Rant of the Week

Oh my gawd-- Jane Fonda!  She and I were SO CLOSE.

 

THAT said, in the 10 years I took to write her biography, I observed many Janes. I saw the Jane with the agenda; the girlish, self-effacing Jane when she’s with men; the armchair shrink Jane who spouts advice about sex and love and exercise as if by rote whenever she’s on TV; the ruthless, hard-as-nails Jane in business and self-promotion; the generous Jane with friends in need; the loving grandmother-matriarch Jane; the celebrity Jane who in May walked down the red carpet at Cannes in a glittery white gown and left all the young starlets in her dust.  Patricia Bosworth, in the NY Times, September 25, 2011.

What is this?  I mind it.  All the young starlets "in her dust"?  You mean, she can be smart and shrewd and giving and all that and, oh, just for the fun of it, let's march down that red carpet at the age of 70 and prove that I am still more desirable than, say, Greta Gerwig, or Anne Hathaway, or Jessica Alba.  Poof!   It's not dust, Patricia, it's dried up embalming fluid.

Is that what it takes to get access to Fonda, and to her friends and professional colleagues?  To make sure that she understands that your biography will include lines like "and left all the young starlets in her dust"?  After the Viet Nam War and Roger Vadim and Tom Hayden and Klute and Ted Turner-- that's ultimately what always really mattered, isn't it?  To leave "all the young starlets in her dust"?

 

 
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