I don’t like making fun of the dead. And, even more than
Mick Jagger, I have no special insight into why fashion designer L’Wren Scott
took her own life. Using, apparently, a noose made from a silk scarf. That
fashionista detail, I must admit, really gives me pause.
Scott’s death on March 17, 2014, naturally set tongues to
wagging. I overheard several sensible people I know, one of whom had attended a
social function at which Scott was present, speculating that her desperate act
could be blamed on a negative body image.
After all, she had worked both in Hollywood (as stylist and costume
designer) as well as in the world of high fashion, two realms where you can
never be too rich or too thin. A quote attributed to her caught my eye: “I've
never met a woman who thinks she's got a good enough figure.” Then there was
the perhaps meaningful fact that she was facing a Big Birthday. On April 28 of
this year, she would have been fifty years old.
All this is purely speculation on my part. Perhaps
whatever destroyed her spirit had nothing to do with her appearance. She was
6’3” and a former fashion model, so perhaps she had the chutzpah to look
however she chose. Certainly the fact that for thirteen years she gave
satisfaction to Jagger, one of the
world’s most interesting men, should have validated her sense that she had a
lot to offer. Maybe, as some have speculated, she was depressed over business
reverses, or health issues, or some such.
But I continue to be haunted by the notion that a life in
showbiz (or on its fringes) requires women to be obsessed with their looks.
Years ago, I knew a performer who wanted to make it big. She had loads of
musical talent, but someone must have told her that she’d be even prettier if
she improved the line of her chin. Next thing I knew, she’d had a drastic
surgery that broke her jaw and required her mouth to be wired shut for months. The
end result: she looked really nice, but of course she hadn’t looked bad to
begin with. And I’m not sure that the change advanced her career one iota.
I also knew a former child star who quit the industry in
her teen years. Decades later, her sister told me that one reason she’d said
goodbye to her career was the pressure she faced in late adolescence to undergo
breast augmentation. One young actress who succumbed to this pressure was Mary
Elizabeth McDonough, well-known as the middle child on The Waltons. In her memoir, she recounts how she agreed to silicone
breast implants, then years later found herself battling lupus, perhaps an
aftereffect of the surgery.
We all know that tall, blonde, lithe Gwyneth Paltrow
pretty much meets Hollywood’s standards of female perfection. But even she is
capable of feeling insecure. I interviewed Gwyneth for The Hollywood Reporter
when she was carrying her first child. Hoping to make an emotional connection,
I commiserated on the discomforts of late-stage pregnancy. She plaintively told
me how tough it was for her to see on TV another tall blonde glamour
girl—Cameron Diaz—looking gorgeous, while she herself felt as big as a house.
Obviously, Gwyneth got her pre-baby body back, and then re-made herself as a
lifestyle expert. Now that she and her hubby, rocker Chris Martin, have decided on “conscious uncoupling,” as
she so coyly puts it, I hope she’ll remain satisfied with who she is, no matter
what she looks like.
