Plastic Surgery of the Soap Stars

[Sylph]

I actually wrote it expecting [!@#$%^&*], but apparently the filter doesn't filter participles?

And when I wrote it, I meant: is it normal for a 70-year old to look like that?

[EricMontreal22]

I admit that I like to pick on Shirley--from her homophobic newspaper interviews after her "disgust" at having to see a gay kiss in Sunday Bloody Sunday in the 70s, on, but I actually think her live voice now is a *mess*. She can still his some of the notes, but her enunciation is deadly, and I have to disagree, I don't think her voice is a spot on what it was in the 70s.

I guess I'm the only one who saw Dionne Warwick on the Joy Behar show the other week? Joy asked if she still smoked, and Dionne proudly said "at least a pack a day, and that's never gonna change". She also said that the only reason she would have stopped is if it had affected her voice, but that it simply hadn't.

Now this made me kinda blink in disbelief. Many of my fave records are the 60s recordings Dionne did produced by Burt Bacharach--they just have flawless, gorgeous vocals (I had to work quite hard to find some of the records which haven't been reissued). Back then she could outsing any R&B singer with songs like Don't Make Me Over, and yet I think had the vocal control and skill of an Ella Fitzgerald on jazzier and more demanding Bacharach songs like the underated Checkout Time, Last One to Be Love, etc.

Of course her music got far more shmaltzier (as did Bacharach's) by the late 70s and 80s, but anyone listening to her vocals from the 80s on, and comparing them to the 60s, can OBVIOUSLY hear that her voice is NOTHING like the instrument it once was, and I have NO doubt it's largely due to smoking. It sounds hoarse, she has a very limited range (which isn't just due to her voice lowering with age), and has very little breath control. I almost wish Joy had called her out on it.

*EDIT* I should actually read the full thread before replying, I see people did comment on the Joy Behar segment. Still I can't believe she thinks her voice hasn't been affected. When I think of voices ruined by cigarettes, Dionne is who I first think of first.

One singer who I think sounds virtually as amazing as she did over 30 years ago is, yes, my beloved Donna Summer, who I saw live last year. Now people have picked on her weight gain (which has gone up and down since the 90s, though never to Aretha Franklin size). Part of this is due to the fact she admitted she used to be largely anorexic (and did a lot of cocaine in the 70s) and now is happy to largely stay out of the public spotlight and "enjoy her pasta with her children and grandchildren" (her daughter Brooklyn Sudano was just in the awful MTV modern disco movie Turn the Beat Around, and is *stunning*). Though Donna seems to have lost some weight over the past year, it honestly seems a moot point to me--she's in her mid 60s and if she wants to be a more typically sized Black/Italian grandmother, more power to her. But anyway, her vocals are still outstanding (she never smoked, and since the 80s has been pretty clean when it comes to partying I think, which I'm sure helped)

Here she is 5 years ago (and at her heaviest) still sounding nearly note perfect the same as she did on the 1977 recording. (I also don't think she's had any plastic surgery really--as she said on one recent talk show "black don't crack"--don't tell that to Whitney --though some might think she should have some I suppose for her weight but I say leave it be.) She *does* have a slightly lower register (though when I saw her live she sang the falsetto I Feel Love flawlessly), but I think that's 100% natural--Donna Summer's singing is vastly underated I think, but maybe even more so is the fact of how similar she sounds at 63 to when she was 23.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6XIJRc9HV8

[EricMontreal22]

The thing with Jocelyn too is, I think, that at some point she started doing more and more, partly because of mental issues with her looks, etc, undoubtedly but also because it's been her claim to fame. I have no doubt about that.

[SFK]

@Eric, LOL @reading three of your paragraphs all the while thinking, "Did he even read the page before? " Yes, Dionne is deluded, there is NO QUESTION that cigarettes (menthols at that) have damaged her song bird. People know a smoker's voice when they hear one, the unmistakable croaks and clicks, Dionne, Cissy and Whitney always sound hoarse.

Shirley's voice has become deep and thick with age and decades of belting. She's always played with vowels in her unique way that is interestingly posh and brash at the same time. I don't think her enunciation is that bad, I think it's sometimes lost in the low rumble that her voice has developed. And speaking of biracial Dames for a moment, I had no idea that Cleo Laine's husband Sir John Dankworth had died! They announced it at a concert the evening after his passing. "The show must go on..." Eric, you're a musical guy, you probably know their daughter Jacqui Dankworth from that program where Sondheim teacher his songs to students, she does "My Friend" from Sweeney Todd. ANYway... [/R. Sinclair]

Yeah, Shirley likes her men manly, not "wet" as she's fond of saying. When she walked out of the premiere of Moonraker, a reporter asked her what she thought of Roger Moore as Bond and she shouted, "Wet, wet, wet!" Connery's her favorite Bond, go figure.

[SFK]

DaytimeFan, who's Ivo?

[Sylph]

Ivo Pitanguy, probably.

[EricMontreal22]

Sorry about that. It makes me sad, cuz I really think Dionne had an amazing voice (so did Whitney and Cissy, but I actually have less of a history with their music--even if my starting to go to gay bars did correspond with all those dance remixes from Whitney's last decent album, My love is Your Love lke I Learned from the Best, etc)

Yep I have it on tape--from that South Bank Show in the 80s when Sondheim gave a master class. Great show (and here I thought you avoided anything musical theatre ). Cleo Laine also did a kinda bizarre Sondheim album, which was accompanied by a bizarre TV special with music clips to every song which are so campy and literal--ie in Losing my Mind when she sings "I dim the lights", she dims the lights, "the coffee cup" she grabs a coffee cup, etc.

The gays in Sunday Bloody Sunday are fairly manly though But yeah, Celluloid Closet (the book) called her out on it too--though I have no doubt that her honestly homophobic statements are something she regrets now, and not just because for the past 20 years her career has largely depended solely on her gay fans . That was back in 1971 or so. Still, I like to bring it up to the gays I know who worship Shirley when they mention Donna Summer's own gay statement troubles from the early 80s (which unlike Shirley's were all hearsay and never direct newspaper quotes lol).

[SFK]

Gotcha, thanks! Just Google'd him.

[SFK]

I have seen some of that Cleo Sondheim special on YouTube. I actually became a fan of hers in a roundabout way, through Ray Charles, they did a Porgy & Bess jazz album together (he wanted Gladys Knight but thaat didn't work out, he knew Cleo was capable but thought she was too dramatic and not "black" enough ). I saw the Jacqui clip when we had Sweeney Todd on the brain when the movie came out. I also know that Cleo was in Edwin Drood which I've never seen, but her appearance on The Muppet Show when she sings "If" against Bruce Schwartz's puppetry is imo one of the most beautiful TV moments ever (around 1:40 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rU-ogV6U9Mo ).

Cleo was at her most beautiful. She has certainly aged, don't think she's ever had a thing done.

[EricMontreal22]

I saw Cleo when I was 8 (I think? Late 80s) in the national tour of (Sondheim again) Into the Woods. She played the Bernadette Peters/witch role (which even Peters didn't play long on Broadway, Phylicia Rashad took over pretty soon after as Peters just did it on a limited contract). I remember her being surprisingly spectacular.

And I grew up with that Porgy and Bess album! It was a fave of my mom's. That Cleo/Muppet clip *is* gorgeous, thanks! It's interesting, looking at Cleo you almost could think that she is how Jocelyn Cat-Lady *should* have looked like (if that makes any sense).

[DaytimeFan]

Well of course that's who it is, I told you that

He is one of the world's great plastic surgeons, he has an eye that is immaculate and he only handles the best.

I'd just add that Jackie Collins is a lovely, sweet, kind woman. Raquel Welch is very well known for being an utter bitch.

[DRW50]

I was wondering about Tony Curtis and Tom Jones. They both seem to have had their fair amount of surgery. I was watching an old Dame Edna interview where Tom said he'd had a nose job (he said this was because his nose had been broken several times when he was growing up), but he's had a fair amount beyond that hasn't he? He also uses that awful fake tan, although I guess that's not plastic surgery.

Did Tony Curtis have anything cosmetic done when he was made over to become a big Hollywood name in the late 40s or did they not do plastic surgery then, besides dental work?

[DaytimeFan]

In regards to Tony Curtis, I can't tell what he has or hasn't had done because I've never paid much attention to him and he's so grossly overweight at this point that anything he did have done has been distorted. They did do plastic surgery in the late 40s, 50s though it was more experimental. It didn't really hit it's stride till the 1970s.

Tom Jones has had such unfortunate plastic surgery. Facelift, eye work, brow job, the copious amount of fake tan and the hair plus the weight gain and the too tight clothing. He really looks like a beached whale at times.

[EricMontreal22]

There are MANY famous stories of nose jobs done as far back as the 40s on Hollywood actresses (and actors) so it wasn't just dental... And I don't care if Raquel is a bitch, I her.

I've always found Tony Curtis' face a bit strange, but he had that strange, almost feminine face way back too. I wouldn't be surprised if he had something done more recently--is he obese? I haven't seen him in a bit, and he gained some weight when I last saw him but nothing that makes me think of the Aretha Franklin image your words do lol

[Khan]

My dad's a big fan of Tom Jones and Engelbert Humperdinck, so I grew up listening to all their music. Engelbert's transitioned nicely into "old age," I think, despite the obvious sign of age (i.e., sagging jowls, increased girth, receding hairline, etc.). Then again, Engelbert's image was never as overtly sexual as Tom's; he's allowed to grow older, IOW. Tom, unfortunately, pretty much built his career on raw, masculine sex appeal (despite having the more interesting voice, IMO), so he probably feels the pressure to retain that image, even if it has turned him into the male Mae West. In a way, I feel sorry for the guy. I truly do.