I admire Ellen Barkin, 58. She has strong opinions and doesn’t GAF about much, and she’ll tell you about it in a lot of detail. Her Twitter account is well worth a visit.
Ellen has been dating a director named Sam Levinson who is a whopping 31 years younger than she is. She’s been with him since around 2007, when he was just 22 years old. We heard rumors late last year that Ellen even proposed to Sam during a romantic beach stroll, but nothing seems to have come of that.
I mention this as background, and also because I was interested to learn if Ellen’s faelift predates her relationship. It does. Ellen has been looking “fresh” since at least 2005, suggested that she had a facelift around that time. She doesn’t deny it, and it’s pretty obvious by outside appearances. She looks pulled and tight, but she carries it well and she seems pretty happy with her appearance. Her lips aren’t puffy and she’s working whatever she’s had done. Our friends at Radar interviewed some plastic surgeons who agree with that assessment, and say that Ellen looks better than she used to. She was most recently spotted at the NBC upfronts, where she wore her hair up, drawing attention to her face. Ellen is set to star on upcoming NBC show “The New Normal,” which premieres in the fall. Here’s Radar’s story. They also have a “plastic surgery disasters” gallery which is pretty fascinating, but Ellen looks too good to be included in that.
At the NBC UpFronts in New York City on May 14, the Ocean’s Thirteen star appeared to have refreshed her face with surgery but while many older actresses go over the top, “She looks better than she used to,” celebrity plastic surgeon, Dr. Anthony Youn, who has not treated the star, said in an exclusive interview with RadarOnline.com.
“I suspect that she’s had a facelift, causing her face to look tight and a bit pulled,” Dr. Youn told RadarOnline.com. “Her face appears terribly tight nowadays, as if she’s in a wind tunnel but if it was done recently, I suspect that she will look more and more natural with time.”
Barkin opened up about the aging process and her secrets to looking great at over 50 to Oprah.com five years ago, when she revealed that she wasn’t a fan of Botox.
“I don’t like the way it makes people look. Too many people go overboard, and for an actress, that’s deadly. It keeps you from being able to have expressions,” said Ellen.
Instead, she explained her dream was to get, “Just a tighter version of my face.”
While Barkin appears to have softened her attitude about plastic surgery and attained her dream of tightness, Dr. Youn still thinks she is opting for other less restrictive injectables over Botox.
“She appears to have had filler injections to some of the wrinkles of her face, causing her to look smooth,” he explained.
Whatever she has had done, Ellen isn’t going to let age get in the way of living life to the fullest. “Old is the new sexy!” gushed the Modern Family guest star, who happily flaunted a boy toy 31 years younger her junior last year.
[From Radar Online]
That last line kind of sums it all up for me. Ellen knows she’s sexy and that makes all the difference. Plastic surgery could be like a high couture gown, some ladies have the attitude to pull it off and not let the dress/injections/facelift wear them, and others just look so differentand uncomfortable that it’s hard not to notice. Of course you can take off those fug gowns at the end of the night. It also doesn’t hurt that Ellen hasn’t puffed up her lips too much (in recent photos), that she has a talented surgeon, and that she doesn’t look like an entirely different person.
2011:
2005:
well to me she looks like an alien version of Gwyneth Paltrow.
She looks refreshed, not made into something different. That’s how you should look after a face lift. Rested. She still has some lines as she should for her age.
I agree. That’s a very good facelift.
Her facelift looks amazing. Her hair looks like crap.
That heavy black liner is not her friend. Very handsome woman. I’m not a fan of this ageless beauty thing, though. At some point, women just look creepy and she’s treading that thin line right now. Look at Meryl Streep here. She looks better than Ellen and she has lines. She radiates happiness and wellbeing which is sexy.
http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01670/merylStreep_1670235c.jpg
Why does she have to be sexy with 58??? And that does not only apply to her, it applies to other women and men at that age as well. Do you know how strenuous it was to be young and having to look good and sexy all the time? I’m very pleased, that this phase is behind me and now I can do whatever I like. Nobody sees me on the street anymore and I really enjoy it. I am free!
When your reproductive time is over, your sexiness is gone.
I agree! People want an unnatural eternal youth.
Life is very different when you realize that you’re no longer solely defined by your looks – it is freeing.
I’m not saying you have to let it all go, but you do have to grips with aging.
Eh, I agree with your theory as applied to us regular people, but not so much in Hollywood. That is, unless you are obscenely talented like say, Meryl Streep, which Ellen Barkin is not.
But yeah, I feel like it’s sort of soul-destroying to feel like you have to be sexy for your whole life.
That may be true for you personally, but I’m certain there are many 58 year old women who actually do feel sexy and want to also look sexy. Reproduction really doesn’t have much to do with that.
“Do you know how strenuous it was to be young and having to look good and sexy all the time?”
On the flip side of this, no one of any age HAS to look good and sexy all the time, or even any of the time. That’s a choice you make. I know that when I was in my 20s I didn’t give a cr*p about being sexy, and so I didn’t bother with it.
“When your reproductive time is over, your sexiness is gone.”
In that case, I wish I’d been born a man. My ability to knock up women when I’m in my 60s, 70s, 80s, and beyond make it likely that I’ll be sexy until I die of old age. Being a woman, my sexual appeal will apparently wither away, along with my sad, desiccated eggs, in my 40s.
But seriously, I imagine that some older people want to remain sexually appealing in order to attract and/or maintain the romantic & sexual interest of others. Many people’s desire for sex and romantic love, as well as their wish to be sexually desired by their partners, will long outlive their reproductive capabilities.
For wanting to be a man, please take a look at Robert Plant (Led Zeppelin) then and now, or at Peter Gabriel (ex-Singer of the Group Genesis) also then and now.
All I want to say is, so many women try to look 30 or 40, when they have already reached 50 or 60, and they go through so much effort and still don’t manage to look that young again.
When I was 45 some people saw photos of me when I was 25 and they said, gosh you should try to grow your hair long and you should do this and that and actually I tried, but soon felt like a hamster running in these wheels, not getting anywhere, so I realised, that was then and now is now and we all age and cannot stop it. So why bother so much with the look, enjoy live.
I find it sad that sexiness should be defined in such a limited way. If a person is comfortable in their body and confident, they can be sexy without looking like a Barbie Doll. But this culture has such a limited perception of the ideal. Everybody seems to be living by external standards instead of defining their own.
By the way, my mother called this stage of plastic surgery face “the Norma Desmond look” i.e. perpetually surprised and unable to blink!
she looks scary
this. she looked MUCH better before.
Her face looks good. well-done imo
I disagree. I don’t think she looks better. I think she looks like a pretty mannequin. I’d rather see the ol face any day of the week.
I don’t understand her hair in that new pic.
She almost looks like Martha Stewart before she had the face lift. (btw, I think Martha looks good and natural for her age)
At the end of the day, you can make yourself look better, but you can NEVER get back your youth no matter how good your plastic surgeon is!
Yes, being an expressionless ice queen robot like Martha does wonders to prevent wrinkles.
I love those shoes! The pinkish purple ones with the turquoise dress. Love them!
Ellen looks great. She has always had a slightly tilted face. When she smiles big… you can really see it.
And I always thought Renée Zellweger looked like Ellen’s sister. They both have similarities to their faces. And when they smile, it gets even more obvious. Something tilted about both their faces.
In the first photo up top, she clearly has on minimal (or no) eye makeup. I think it’s a poor “before” shot. Perhaps things haven’t changed that much.
In the last pic she looks like J.K. Rowling.
I have always had this odd girl crush on her. I loved that movie where she played her dead brother trapped in her body- or sonething like that lol
they screwed up her left eye. it’s wonky.
nope. 2011 looks good. 2012 looks plastic doll like.
Great work. Just like Tom Cruise’s (which he adamantly denies, btw)
This drives me nuts. She was still quite beautiful.
I think she looks good. I see a little JK Rowling in that last pic.
I think she looks really good, except that her nose is so crooked, it’s like the bridge is skewed in one direction and her nostrils in the other, aaarrrghh. (Has it been broken? Bad nose job? Or born with it?) and it’s so distracting that it’s the first thing I notice. She’d be beautiful if she could fix that.
That nose has always been her most distinctive feature. It’s the same as ever.
Savvy, sassy older women and younger men great, except for Demi who is just needy.
Joan Collins is another one with a younger man, 32yrs younger, they have been together 10yrs. When she was recently ask if the age difference worried her she said…….
” Oh well, if he dies, he dies”
The work she had done is amazing. She should have touched up her roots, though.
I love her dress and I love the pumps. Those are real pumps, not hooker pumps.
WELL SHE’S OLD AND MAYBE LOT’S OF SURGERY BUT I’D LOVE TO BANG HER CAUSE SHE’S ONE OF DAMN HOT MILF.
She still looks like a fifty-eight year old to me. One that’s had a facelift. Attractive in a unique way.