European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - June 26, 1994, Darmstadt, Hesse The age and a the innocent of Isabella Rossellini by Andrew Billen London observer. A june is was Isabella Rossellini s birthday. She is famous for so Many reasons a her Beauty her work As one of the Best paid models in the world and her screen acting a late Blooming career that led her to become the most graphically beaten up woman in screen history. There s also the Mistletoe of Fame that clings to her family tree her Mother was Ingrid Bergman her father director Roberto Rossellini Martin Scorsese is one of her two sex husbands and for five years she lived with David Lynch the Sicko Genius who persuaded her to do the most extraordinary things in Blue velvet. Yet now an a Gallant chronological fact is More notorious than any of this Isabella Rossellini is 42. When it became known last month that the French unguent manufacturer lancome would not be renewing her s2 million a year contract As its exclusive Quot spokes Model a there was uproar. It became celebre table on the theme of ageism. Lancome denies it dumped her because she got old arid still Hopes that when her present contract. Runs out in two years time she can be persuaded to continue to advertise one of its lines. Never mind. The world firmly believes Rossellini has been sacked for the grooves round her neck by a company whose Promise is that age need not Wither you. The Media were still full of it when we met in London where she is plugging John Schlesinger a film the no cent in which she plays Maria a German. Who seduces and inadvertently ruins the life of an English Virgin in 1950s Berlin. Rossellini lives in Manhattan but was brought up in Rome leaving her Mastery of English idiom stuck at a rather fetching 90 percent. In the midst of some articulate explication she will say something like a i am so glad he stuck to his the whole effect is to make it impossible to believe that this a scarred creature who looks and sounds a sophisticated 27, is the twice divorced Mother of an 11-year-old. A i think that it would be Correct of me to say it is up to lancome to give the reasons Why they have decided not to continue with my contract a she says. A i have worked for them for 14 years which i did no to expect and it was great and i am very grateful and very proud of my work but you will have to ask them if it was my age or not. A and then generally i am asked about women after 40 and if they can work. Not Only do i believe they can work they do work. 1 am working for Dolce e Gabbana an italian designer and Donna Karan a big designer in America. A i think there is a yearn in people to see somebody w fio defines Beauty and elegance and refinement after 40 and if anything i regret that lancome a if that is the reason a did not see that. I thought there was an Opportunity to capitalize on our history to get her. A a big company like lancome or Revlon had never before had continuity with a Model. There was this reputation of taking Young girls using them and then spitting them out two years i recite the psychological explanation for Why no one loves a Model once she s 40, that at some level women Are still valued for their capacity to re produce. Quot maybe but i never associated cosmetics with Fertility. I thought it was a Way to embellish yourself Quot she says and Breaks out into a Long laugh. As if to Buck biology she last year adopted a brother for her daughter Elettra. He is now 9 months old. The Black skinned Blue eyed child is named Roberto after her father a do Lnugent Fly entertainment group Isabella Rossellini in986�?Ts Blue velvet. With David Lynch amid kudos for wild at heart in 1990 at the film festival in Cannes France. Would a few lines on her face be Welcome i ask Rossellini if Only to take the Edge offer looks a Well they do come. I am 42, i was different 20 years ago or 10 years ago a she says a i feel very Happy to be born in a Century where women arc Able so much to exert themselves and say what they. Think.�?�. I read her something Ingrid Bergman said when she was 54 about the demoralizing effect of wrinkles around the eyes and neck a live never had my face lifted but that does no to mean i Haven t thought of it Quot Bergman admitted. Would Rossellini countenance one a i tend to agree with my Mother. I Haven t had a face lift and half of me thinks it would be Good to have the courage just to be old and not Cater to this idea that youth is a value. And then sometimes i think that i do make my living partially on the Way i look so maybe lets not make a big crusade about it. A i done to know whether if you have a Complex you can just solve it like that if you have a fear of growing old that a lift will solve it. But if you completely dislike your nose or you broke it in a car Accident Why not fix it la am not against the principle but i wonder if you have the courage to say a this is what woman looks like at 45 and this is what she looks like at 50 and it is your problem if you can to take it Well see if i have enough Bergman had been married for two years to Rossellini when Isabella and her twin sister Isola a film. Critic for a new York to station were born but the scandal of her adulterous affair with him had Congress denouncing her As Quot an apostle of degradation a its As hard to resist comparisons Between the romantic histories of the two flirtations with leading men marriages to directors As it is to ignore Ingrid and Isabella s physical similarities emphasized inthe innocent where Isabella a squid Ink hair becomes blonde and where there san aerodrome part my scene that is a ringer for Casablanca s. Yet no one moralize about Rossellini a love life the greatest disapproval being reserved for David Lynch who dumped her one night Over the Telephone. What we do tend to make moral judgments about arc the film roles she has taken. The Standard Reading is that she habitually plays women who arc at Best passive and at worst willing victims. She once said a every time you play a True female character you find a Trace of the trend is More apparent in her Art movies but not confined to them. As Maria in the comedy cons is in 1989, for example she plays an adulterers wife so morally fastidious that she does t go to bed with her admirer Ted Danson until the final reel. This is a sunny Hollywood remake of a Jean Charles Tacchella movie but it contains one curiosity while making love Danson remarks that Rosscl-1 Init slip is bleeding in the innocent Rossellini s Mouth is gashed again. Its As if directors demand that these overfilled lips normally signals of sexual arousal but in Rossellini a fixture must be violated that they Are asking for it. Her most famous role remains Dorothy Valletia the Small town Torch Singer in Lynch s 1986 masterpiece Blue a Clef. In it we watch her being slapped bruised and raped by a Gas masked psychopath played by Dennis Hopper. Later she makes love to the Boyish hero and asks to be hit Quot if you Are thinking of victims i suppose Dorothy is a victim Par excellence a Rossellini says. A she is somebody so victimized that she has completely gone mad Loving her torturer and thinking a this is what i deserve. I am absolutely nothing a Quot but Rossellini defends the reputation of the other women she has played. For example i accuse her character in Peter Weir s fearless of suffering in a Leotard Laura is a dance instructor while Jeff Bridges takes All the time in the world to get his act together after surviving a plane crash. A ooh really i did no to feel that a she says. Quot i thought Laura was pretty Strong. She is not at All a victim. 1 drag Jeff Back to life. I make him commit to life still knowing that what he has experienced May he greater than what i am offering him. Quot Peter weirs films 1 think Are about the transcendental. We ail know at night we can look up to the stars but have to commit to the boundaries the body gives us. We have five senses but we know they can mislead us. They Tell us there is a past and a future when science tells us they do not in fact but As Maria in 77jc innocent i say she walks around once More with bruises on her face yet another victim. A but she is very much a survivor a Rossellini insists. Quot her 20s have been ruined by the constant bombardment of Berlin and the fear of death but by 35 she says a i am going to live and go dancing and have men there is this absolute determination to have a Good life even if she has to forget she is still married. She does it out of a kind of right now a Rossellini is filming a life of Beethoven with Gary Oldman in Prague enjoying being a Mother for the second time and rather delighting in the controversy raised by i affaire lancome. When the innocent opens in America in the uncorrupted form that Schlesinger has insisted upon and which has delayed its release for almost two years her reputation As an actress will be unassailable. So what if Rossellini is 42? i reckon we can Stop worrying. Ser Ijjas Hov Luj Nevis our Vico june 26. 13fj4 sunday c s Page 23
