People
Weekly October 1999
Going
to Extremes
As
stars downsize to meet Hollywood’s new ideal, they may be risking their
health-and setting dangerous standards for their followers.
Lara
Flynn Boyle
“They
think they look wonderful. And they
do-in the face,” says Joan Rivers of waifish stars like Boyle (top, as she was
at a party three years ago and, above, at the Emmys in September, where her
dress drew more attention than her date, Jack Nicholson).
Adds Rivers: “Lara Flynn Boyle is gorgeous-but I thought too thin.”
Victoria
Beckham
Despite
the change in her appearance from two years ago (inset, at a soiree hosted by
Jade Jagger), new mom Beckham, a.k.a. Posh Spice, told The Mirror
that “it’s irresponsible to say I’m dieting and anorexic.
After a baby, you are dashing about all day.
I never have a chance to sit down.”
In her transformation from aspiring actress to Posh Spice in the
mid-1990’s Victoria Beckham was a head-turner, known for her curvaceous good
looks and designer frocks. But at a
London Fashion Week party thrown by jewelry designer Jade Jagger (daughter of
Mick) Sept. 20, eyes turned to Beckham for a different reason.
Dressed in a silver chain-mail halter top and tight black trousers,
Beckham’s jutting ribs and collarbones shocked her fellow guests.
“She definitely looks like she’s had a dramatic weight loss,” says
Carmel Allen, health and beauty director at British Vogue,
“and that is rather worrying.”
It wasn’t the first time Beckham’s weight had been a source of
concern. During her pregnancy with
son Brooklyn, born in March, Beckham, now 25, reportedly gained a mere 14lbs.
Then reports circulated that she dieted to fit into an 18-inch corset for
her lavish July 4 wedding to the baby’s father, British soccer star David
Beckham, 24. Victoria says that her
waiflike appearance is actually the result of nursing her baby, a low-fat diet
and “200 sit-ups before bed.” But
some observers think other factors may be at work.
“The more famous you become, the more you’re seen, and one becomes
terribly self-critical,” says Vogue’s
Allen. “You try to mold yourself
into something that you’re not.”
Beckham is hardly alone. From
back lot soundstages to sitcom sets, many of Hollywood’s most celebrated
actresses have become sisters in pencil-slim arms, battling to stay competitive
in an industry where thin is always in. Although
Ally McBeal’s Calista Flockhart has
drawn the most attention for her swizzle-stick figure, others-from The
Practice’s Lara Flynn Boyle and All
My Children’s Kelly Ripa to Friends’
Courteney Cox Arquette and Party of
Five’s Paula Devicq-are also toeing the super-skinny line.
But have some of these stars gone too far, choosing frailty and fame
rather than risk being criticized for having curves?
(Witness the drubbing that Alicia Silverstone received for adding a few
pounds before filming 1997’s Batman
& Robin). “They look too
thin. And unhealthy,” says Dr.
David Herzog, director of Harvard University’s eating-disorders center.
With poor nutrition, “they may run the risk of infertility or of
osteoporosis, which could put them at risk for fractures.
And if you look at the activities that these women are involved in,” he
adds, referring to the stars’ long work days and arduous visits to the gym,
“it’s unbelievable what they’re taking on. Even at a healthy weight it’s
extraordinary. Underweight, it
scares the hell out of you.”
Stuntwoman Sohia Crawford, 31 who doubles for Buffy
the Vampire Slayer star Sarah
Michelle Gellar, 22, says that, with her weight ranging from 105 to 110 lbs.,
she’s barely a match for the 5’3” Gellar, who, aided by an on-set
nutritionist, has eliminated fried foods, sugar and dairy products from her diet
and now tips the scales at 98 lbs. “If
I was 98 lbs., I wouldn’t have the energy to do what I do,”
Crawford says. “[Sarah] is
really, really thin.” Courtney
Thorne-Smith, 31 (and size 4), has said that if she were not on Ally
McBeal, she’d be 5 lbs. heavier but won’t risk it for fear she’ll look
big next to her size-2 cast mates. Even
Jennifer Aniston, 30, feels the pressure. Despite
already having one of the most enviable bodies in Hollywood, the 5’5”
actress has reportedly dropped and additional 15lbs. on a high-protein,
low-carbohydrate diet and now weights 110.
Yet, surveying the turnout at last month’s Emmy Awards, according to
columnist Liz Smith, she was overheard to say, “My God, these girls make me
look fat!”
Kathy Kaehler, Aniston’s former trainer, recently distanced herself
from the Friends star.
“Countless times I have been asked to reveal how [Jennifer] got so
skinny, which combination of exercises did the magic trick,”
Kaehler wrote in September’s Women’s Sports & Fitness magazine.
“The truth is, her new figure did not come from working out with me.
She lost body fat (seemingly all if it) by drastically reducing
carbohydrates in her diet-a way that’s not healthy in my book.”
It’s a book going largely unread in Hollywood.
Trainer Greg Isaacs, 38, director of the on-site gym at Warner Bros.
studios in Burbank and whose clients include Melanie Griffth and the model
Vendela, days the need to be pin-thin has “gone to a new extreme.
I don’t think there was ever a look as skinny as today’s .
Linda Hamilton’s muscular arms or the G.I. Jane is not what people are
looking for.” Instead, he says,
the image du jour is “very skinny, less muscle tone” and, in some cases,
“a bit unhealthily skinny.” In
order to achieve it, he adds, “there’s some serious dysfunction out
there.”
True, some stars insist that being thin is in their genes.
According to Sally Boyle, her 29-year-old daughter, Lara Flynn Boyle, has
no eating problems. She’s Irish
and she has that fast metabolism. People
would kill for her metabolism.” Others,
though, admit they work hard at staying skinny.
Flockhart (like Helen Hunt) has discovered spinning-vigorous workouts on
stationary bikes. “At first it
hurts your butt,” said the 5’51/2”,
100-lb. Ally McBeal star, 34.
“But you become addicted to it like a maniac.”
Elizabeth Hurley, 34, admits to following the book Eat
Right for Your [Blood] Type,
which (erroneously, according to experts) claims that someone with type O blood
, for example, is descended from hunters and therefore should eat meat,
vegetables and rice, but no wheat or dairy.
“It sounds like absolute nonsense,” Hurley told Cosmopolitan,
“but [beau Hugh Grant and I] both lost an astounding amount of weight.”
Even more popular-and less medically sound-is the cigarette and coffee
diet, “where Altoids become a meal,” says Allure
editor-in-chief Linda Wells. “I
was at a party in L.A.,” she recalls, “and
one trainer was bemoaning the fact that so many celebrities have become
painfully thin. He said they’re
not doing it to be strong or fit. They’re
just trying to whittle their bodies down to nothing.”
Only because that’s what the industry pressures them to do, say many
actresses. “Producers are in the
business of getting as many people to watch their show as they can,” Party
of Five writer-producer Ian Biederman told Who (PEOPLE’s Australian
edition). “Thin is the prevalent
idea of what is sexy, and you want stuff on your show that’s going to get
people to watch.” It’s a
message actress Lauren Holly got firsthand recently.
After being cast in the upcoming movie Any
Given Sunday, Holly, 35, was told
by director Oliver Stone that it was “time to get lean.”
She went on a 1,500-calorie, high-protein diet and upped her exercise
regimen to 30 to 45 minutes of cardio plus an hour of weight training each day,
six days a week. In five weeks, she
lost 10 lbs. “When you’re an
actress,” Holly’s trainer, Valerie Waters, said, “you’re expected to
maintain an ideal body weight based on an unrealistic standard.”
That standard includes single-digit dress sizes.
According to stylists, designers often deliver only small-size samples
for TV wardrobes. “Think about
it. When was the last time you saw
a movie where the lead actress was over a size 6?”
Augusta (she goes by only one name), a costumer on FOX’s new fall TV
series Popular, told WHO, “When I
go to a rental house, if I’m looking for a [sexy] size 14, they don’t exist.
They’re all matronly.”
In youth-obsessed Hollywood, looking matronly could mean career suicide.
But staying schoolgirl slim by following diets that emphasize protein and
all but eliminate carbohydrates poses physical dangers.
“Some of these low-carb diets would have you eating pork roast two
times a day, just as long as you avoid fruits and vegetables,” says Dr. James
Dillard, clinical instructor of medicine at Columbia University’s College of
Physicians and Surgeons in Manhattan. “You
need fruits, vegetables and grains. Together,
they are the best sources of fiber, B complex and E vitamins, which lower
cholesterol and have been proven to lower cancer rates.”
As for high-protein diets, he says, “they can ultimately lead to kidney
damage. But people are so
shortsighted. They will do anything
to lose weight.”
Until, perhaps, something makes them realize how unhealthy skinny can be.
“I used to run eight miles, go to lunch and order my salad dressing on
the side. I was always tired and
hungry,” Ally
McBeal’s Thorne-Smith told Self magazine.
Then, at the end of last season, she got the flu.
“I lost 10 lbs. On my
body, that’s a ton of weight. It
was scary. I could see I was sick.
I looked gaunt. But there
were some people who came up to me and said, ‘How did you do it?’
People thought it was good,” says Thorne-Smith, who has cut back to
running every other day, “and that was terrifying.”
Scarier still are the lengths to which some go. “People
won’t eat or drink for days, [then] use suppositories and basically keep
themselves on their feet with [over-the-counter weight-loss drugs] or some type
of diet poll,” says L.A. personal trainer Peter Seamans.
According to New York fitness guru Raddu, whose clients have included
Cindy Crawford and Jennifer Lopez, “Everyone wants to have a quick result and
less work. They expect miraculous
results-and they get into trouble.” Like
the L.A. model who didn’t eat or drink water-and took diuretics and
suppositories-for four days leading up to a photo shoot.
or the well-known actress who so starved herself as her wedding day
approached that she passed out before the ceremony.
“The combination of cutting calories and dehydration causes a state we
call ‘browning out,’ “ says Hollywood trainer Steven Kates.
“You’re almost fainting.”
Then there’s the impact these Hollywood role models have on younger
viewers. “We’re seeing quite an
increase in inquiries [from parents and therapists] about girls 9, 10 and 11
years old trying to emulate their favorite stars,”
says Adrienne Ressler, body-image specialist at the Renfrew Center in
Coconut Creek, Fla. “For
adolescents, the ideal for the person they want
to be when they grow up is wither a movie star, TV actress or supermodel,
and the emphasis is very much on external appearance.
our patients would die-and practically do-to look like Calista Flockhart.
They say, ‘I want to look like her.
I want to be her.
Except for a handful of such celebs as Kate Winslet, The
Practice’s Camryn Manheim, talk show host Rosie O’Donnell and
Nickelodeon’s Linda Ellerbee who are actively working to counteract the
extreme dieting message (see box, page 119),
A
Healthier Way to Shape Up
With 23 percent of the U.S. population now termed obese (up from 15
percent in ‘91), experts agree that Americans need to pare down.
But as some celebs have learned, there are ways to reduce girth without
crash diets and extreme exercise. Talk
show host Rosie O’Donnell, 37, recalls joking with other women waiting at
UCLA’s “fat clinic” in 1995 for their doses of the diet drug fen-phen.
“I would say, ‘This stuff’s going to be killing us.
We’re going to be real thin corpses, but we’re going to look
good.’” she says. “It turned
out to be not far from the truth, sadly.” (Fen-phen was taken off the market
in ‘97 for its suspected link to heart damage.)
It was one of dozens of weight-loss fads O’Donnell tried over the
years, all to no avail. So in
January she started the Chub Club. Although
she has so far dropped 25 lbs. by eating sensibly and working out an hour a day
on a treadmill (“I loathe it, but
I do it”), the goal, says O’Donnell, mother of two, “is not to get down to
a certain size but to make your heart work better and your
body function better so you can be around to play with your kids.”
Nickelodeon producer Linda Ellerbee was inspired to shape up after a hike
in the Appalachian Trail with a 38-pound pack on her back left her exhausted.
“I eat more protein than I used to and I get all my carbs from fruits
and vegetables,” says Ellerbee, 55, a breast cancer survivor, who also takes
spinning and low-impact aerobics classes. Now
54 lbs. lighter, the 5’7” Ellerbee weighs 134--and plans to stay that way.
“I’m not reed-thin,” she says,” and I’ve never been happier.”
Hollywood doesn’t seem inclined to help change the mind-set.
By 1998, says Cybill Shepherd, “seven shows went off the air, all with
women stars over 40. Not just Cybill-Murphy
Brown, Roseanne, Grace Under Fire, Murder She Wrote, Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman
and Ellen. There were all
different sizes and shapes of women. No
wonder these actresses are starving themselves-they want to keep working!”
Shepherd, 49, who once crash-dieted almost 20 lbs. from her then 155-lb.,
5’9” frame for a 1968 Model of the Year contest, believes she has a
solution:” We need to get those
women off the Rubens paintings and put them in prime time.”
Joan Rivers, who eats lots of salads and hits the treadmill religiously
to keep herself a size 6, doubts even that will work.
One of these days, “a big, voluptuous woman is going to come along to
be the beauty of the moment,” she says. “The
tragedy is, she won’t be able to get a dress for the awards shows.”
Susan
Schindehette
Karen
Grigsby Bates, Michelle Caruso
and Laura Schiff in Los Angeles, Joanna
Blonska and Ellen Tumposku in
London and Olivia Abel and Jennifer
Longley in New York City