Daily Mail

Older women have to choose between their face or their bottom, says Candice Bergen

- From Tom Leonard in New York

SHE smouldered on the big screen through the Sixties and Seventies.

But, according to Candice Bergen, even Hollywood beauties face a dilemma after they hit 50 – to save either their face or their bottom.

Miss Bergen, 68, said she had happily chosen to save the former, unlike many of her peers whose fierce dietary regimes may keep them slim but takes a toll on their faces.

The actress, who appeared in Soldier Blue, The Magus and Gandhi, said: ‘In the past 15 years…I have put on 30 pounds. I live to eat. None of this “eat to live” stuff for me.’

Miss Bergen, who was Oscar-nominated for the 1979 comedy Starting Over, pulls no punches on Hollywood’s obsession with thinness in her memoir, A Fine Romance.

She says dieting is ‘out of my purview’ and instead she craves biscuits and ‘all the things that dilate my pupils’.

She adds: ‘I am a champion eater. No carb is safe – no fat either. At a recent dinner party I shared bread and olive oil, followed by chocolate ice cream. A woman near me looked at me, appalled, and I thought, “I don’t care”.’

Bergen says her belief in enjoying her food is reinforced by the miserable existence of her friends. She writes: ‘They maintain their weight by routinely vomiting after major meals consisting of a slice of steak or a fillet of fish.’

In her book, Bergen focuses on her 15year marriage to her first husband, the late French film director Louis Malle.

 ??  ?? Beauty: Starring with Michael Caine in 1967’s The Magus
Beauty: Starring with Michael Caine in 1967’s The Magus
 ??  ?? Food lover: Candice Bergen, 68
Food lover: Candice Bergen, 68

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