If your fifties are fabulous, what are your sixties? "Sexy" seems like an inappropriate term to use when describing the lives of people collecting social security and just wanting to take it easy. But actress Jessica Lange, who turns 60 today, isn't taking it easy and certainly doesn't need an social security. She's still an in-demand film actress, still with the equally good-looking Sam Shepherd, and probably hasn't even had any plastic surgery, despite what the rumor mill may think.
Hopefully, this retrospective look at her work will help us to understand how she's still smokin' in her seventh decade...
1) King Kong - 1976. The film was a blockbuster remake of the 1930s horror classic, complete with Lange in an outfit that George Lucas would steal for Carrie Fisher to wear in Return of the Jedi... or something. Anyway, why, if the film was a smash hit, did Lange not appear on screen again until 1979's All That Jazz? The damn critics, that's why. They gave her such a drubbing that she lost her self-confidence and had to be dragged back into it by Bob Fosse...
2) All That Jazz - 1979. She plays the Angel of Death in one of our favorite over-the-top pieces of excess from the most over-the-top and excessive decade on record. If you haven't seen it, stop reading this now and go rent it.
3) The Postman Always Rings Twice - 1981. The beginning of her career resurgence can be pinpointed sometime around the moment Jack Nicholson takes her over a table in David Mamet's nearly-forgotten noir classic.
4) Tootsie - 1982. She's absolutely adorable in this, for which she won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. Another great rental, add it now.
5) Sweet Dreams, Frances, Music Box - 1982-1989. She goes on to take smaller films that really allow her to stretch out and play unusual and interesting characters, and the Academy loves her for it.
6) Blue Sky - 1994. This Tommy Lee Jones film was going to be shelved forever until word circulated that Lange's performance would win her an Oscar for Best Actress. For once, the rumor mill was correct.
7) Rob Roy, A Streetcar Named Desire, A Thousand Acres, Big Fish, Broken Flowers, Grey Gardens, and more - 1995-now. More Golden Globe nominations, 27 years as Sam's better half (they've never married), and staying strong after breaking her shoulder and collarbone and dislocating her arm last month in Duluth, Minnesota. We hope to see her back again, 100%, in whatever weird and kooky role Hollywood comes up with for a stunning and, yes, sexy sixty-year-old leading lady...
