It took me 3 years to save £7,500 for my facelift but it was worth every penny
MAUREEN NOLAN UNVEILS NEW LOOK
Looking at her new reflection in the mirror, Maureen Nolan cannot help but smile. Gone is the crinkly neck that gave away her age and her sagging jowls have been replaced with a smooth, youthful jawline.
It took Maureen three years to save up for the £7,500 lower face and neck lift but today, as she reveals her new face, she says it was worth the wait and every penny.
“I have been thinking about this for a long time and saving for it,” she says. “I finally got enough money and had the courage to go through with it.
“But I am thrilled. I have not had a single day of pain. My neck is amazing, it is so smooth with hardly any lines and my skin feels firmer. I feel like me, just more refreshed. I cannot wait to show everyone.”
After being known as “the pretty Nolan” for years, Maureen, 64, always felt that people judged her on her looks rather than her talent.
“Even now, people say to me, ‘Oh you were the pretty one’. It was such a pressure growing up being known as the pretty Nolan.
“I began to feel that was all I was. When the group finally disbanded and I ended up on my own, I realised, ‘Oh I can sing, there is more to me, I can act’. I think you disappear behind that label.”
But the impact of family tragedy and divorce over the past 10 years had etched itself on Maureen’s features. She lost sister Bernie to breast cancer five years ago and split from husband Richie Hoyle two years ago. And now, the family has sister Linda’s terminal cancer diagnosis to deal with.
“I think the past 10 years have been really taxing,” she says. “I didn’t feel the need before now, I thought I had aged pretty well right up to 50. I always said if I look in the mirror and I am depressed, I will do it.”
The cancer was the thing that finally made Maureen realise life is short – and if she wanted a new face she was going to go for one. So, spurred on by sister Linda, who went under the knife herself a year ago, she had the five-hour op.
She says: “I am not nervy but the night before the operation I wanted to get it over and done with. It gave me so much admiration for Linda because she was the first to go through it. They said it wouldn’t be a general anaesthetic, which can take a toll on your body at my age. It would just be sedation, you feel no pain and are awake but not that aware.
“I’ve had worse visits to the dentist! If Linda hadn’t been through it first I think I would’ve been frightened. But because she had done it and told me it was
fine, I wasn’t worried. Coleen and my sister-in-law were with me holding my hand. The doctors took me into the theatre, injected me and I didn’t know anything until they told me it was over. “Coleen was so supportive even though she is very anti-surgery. I appreciate her views and she appreciates mine. To me, it was just maintenance – if someone can make you 10 years younger, why wouldn’t you if you can afford it?” Maureen had a neck lift, lower face lift and skin peel – not a procedure for the faint-hearted. The surgeon, Peter Cumbo at the Harley Street Skin Clinic, made an incision along the side of Maureen’s ears and then peeled the facial skin back. “They tighten everything up underneath and then pull the skin back over your ears and cut off the excess so it smooths your face out,” she says. Maureen got to look at her new face the same day and even had a shower and washed her hair to get rid of the dried blood less than 24 hours later. And although she was bruised and swollen, she knew immediately she had made the right decision. And her recovery has been trouble-free too. She says: “When I went home my sister Denise was amazing, like a nurse. I moved in with her for two weeks. I had a lot of bruising and swelling, more than Linda, but I didn’t take a single painkiller.” Now, four weeks on, Maureen is ready to face the world and could not be happier.
She says: “It is everything I wanted it to be. I didn’t want them to change my face – I wanted to have the same face but just less lines and look that bit fresher. I was confident about the results though because I went to the same clinic as Linda. People have said to Linda since, ‘Wow, you look great’. They don’t think she has had work – she tells them straight away!
Iam going to tell people too. I wish I had a pound for every person I meet in showbiz who has a tight, lifted face and says, ‘I haven’t had any work’. “I understand people who don’t want to go under the knife. Everybody is different and I wanted to. It is five years since we lost Bernie and now Linda’s cancer has returned. It has brought it home life is too short and if anybody wants to live their life however they want or go for whatever they want to, it is fine by me. If you have a dream, just go out and do it, whatever it might be.” Maureen has been working from the age of nine, when dad Tommy launched his children as The Singing Nolans. They changed their name to The Nolan Sisters and their 1979 hit I’m in the Mood for Dancing brought global fame.
At 64, she is still working as an actress and has no plans to quit. She says: “My career is going well and I am hopeful this will give me a new lease of life. For any woman, if you have your hair or make-up done or lose a bit of weight, then it is nice to face the world with more confidence.
“This is an extension of that. It has just given me a little bit of a boost. It is a nice, selfish thing I have done for myself. As a mum, I spent years doing everything for my son and now I am the same with my three granddaughters.
“It took me three years to save for the facelift as I was always buying them things! So yes, this is selfish but as a mum you spend your life being unselfish. I am thrilled with it and it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks – it is how I feel that counts.”
Maureen had her treatment at the Harley Street Skin Clinic, harleystreetskinclinic.com MASSIVE Ingentia prima