up looking like Carol Matthau. Just NOT worth it.
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