I share your fascination for Babe Paley. I first heard of her when I read the book The Power of Style, which contained a section called "The Swans", featuring her, Slim Keith (another extraordinary icon), C.Z Guest (they don't make women like that anymore, it goes with a certain culture of simplicity and refinement which is gone), and Gloria Guinness.
If I remember correctly, Babe Paley was in a car accident and had intensive surgery on her face. So she does look frozen, but in a different way from today's stars and starlets. I always find there is an expression of sadness through that surgical mask, like a soul that wants to come out but remains contained. Yes, she is "perfect" and eerie, as if she were more of a drawing (I say drawing because of the strength and power of her facial lines) than a real person, or as if she had decided to be what people fancied her to be, an icon. But it was a choice, a philosophy of life, she was an actress whose one and only role was to be perfect. At least that's how I perceive her through the few pictures available. She is more a living portrait than a human, and I feel that if I look at her long enough, as one does with portraits, I'll capture her essence and mystery. She invokes a trance-like attitude, as if she calls on us to imitate her own trance and reach some infinite nirvana.