Does it strike you when reading and seeing celebrities as they age on the internet

hollydolly said:
yes but if she'd been alive today with the huge numbers of celebrities having surgery she may have had a different mind set..
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This could be possible. But we should not forget the various cosmetic surgeries that were botched, even in celebrities, who should have enough money for a real expert in this field.
 

George1959 said:
This could be possible. But we should not forget the various cosmetic surgeries that were botched, even in celebrities, who should have enough money for a real expert in this field.
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I don't .. but the celebrities who have this work done, don't seem to be put off by their peers botched jobs. I mean.. look at Cher, she's had loads of procedures but these look beautiful... Madonna, Sharon Osbourne, and Priscilla Presley, to name but 3.. should have gone to Cher's surgeon.. .. I have no idea why Sharon Osbourne even went down the surgery route, she was perfectly fine as she was.. and Presley was actually beautiful.. and she destroyed her looks.. just beggars belief tbh
 

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hollydolly said:
I don't .. but the celebrities who have this work done, don't seem to be put off by their peers botched jobs. I mean.. look at Cher, she's had loads of procedures but these looks beautiful... Madonna, Sharon Osbourne, and Priscilla Presley, to name but 3.. should have gone to Cher's surgeon.. .. I have no idea why Sharon Osbourne even went down the surgey route, she was perfectly fine as she was.. and Presley was actually beatiful.. and she destroyed her looks.. just beggars belief tbh
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Yes, but especially Cher. If I remember right, she already as a young woman had surgery to make her cheekbones look better, because she didn't like the 'American Indian' look. Asian celebrities often get surgery for their eyes because they don't like the almond-eyed look. But why? They are already beautiful.
 
George1959 said:
Yes, but especially Cher. If I remember right, she already as a young woman had surgery to make her cheekbones look better, because she didn't like the 'American Indian' look. Asian celebrities often get surgery for their eyes because they don't like the almond-eyed look. But why? They are already beautiful.
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actually I think Cher's first procedure was to straighten her nose.. and I've never heard her say she doesn't like the ''American Indian'' look.. in fact I'm sure she embraced it..
 
hollydolly said:
actually I think Cher's first procedure was to straighten her nose.. and I've never heard her say she doesn't like the ''American Indian'' look.. in fact I'm sure she embraced it..
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I think I had read this in a German magazine. But it is possible that I don't remember it right or the magazine was wrong. Magazines often write so much rubbish on celebrities only to fill them.
 
hollydolly said:
I don't know why Helen Mirren is held up as some aged goddess.. I have nothing against her, but she's far from any great beauty without all the slap ...
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Dame Helen Mirren is far more than the sum of her "parts," since her beauty is based on much more than merely "slap." She possesses tremendous talent, grace, and intelligence. True beauty transcends outward appearances. Her brilliance shines from within and doesn't need to be enhanced by "slap". She's magnificent, and on many levels, she serves as an example of gracefully aging womanhood. Brava!

Bella✌️
 
Ken N Tx said:
Bruce Willis just learned recently, that his illness is Frontotemporal Dementia (FTD) and Lewy Body Dementia- One of the hardest things to process is the slow change in the one you love. Becoming a completely different person. Everything changes.
Just so you know...
😢
It’s called the long goodbye. Rapidly shrinking brain is how a doctor described it. As the patient's brain slowly dies, they change physically and eventually forget who their loved ones are and become less themselves.
Patients can eventually become bedridden, unable to move and unable to eat or drink or talk to their loved ones.
There will be people who will scroll by this message because Dementia or Alzheimer's has not touched them. They may not know what it's like to have a loved one who has fought or is fighting a battle against Dementia or Alzheimer's.
In an effort to raise awareness of this cruel disease.
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I lost my husband in 2015 when he was only 53 and was in the beginning stages of early dementia. He had several bad concussions with long blackouts as a younger man. He hid his symptoms fairly successfully for a while (or maybe my daughters and I refused to see what was happening), but then lost his job because he forgot how to perform it. He was aware enough to know that he was not "himself" and must have known what was ahead for him, because he found a way to take his own life before it got worse. It was horrible, and I still grieve, but at the same time part of me totally understands why he did it. I don't know what I would do if I had it. I only hope they can someday soon find really good treatments or even a cure.
 
Amelia B said:
I lost my husband in 2015 when he was only 53 and was in the beginning stages of early dementia. He had several bad concussions with long blackouts as a younger man. He hid his symptoms fairly successfully for a while (or maybe my daughters and I refused to see what was happening), but then lost his job because he forgot how to perform it. He was aware enough to know that he was not "himself" and must have known what was ahead for him, because he found a way to take his own life before it got worse. It was horrible, and I still grieve, but at the same time part of me totally understands why he did it. I don't know what I would do if I had it. I only hope they can someday soon find really good treatments or even a cure.
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Amelia, this must have been almost unbearable for you and your daughters. But I think more people than most of us know choose to end their lives by themselves in such a horrible state. The German industrialist Gunter Sachs did it and also the German actor Raimund Harmstorf, the first because of Alzheimer's, the second because of Parkinson's.
 
Ken N Tx said:
One of the hardest things to process is the slow change in the one you love. Becoming a completely different person. Everything changes.
Just so you know...
😢
It’s called the long goodbye. Rapidly shrinking brain is how a doctor described it. As the patient's brain slowly dies, they change physically and eventually forget who their loved ones are and become less themselves.
Patients can eventually become bedridden, unable to move and unable to eat or drink or talk to their loved ones.
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Reminds me of something I wrote about my dad, @Ken N Tx


Thoughts on Dad;


A few years ago a lad from Scotland, I’d gotten to know, asked me how my Dad was doing, as I’d shared with him my Dad’s failings in what turned out to be his final year.

Maybe some of you folks can identify with what I wrote him.

In any event, I feel compelled to put it here, and probably in my next book.


You see, my Dad was my hero.
Oh, I wasn’t his favorite, but that didn’t matter.
For many years he was God to me, could do no wrong, I hid my wrongs from him.
Sure, as I grew, I saw his faults, but, heh, they were few.
And mine became less as I used him as a life model.


Here’s what I Emailed;

He’s a gamer, Shaun.
Days ago he was on his death bed.
Chemo and infection was taking him down…..quick.

He’s on the rebound.

To where……. I have no idea.

I visited him last weekend while he was staying at the rehab center (nursing home).

Didn’t readily recognize him.

No hair
Tiny head
Sunken eyes
Chair stickin’ half way outta the room, lookin’ out into the hall.

He looks like wunna those children with an aging disease.

He really lit up when he saw me.

I immediately felt real bad for not coming sooner.

He got up and scooted his chair back into the room, shuffling, pushing.
He invited me to sit.
There was only one extra chair
I think it had a piece of poop on it.

He had some sorta string of dried drool and blood comin’ from his lower lip, ending at his chin.

It made me sick to my stomach to look at him.

My Dad

My finicky Dad

The guy that remained well scrubbed, no matter what he did.

The guy with the weakest of stomachs.

The guy that just couldn’t eat if he thought the cook hadn’t washed his hands.

There he was……..disgusting

and so very happy to see me.

I wanted to stay and leave at the same time.

We went on a conversation loop.
He has about ten minutes of thought processing, then it starts all over again.

I grabbed his attention by saying I was thinking about going to church.
He did a feeble punch into the air, and displayed a flash of his tenacious old self, gritting his teeth and smiling with delight.

His old eyes lit up again, then welled, spilling tears as he told me how happy that made him.

Now I was disgusted with myself.
I wanted to cry along with him. I just can’t. It’s not in me.

I hadn’t lied.
I do think about it.
I think about conversation with rabid religionaires, and know why none of it is for me.

It was a visit of diverse emotions.
The nurse’s aide came in.
He questioningly introduced me as his cousin.

Well, in twenty minutes I’d completely muddled what’s left of his blithering mind.

I gave him a slight hug and left him with the aide.

Driving home, my thoughts were fixed on him.
What he is
What he once was
What I am
What I’m going to become

I recalled him and his cousin, his brother he never had, and how they talked about their aged parents

There is no fairness

There is just fact

Inescapable inevitable fact

It made me realize my own fallibility
I really don’t want to see him again
I will though

As long as I can make him happy, whether it’s a veiled lie, or just being there, I will see him, hug him, chat with him.

He has earned that…at the very least.

He’s a withered dying old man.

Cancer will take him.
I don’t think I have the guts for this, and what’s next, deteriorating visits

What have we done to think it good to keep my hero existing in his filth with confounded thoughts for as long as medically possible……

The Aleuts know what to do
The long walk and the bonk on the bean.
It’s much more heroic……respectful.

Thanks for asking, kid.

Enjoy thy youth


Other thoughts;

Thoughts on dad, death and dying excerpt


The End

Dad’s on his way out.
The guy that helped to explain death to this toddler (‘He’s dead.’) is gonna experience it himself, pretty soon now.
OK, so he wasn’t much with words, but sometimes the look on his face spoke volumes.

One time, years ago now (think I was 9), he’d come home from work. In those days he rode the bus.
He’d just talked with this lady that he’d been riding with for months. Right after they said their daily g’byes, a bus hit her, splattering her remains all over the street.
Dad had a terrible look fixed to his face.

He couldn’t eat.

‘arm here, leg there’
He kept reliving it, over and over.

‘I’d just talked to her’
Mom seemed a bit cold about it, like the lady was a possible affair of Dad’s.

I imagine her mind went places like ‘he probably talked to her more than he talks to me’.
‘yer not gonna eat?’

‘can’t’

‘fine’

Him and I visited grampa when he was wasting away in the nursing home.
The place wreaked of pee….old man pee….old woman pee (shudder).

The facility was remarkably clean, but I guess all that pee had permeated the walls.
You sorta got used to it…sorta.
Hours after we left I’d still get an occasional whiff of old person pee.

There grampa was, in the railed hospital bed, sunken toothless mouth open, hardly breathin’.
I don’t know how Dad did it.
He’d stop there every day after work, and ‘visit’ his dad, bringing me on the weekends.
Dad would get right in his ear… ‘DAD, DO YOU REMEMBER GARY?’
Grampa may have moved an eye lid.
I noticed he still had muscular arms,
his neck still thick as a bull’s.
Everything else was dissipated, atrophied, large hands curled up like he was writing something.
He stayed that way for months it seemed.

My dad is bald now.
Third of six weeks of chemo.
A real salvo.

He can’t keep food down…or up.
It’s a crap shoot.
No, really.
He craps with the regularity of exhalation.
Peeing out his hind end, basically.

It’s a gamble too.
Waste away while the cancer gnaws at yer guts, or attack and see who/what wins.
It’ll be down to the wire….at 90.
His wife just called.
He’s back in the hospital.
Getting pumped with electrolytes…….and chemo.

He loves life so.
I can see him lingering like grampa.
Wonder if I’ll visit his bedside daily, like he did for his dad.
I feel I should.

He’s been a really good dad.

A nice man.

A simple man.

Hard worker

Determined

He’s always presented a rosy outlook, somewhat like a salesman.

Without knowing it, I’ve kinda studied him.

We’ve never really had any heart to heart talks.

I don’t think I’ve missed anything.

We’ve had talks, it’s just that he’s always been the one doing the talking.

Dad, I look at you there, a bit shriveled, somewhat vacant eyed, I wonder, wonder why you struggle so. What’s left for you that’s so precious?

I think about you and me, so many years ago now.

Visiting grampa in the nursing home.

You, yelling in his ear.

Hoping for a sign, a flicker of recognition.

Him, shallow breath. Not moving a muscle.

I can only think that the prevailing reason for the struggle
is the love

of life itself


I have yet to finish this

But I will

someday
 
Blessed said:
It seems we all have a hard time of adjusting to our new reality. We may still feel we are the same physically but in reality we have aged. It doesn't bother me except when I look in the mirror. When I am out and about, talking to others in public, in my head I am still young. Then, I get home, if I pass a mirror I am like holy crap, when did that happen. I was reading an article about Gweneth Paltrow, who is 50 now. What was shocking is that she looks fifty without all the glam squads that normally transform them into something different. It gives me, sad to say, age comes to all, you either accept it or try to fight it and look silly.

I just accept it, no longer color my hair, no longer wear makeup other than special events. Most of all I have learned that there are just some types of clothing and shoes don't belong in my life any longer. God bless those ladies that can still pull off short or no sleeves, fitted dresses and form fitting jeans. I won't even discuss shoes with heels. I am jealous, I see many older ladies that are fashionable, I just don't happen to be one. How do you feel about the physical aging process and how do you deal with it?
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I accept it and never deny my age but I do make the best of myself up to a point. I put some makeup on, bit of jewellery and dress neatly but for comfort not to impress anyone. It's just for me really, to feel some confidence.
 
I handle this by using very DIM wattage light bulbs! and when looking in the mirror, I SQUINT! haha!

There are some truly beautiful ladies on here and I think it's because they are in LOVE! and because
they are TRULY HAPPY! This happiness shines through and makes them sparkle!
It's the LOVE that makes them glow!
(something you can't get with a hundred facial procedures)
 
Re the topic heading: Yes, especially some male celebrities. They were so cute or handsome, and now they just look like old guys. Even the shape of their face changes. I suppose it's easier for women to hide the changes, with makeup, wigs, etc.

As for me ... I gave up on makeup. I'd finally figure out what worked, and then my features would change, or the makeup style would change. And some men don't like makeup, or dyed hair, or whatever. So why bother?

I like to look half decent when I go out, or even at home alone. But I don't bother with beauty or glamor.
 
I got to see Debbie Reynolds on a Broadway stage. She looked just like she did, 30 years before. When I saw her in person, she freaked me out. She didn't have eye brows, but tattoo eyebrows in the middle of her forehead, and all over her face were little squares, where she had surgery done. Looking like she did 30 years ago, must have meant constant plastic surgery. I felt bad for her. We get to see our friends more often than stars, so the star's aging seems more obvious.
 
Lipstick was the only thing I used. Being legally blind in one eye, I could not apply eye make-up, so I just didn't bother. It has been probably 60 years since I used lipstick. Women use make up to impress other women, men usually don't like it. My son told his wife, "only ugly women need make-up".
 
I know what Holly meant about Helen Mirren, she's not jealous, she just wonders, as I have from time to time, why whenever women aging nicely is a subject she is always the first, and often the only, one to pop up. I've noticed it many times. When I google on hair styles for older women, there she is. Or style tips for older women, there she is. I like Helen's looks and acting. I just like many other older actresses, too.

Jane Fonda, Sophia Loren, Emma Thompson, Kathy Bates.
 
When I was in high school I was sitting at the cafeteria table while some boys were talking about the girls and saying a certain girl wore too much makeup. One of them said he preferred the way I looked with no makeup. They all looked at me and nodded.

I was wearing foundation, blush, eye liner, mascara, eyeshadow, lip liner and lipstick. It's all about choosing the right colors and applying with a light hand. I still do it all when I go out to dinner or lunch and I at least wear blush and lipstick around the house. Otherwise I look like Caspar's sister.
 
I'm 65. I look 65 and I'm ok with that. I often think about how glad I am that I'm not in a business that depends on looks.
I had to look professional when I was working but it didn't require "work".
I think the actors and actresses who have aged gracefully look the best.
 
George1959 said:
Amelia, this must have been almost unbearable for you and your daughters. But I think more people than most of us know choose to end their lives by themselves in such a horrible state. The German industrialist Gunter Sachs did it and also the German actor Raimund Harmstorf, the first because of Alzheimer's, the second because of Parkinson's.
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..as did Robin Williams
 

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