Turning 40 - It’s All About the Journey

Thanks for visiting Turning 40! If you're new here, please take a moment to share your experience of Turning 40 and subscribe to my RSS feed.

Are You Turning 40 and Looking for a Profound Life Change?

Have a great day!

Katie Button writes

It seems that if you are an actress in Hollywood (and I suspect most women in la la land would harbour such aspirations), the best place for you is TV. Taking a look at the Emmy nominations, I was interested to note how many of the women nominated had previously been stars of the silver screen. Okay, so this trend for actors to migrate from films to TV is nothing new, but it is seriously all the rage for (how shall we put this?) ‘women of a certain age’.

Yep – if you’re a female over 40 in Hollywood, you’re often shown the door. But now it seems like that door is one to the top TV networks. I don’t know if it was due to the unprecedented success of Sex and the City that suddenly a programme could focus on women and not girls. Proper hair-growing-in-wrong-places, know-how-to-clean-a-toilet women. And not just as an obligatory wife/girlfriend/sister/mother side-show, or as one of many in a mixed sex ensemble – but the main event. Since Carrie and co. invited us into their world of cosmopolitans, Manola Blahniks and modelizers we’ve had Desperate Housewives and Weeds pick up where they left off with women enjoying the limelight. Taking a look at some of the other top US shows at the moment and those soon about to air, middle-aged women seem to have suddenly become in fashion.

Patricia Arquette was probably most famous for her family connections (sister to David and Rosanna, sister-in-law to Courteney Cox, ex-wife to Nicholas Cage and wife to Punisher star Tom Jane), but with Medium she has re-introduced us to her and her acting talents. At 39 she was by no means washed up, but her film roles prior to starring in Medium had become unattractive blots on her CV. Now, she has won an Emmy for playing Allison Dubois in the supernatural crime drama and could be heading for that podium again come September.

She’ll have her work cut out for her though as she takes on Mrs. Kevin Bacon, better known as Kyra Sedgwick. The 42 year old has won Satellite, Gracie Allen and Golden Globe awards for her part as Deputy Chief Brenda Johnson in The Closer and goes from strength to strength in the drama. Whereas once she was ignored on the arm of her film star husband, now she commands the attention of snapping paparazzi.

A veteran of films, double Oscar winner Sally Field has done it all. Now she has added TV to her resume, with her commanding central performance as Nora Walker in family saga Brothers and Sisters. Field is joined on the show by Calista Flockhart and Rachel Griffiths, also both over 40 and turning out some of the best acting of their careers.

Proving that TV truly is far from a depressing come down for former film stars, Oscar winner Holly Hunter and Glenn Close are also soon to be seen on US TV. Hunter will play Oklahoma City police detective Grace Hanadarko in Saving Grace, while after her spell on The Shield, Close has her own show Damages, where she play tough defence attorney Patty Hewes.

We don’t seem to have gotten the message here in the UK, (Grumpy Old Women, anyone?) but as we tend to emulate the trends of American entertainment, there is hope for us yet.

Katie Button contributes to Star Trip and TV Scoop and is all for women on TV having wrinkles.