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| Sadie Frost and Twiggy in Mallorca. Sadie on Twiggy: 'She’s such a down-to-earth grafter' Photo: Amber Wilkinson |
There’s not many people in the world who are instantly recognisable from a single name but Twiggy is definitely one of them. The West-London model, born Lesley Hornby, and a dame these days to boot, was just 16 when she shot to fame after a hairdressing photo led her to be ‘discovered’ by the Daily Express, who quickly declared her “the face of ‘66”.
Her reaction to this sudden fame, her move into performing and a consideration of her loves and losses are all considered in Sadie Frost’s documentary Twiggy. It also features extensive interviews with the model and her daughter Carly, as well as contributions from a host of other names, including Joanna Lumley and Patty Boyd.
Both Twiggy and Sadie were at the recent Evolution Mallorca Film Festival, where the film had its Spanish premiere, and we sat down for a chat. One of the things that is repeatedly said about Twiggy is how down-to-earth and approachable the 76-year-old has remained despite her decades at the top of the business and it’s categorically true. On the day I meet her, she’s relaxed in a hot pink jacket trouser suit and eager and open with the press and photographers at a photoshoot.
The women have a connection to the island that goes beyond the festival. Twiggy’s second husband, who she met in 1985, had a house in Andratx on the island at the time. Sadie, meanwhile, spent two months living on the island in the late Nineties when she was shooting supernatural thriller Presence Of Mind with Harvey Keitel and Lauren Bacall. She went on to buy a house on the island on a previous visit to the festival, although she has subsequently sold it and moved back to the UK to be closer to her family.
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| Twiggy in Mallorca: 'I think you’ve got to have a few wrinkles to prove you’ve lived a life' Photo: Amber Wilkinson |
The documentary stemmed from an appearance Sadie made on the model’s Tea With Twiggy podcast, while she was promoting her fashion documentary Quant, with a question on what was next for the actress-turned-director starting the conversation.
Twiggy says: “Every time I watch it I cry.”
She adds: “You know, horrible things that happen, they're sad, but you put them in a little cupboard somewhere. Suddenly when it's all out there, it brings back all those memories, the happy ones, the sad ones. Seeing my mum and dad, I found that very emotional.”
Sadie says what she noticed as she was combing through the archive was how consistent Twiggy has been throughout her career. “She’s such a down-to-earth grafter,” she adds. “Just a really good outlook on life, which makes people like her. She’s always been somebody that women can relate to. So many times when people become famous or they become as big as someone like Twiggy, they can alienate their audience and she never did that.”
Twiggy, who has been with her second husband Leigh Lawson for 40 years explains: “When I met Leigh, he had a son, I had a daughter and so you're very protective of them if you’re in the public eye. So we made it our thing to keep our life as normal as possible. That’s how I like it. I go to the supermarket, I like to pick my own vegetables and I’m not going to have somebody go and do it for me.
“I’ve met people who do that thing of shutting themselves away and it’s peculiar, it’s like living behind a brick wall. I couldn’t live like that.”
It’s notable that Twiggy is growing old as a natural beauty, avoiding the uncanny valley look that many stars achieve after a lifetime’s worth of cosmetic work.
“I haven’t done that mainly through fear.”
She says what youngsters are exposed to on the internet concerns her. Speaking about the filters that often get used on photographs, she adds: “What worries me is that what often gets put on there is not real because of all the things you can do. I think you’ve got to have a few wrinkles to prove you’ve lived a life.”
She recalls: “About ten years ago, we went to a big charity do, I think it was one of Prince Charles’, and a lot of American people who had given lots of money came in. I remember there was one mother and daughter – the daughter was probably in her 20s and the mother in her 60s and they had identical faces. It was hysterical because it was like they’d been cloned.”
Sadie adds: “I think the obsessive fads that come and go, it’s not healthy, it’s not stable and I think there’s going to be big backlashes against them.”
She says: “I met someone the other day that had a gastric band and to be with that person for a few days, I realised how awful it was living with a gastric band. She could only have half a portion here and half a portion there and you had to take her food away and I was like, ‘Why would you want to do that?’
“It’s this obsession thing,” says Twiggy.
Sadie’s film shows just how much Twiggy has packed into her life, from model to twice-Golden Globe winner for Ken Russell’s The Boy Friend and now with her podcast.
“I just like doing different things,” And, you know, I always say I don't think you can plan a career. I never planned anything. It was the Zeitgeist that happened to me in 66 I was as shocked as everyone else and a bit nervous and scared but it was also very exciting and I was thrown into this other world. Then I met Ken Russell and changed my life again. One thing kind of opened a door to another thing. I think with most actors and performers it’s usually that opportunity comes when you meet somebody – this happened because Sadie came on my podcast.”
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| Twiggy poster |
And now she’s planning “either an EP or an album” with singer-songwriter Amy Wadge. “We've got three or four songs so far and for me that's lovely because it's a whole new thing. I love her. I think she's incredibly talented.”
Sadie also has no plans to slow down. “I took a masters in my 50s, I started directing in my 50s, I started teaching yoga in my late 50s,” she says, adding it’s good to have new challenges.
Among them are some films on the horizon. “I’m attached to a film about Steve Marriott, from the Small Faces, which I'm so excited about. So I've been working with the producers and the writer and that’s being packaged together and hopefullying announced soon. Then a couple of other features and then a couple other documentaries.”
She adds: “The thing is, even if you don’t end up making the doc, you spend two or three weeks researching that person or that thing and learning so much about so many amazing things. The prep and the development stage is great.”
