for them. You can’t do that as a young-
ster because you’re so into yourself.
>Curtis: I’m blessed with good health
and have more energy than a 14-year-
old. But I’m just now starting to feel my
age and the beginning of limitations. I
play tennis with someone 10 years
younger, and I’m noticing it. It’s not a
big deal, but it’s an adjustment.
>Bell: I’m in a peculiar position because
I believe I’m the only woman in Holly-
wood trying to age up. I’ve always been
small, and I have a high-pitched voice
and youthful face. Personally, I feel
that life is like cheese: It just gets better
with age. Some of the greatest women
I know, two of whom are present, have
aged so gracefully and have the smart-
est things to say.
>White: The less you worry about it,
the less you think about it. There was
a period when you were considered
over the hill if you were older than 14.
Everybody says to me, “We’re so glad
you’re back.” But I’ve been working
for 63 years! Many of the fans grew up
with me, and their moms and dads—
and in some cases their grandmothers
and grandfathers—grew up with me,
so I’m sort of a fixture.
In her Beverly
Hills High senior
pic, Betty Marion
White, above,left,
was a looker, just
like Curtis, above,
at 17, and Bell, left,
at 15.
ting my ass out of this business in a
few years because genetically it’s not
going to work for me. And I’m not
saying this so you guys say, “Oh, you’re
so pretty.” I’m talking about aging
and genetics.
>White: I wish you would take your
shirt off. This one [ pointing to Curtis]
has arms.
>Bell: You have a hot body and every-
body knows it.
>Curtis: [Pointing to White] She’s 88
and hotter in Hollywood than anyone I
know except maybe Justin Bieber!
>Bell: Why are we all playing this
gigantic game trying to be who we
were five years ago?
>Curtis: Because everybody is saying
that to get jobs you have to dye your
hair and get injectables. It’s a conspir-
acy, a complete catastrophe, a surgical-
industrial complex. Somehow we are
being fed this belief that to continue
on we have to do this. Yet people are
being disfigured. It’s shocking what
people are doing to their faces.
Each found a soul mate, clockwise
frombottom: White with third husband Allen Ludden (circa 1970), Bell
with fiancé Dax Shepard, and Curtis
with husband Christopher Guest.
a d, n C s
GOOD GENES AND
BAD PLASTIC SURGERY
>Curtis: There’s a reason why there
is only one Betty White. [Speaking
to Betty] You’ve navigated this mag-
nificently and had good health and
fantastic opportunities, and you’ve
knocked them out of the ballpark.
There are people who, when you
see them on the screen, there’s
an audible gasp of “Oh my
God.” They look terrible—or
they’ve done something to
themselves and now look
like freaks. Then there are
people who age beauti-
fully. There is one Meryl
Streep and one Sigourney
Weaver. But I could name
30 other actresses in their
[age] groups who aren’t
working today. Me, I’m get-
MATCHES MADE IN HEAVEN
>White: Allen [Ludden, the famous
game-show host, who died of cancer
in 1981] and I missed our 18th anniver-
sary by three days. We were doing
summer stock together, and every
morning he would ask me to marry
him. I’d been divorced twice and
didn’t want to marry again. He
bought me a beautiful ring, and I
threw it back at him, so he wore it
on a chain around his neck. Damn
wedding ring! He said, “I’m
going to wear it till you
put in it on your finger.”
He was a good salesman.
The secret to our mar-
riage was enthusiasm.
His intelligence and
sense of humor got to me.
It sounds like a cliché,
but my advice to Kristen
[engaged to actor Dax
Shepard, who stars in
the television comedy
(CONTINUED ON PAGE 83)
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morning he w
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