Helena on the beautiful and damned
"There are some very beautiful people out there who had tragic love histories," laments supermodel
Helena Christensen, one of several beautiful women who have talked to writer
Marianne Macdonald, and shown themselves to be much less assured than their public image would suggest.
Jennifer Lopez,
Elle Macpherson,
Emmanuelle Beart,
Sienna Miller... "All these women had a startling power that underpinned their iconic beauty, their womanliness, their compelling charm,” says Macdonald in an article for the
Spectator. "Their beauty didn't, necessarily, make them more confident. Interviewing them could be tricky. They would do one of two things: glow like a bonfire or snap shut like a crab."
The supermodels were the hardest to reach, says Macdonald, "as if they had soldered some long-forgotten crack in their heart". Christensen, in particular, was battle-scarred from her years on the catwalk. "One minute people adore you, the next they can't remember your name," she told Macdonald. Like many of the others, she hadn't found love easy to come by, "because we've lived such an independent lifestyle it's hard to let someone in and open up... I've had guys I've been into that have never even looked my way".
Lopez also revealed her insecurities. Asked what quality she would have if she could have any in the world, JLo quietly replied, "I'd like to be able to read everyone's mind. Yes, then I wouldn't have to wonder about what people are thinking".
Macdonald concludes: "Any really famous person shares this same indescribable self-possession. It's best summed up as a kind of conscious calm. But in gorgeous women it ratchets up a notch: their self-possession combines with a wariness and a faint, animal sense of power. And along with all this, confusingly, they are always strangely open and touchingly vulnerable."
http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/people,643,helena-christensen-and-the-burden-of-beauty,16266