Freckled elegant and ...
Me and my body: Charlotte Rampling
‘MY body is just a working shell,’ said actress Charlotte Rampling. She casually dismissed 5ft 7in of incredibly long, rangy limbs. The rest of her — lovely, supple — could be seen through her thin shirt. well, what a superb shell to work in.
Recently she’s been in Italy filming ’Tis pity She’s A whore, which we’ll probably be seeing in November. Now Visconti says he wants her for his proust film.
As she sat in a deep armchair, her arms and legs composed themselves around her body with loose-jointed elegance.
She is beautifully natural and naturally beautiful.
Her face has strong bones and is gold with freckles. Her eyes are dark blue and very steady. It’s not that she’s blasé about her beauty. Rather, she refuses to departmentalise looks, figure, character, talent. To her they are all one. ‘My work is me,’ she says.
More important is the way she achieves this beautiful balance.
‘You are what you eat,’ she explains. She has been an instinctive vegetarian since childhood. ‘It’s the most healthy, sane way for mind and body. I’m not a fanatic, but if people only realised how easy it is to develop their own beauty.’ She finds hers like this:
BODY: ‘I weigh 7st 10lb. As a vegetarian, it’s very difficult to gain surplus weight. You feel so light and healthy.’
REGIME: ‘I regulate my life. Enough rest is important. During the week I am asleep before midnight. Then in the weekends I go out and enjoy myself. It’s important not to run your batteries too low.’
EXERCISE: ‘ Yoga for five minutes a day. I learned it in a monastery in Scotland run by Tibetan monks. I went there for meditation. Yoga is part of that.’
MAKE UP: ‘Absolutely none, except for mascara.’
HAIR: ‘I go to a trichologist, never a hairdresser. I wash it myself with a shampoo and conditioner the trichologist gives me. And before washing I use a tar lotion to open the pores and stimulate growth.’
BEST FEATURE: ‘I just don’t know.’ Her agent, Bryan Southcombe, says the Italians were knocked out by her bust.
PHILOSOPHY: ‘Everything stems from eating habits. Be firm in yourself and the rest comes as a bonus.’
It’s important not to run your batteries too low