In the new issue of Dazed & Confused, 60-year-old music legend and cover star Grace Jones poses naked. Ironically for a fashion magazine, she spends 12 pages wearing no clothes at all. It's not tasteful nudity, either. It's full-frontal, frank and deliciously outrageous. It certainly puts the 'controversy' surrounding minx of the moment Katy Perry, a faux-lesbian with a Jesus tattoo on her wrist, into perspective.
Until recently, you could rely on young, wild starlets for headline-grabbing
rebellion. But prison must have ironed out their devilish streaks. Lindsay's
settled down. Nicole's had a baby. Even Paris Hilton has been noticeably
modest of late, at least by Paris Hilton standards. It's all gone quiet on the troublesome front, and Hollywood, never any fun without controversy, is proving itself to be a sanitised, well-behaved bore.
Thankfully, there are still film stars of a certain age who wouldn't know
publicist-controlled tact if it greeted them with a grimaced, 'He was great to work with.' Faye Dunaway, 67, long known as a difficult lady, threw the mother of all wobblers in a G2 feature earlier this week, storming out over a distasteful question and refusing to complete the interview. It must have been a mortifying experience for the journalist, but it was a gesture of rare grandiosity, and part of me applauds her for refusing to show any of the now-expected celebrity restraint.
Lauren Bacall is from an older Hollywood still. At 84, she's still a straight talking broad, as she showed in a new interview with American Elle. Contributing to a profile piece on Nicole Kidman, she gave her own forthright opinion of her good friend's ex-husband: "Tom Cruise is a maniac. I can't understand the way he conducts his life." There's something brilliantly, and sadly, subversive about her honesty. She's saying what most of us are thinking and what only she can get away with.
So come on, youngsters. The slammer might have been a step too far (even if it was only for 84 minutes), but when you're being out-rebelled by an octogenarian, it's time to shape up.
