She had a very hard, angular, mannish face at this time of her life, don't get me wrong she was a real tomato in The Postman (etc) but in this film she really looks like a middle-aged woman, even in the beginning. She was otherwise a great actress and I really enjoyed seeing this film for the first time tonight. Mahalia Jackson sure had a set of pipes. And yes I cried at the motel scene, I'm a full grown man and I cried. Also Sandra Dee was really annoying.
shareI thought Lana looked quite good. She was 38 or 39 when the film was made, and I don't think she looked any older than that. She was very beautiful in the film.
shareLora was supposed to be near 40 in the movie -- she was not a teen bride when she had Susie, so she would be pushing 40 by the time she was graduating from high school.
People aged harder in the 1950s -- cigarette smoke mainly makes you look dramatically older.
In the early scenes of the movie, Turner looked pretty good as a presumably early-20s Lora.
The helmet-head/ beehive hairstyles also made Turner look older. If she had shoulder-length hair, she would have looked younger.
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4) You ever seen Superman $#$# his pants? Case closed.
Well, I said she was 38 or 39 when the film was made and did not look older than that. You said Lora was pushing 40... So it sounds like we are in agreement.
share'She really looks like a middle-aged woman'. Well - she were. Turner were 39 when she made Imitation, i.e., in early middle-age. But it's true she looked older. She aged more noticeably than her contemporaries (Hayworth, Sheridan and Grable looked far more youthful around the late 1950s). I remember seeing her in that bloody awful horror film, Persecution (1974 - making her 54) and thinking she must have been around 70!
shareI thought she looked pretty gfood. She had a good figure and a pretty face. Of course, John Gavin, who played her boyfriend in the film, was at leat 8 years younger than Lana, which may have made Lana look, to some people, older. Still, she attracted guys like Stompananato, so she must have had some attraction.
sharemannish?
shareLana Turner was a heavy smoker, and loved to tan, so that may account for people saying she aged rapidly. I think she looked lovely in this movie, and her age at the time (38 during filming). It wasn't until the 70s and 80s that you could really see the ravages of time on her. After all, she battled throat cancer in the last years of her life (even went into remission until it came back and killed her). And, as another person pointed out, the options that we have today in terms of beauty products and anti-aging did not exist back then.
' the options that we have today in term of beauty products and anti-aging did not exist back then.'
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They had plastic surgery then. I'm not sure what you mean by beauty products, since those are mostly useless and based on false marketing. All they are are temporary moisturizers.
Plastic surgery, yes, but no botox. And I don't think the anti-aging beauty products then are what they are today (nor were they aware that too much sun exposure/tanning ages the skin). Hence moisturizers with SPF to protect the skin from UVA/UVB that are widely available now.
I didn't know you meant moisturizers with SPF to protect the skin from UVA/UVB. In that case, women can just use suntan lotion with a high SPV factor. The problem is they didn't know as much about the damaging affects of the sun then
shareI think that techniques used for 'rejuvenation' surgery are better than they were. Women that you can tell have 'had work done' now don't look nearly as obvious as they used to look. There are those that look over botoxed (oddly swollen lips, etc.), but they don't have the perpetually surprised look that vintage facelook gave.
shareI thought she was hot in the movie. Only reason I could sit through it. Who cares how old she looked.
"Life is like a box of Krispy Kreme donuts".
Right on! I was a teenager in the 70s, and we didn't have sunscreen. This pale Irish skin got way too many burns, but I learned in my early 20s to stay out of the sun. I'm just waiting for the skin cancer to get me now.
shareLana Turner had a turbulent year before she filmed this movie. Two divorces, and then her 14 year old daughter stabbed her boyfriend at the time. There was a bit of an explanation before the film was shown. She didnt want to do this movie at first, as it was almost like her own life, but she did and it got rave reviews.
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