Old Actors

So glad some are there!

Above you see (left to right) Dame Maggie Smith, Dame Joan Plowright, Dame Eileen Atkins, and Dame Judi Dench.

This photo is from a promotion for the film, “Tea With the Dames,” which is one of the best things I have ever watched. It is literally, these four crones sitting around shooting the shit with each other.

I treasure it, not only because I have been half in love with Judi Dench my whole life, but because I feel like it gives me life goals. At this stage of the game, I have no illusion that I will achieve what these women have. Each one is gorgeous now and gained their star status by being exceptionally beautiful and talented women. I ain’t that and never was that, but they were and Goddess bless’em, I am thrilled they were so that I could one day watch this show.

Most of us, however, do not start out with any attribute that would have the adverb “exceptionally” added before it except in my case, “exceptionally ordinary.” I started out in life on a different level than these gals did and it shows.

I love how authentic they are. I love their relationships with one another. I love the commonsense way they talk about things, but still with that edge of mischievousness and bedevilment that one rarely associates with people of advancing age. People seem to think we become dull and lifeless just because we are on our way to being lifeless.

As most of you already, there are not many female elders to whom we can look for examples for how to be. Women in general spent centuries behind the curtains, “behind every good man” so that the “good man” is blocking us from view. We did not get to be clever or risqué or admired.

These women are still slender and attractive by society’s standards. I don’t imagine there was a time that any of them dealt with obesity in their lives. That does not render them less worthy of admiration, but merely identifies that they are outside of a reasonable trajectory for me.

Another older woman who I enjoy is Miriam Margolyes, who has been in a whole slew of shows including the Harry Potter series of films and most significantly to me, “Call the Midwife.” She is fun and ribald and I love her but I do wish that she would stop talking about blowjobs quite so much. She has had a lady partner since 1968, so it is likely that if Heather doesn’t mind, I shouldn’t either.

Sandi Toksvig is 67 and I have often referred to her as my older sister because I love her so dearly. I have listened to all of her books (listened because she reads them and I adore her voice) and followed her on QI and Great British Baking Show. She is vastly intelligent and possibly the only person qualified to follow Stephen Fry on QI. On the downlow, I have to confess that I think she is better at QI than Stephen Fry was and that is saying a lot. I admire that I could not tell that her British accent is acquired and not natural to her since she was raised in New York. I find her to be just adorable.

Of course, who doesn’t love Helen Mirren? Grace and beauty and personality, oh my!

Emma Thompson is what we older folks call “a hoot” and I enjoy her very much.

In a world where aging people are quickly swept away and left to pass their final years in obscurity, these women shine for me.

As my mother would have said, “Now, I told you that to tell you this…”

On Friday, I went with my daughter to see the live action version of “How to Train Your Dragon,” a movie that was formative for her in its animated form. I remembered almost nothing of the movie other than “there is a dragon named Toothless” and “there are Vikings.” That’s literally all I had. The plot was dim to me, although something rattled around in my brain about killing the dragons versus befriending the dragons and that being a conflict.

The movie was fine. I enjoyed it and IMAX and 3D definitely upped the watching value.

BUT I saw this one character of which I had no memory of from the movie:

This is Gothi, the wise woman of the Vikings in the show. What’s this? What’s this?? She had only a small role in the show and, in fact, I had to work far harder than I should have to find the above photo.

Gothi is played by someone I have never heard of called Naomi Wirthner. Admittedly, I thought this was another great actor who is my age called Dawn French.

French is part of the comedy team, Saunders & French, the other half of which is yet another wonderful older actor named Jennifer Saunders:

Although this might mean nothing at all to you, Saunders is married to Adrian Edmondson who played Vyvyan Bastard in “The Young Ones” in the 1980s.

But no, not Dawn French. I scanned Naomi Wirthner’s credits and nope, I would not have seen her in any of the projects with which she is connected. She is, however, married to Stephen Dillane who played Stannis Baratheon in “Game of Thrones.”

When she is not in character, she looks like this:

I deeply admire that, let’s face it, there isn’t much difference. In the movie, her word is law. She sits like a queen and passively watches what goes on around her. She throws bones and answers the Chief with a tiny, almost imperceptible nod of her head.

“Yes,” I thought. “That is who I want to be.” At the time of this writing, she is 59, so yes, younger than I am.

I am so grateful to have these women hold prominent roles in TV and film representation. There was a time when the only older woman I knew of serving in that capacity was Frances Bavier who played Aunt Bee on “The Andy Griffith Show.”

When I was growing up, I thought of her as extremely old. When she started the show, she was much younger than I am now and at its height, she was 63… my current age.

I could easily launch into a narrative about the marginalization of older women in society. Hell, I have experienced it myself in my dealings with book publishers. I could talk about how only younger, more vibrant, slender people have relevance, but what matters to me is what goes on in my own head. How much do *I* discount older people, even those my age? How much do I honor older people? Do I even know any?

It gives me pause to wonder how I will age moving forward. The consensus usually is that after 60, it’s not likely going to get much better and from there, systems and appearances only begin to go downhill.

I am grateful to see these beautiful women and to feel less that I am in freefall toward irrelevance. We have lost Dame Maggie Smith and Dame Joan Plowright since they all sat down to tea. Dame Judi Dench and Dame Eileen Atkins both waved a hand and said, “No, not quite dead yet!” when I googled them to find out.

I hope that I can be even a quarter as smart, fun, and classy as they are at that age and at least half as smart, fun, and classy as I think I am now.