"Discretion is being able to raise your
eyebrow instead of your voice."
-- Anonymous
What's in an eyebrow? It's funny how easy it is not to think about them until you speak with someone who makes his living at them, as we did this morning. But we're getting ahead of ourselves.
Writing about food and wine for a living, we've long had to battle the occupational hazard of putting on extra pounds during periods of heavy research (better known as eating and drinking our way through some of the world's best restaurants -- yes, it's a dirty job, but someone's got to do it). It's hard to say what's the biggest spur -- looking out proactively for our health, fearing becoming another statistic in America's obesity crisis, or feeling the pressures of the rail-thin cultural standards set by Hollywood -- but nevertheless, we've learned to try to balance our research trips with healthier living. Thus, our dining tour of Paris over Thanksgiving week was followed two weeks later by an extraordinary week of mountain hiking in Mexico at the primarily meat- and alcohol-free spa Rancho La Puerta.
Of course, making an effort to eat healthier (e.g. more organics, less fat, fewer calories) doesn't stop us from jealously fantasizing about those who can eat all they want. With Monday night's Golden Globe Awards right around the corner, actors who famously gained weight "on the job" to portray various characters come to mind.
It's well known that for the movie "Raging Bull," 1981 Golden Globe winner Robert DeNiro put on a record 60+ pounds to play the aging Jack LaMotta. More recently, 2005 Golden Globe winner Renee Zellweger packed on more than 30 pounds to portray the title character in "Bridget Jones' Diary." 2006 Golden Globe nominees George Clooney and Charlize Theron did the same for their characters in "Syriana" and "Monster," respectively.
Given the extreme lengths to which certain stars are willing to go in order to alter their appearance for the sake of their characters, it does seem odd that some would draw the line...at their eyebrows.
As we were saying, this morning Karen found herself sitting in the chair of eyebrow shaping guru Ramy Gafni -- who's taken tweezers to the likes of ABC News's Elizabeth Vargas and this month's Vanity Fair cover girl Lindsay Lohen -- at his East 31st Street salon in Manhattan. Gafni astutely observed that Theron is the best example of "an actress who changes her brows to help create her characters," going arched and penciled to capture a 1940s beauty in "The Cider House Rules" and bushy and untamed to match the murderer in "Monster."
He contrasted this with the approach of actresses like 2003 Golden Globe winner Jennifer Aniston, whose eyebrows "always look perfectly groomed, no matter who they're playing." While their characters' believability might suffer, such actresses always look great -- and thin.
Even Weight Watchers' Web site advises on the slimming benefits of a set of well-shaped eyebrows, testifying that "It can change the way you look: it will open up your eyes and frame your face, giving you the effect of having an instant 'mini facelift' without having to undergo surgery."
Surgery? We won't even go there. Neither will actress Kathleen Turner, who bravely swore recently that she'd never go under the knife, observing, "I look at a lot of actresses on film, even the younger ones, and nothing moves, which to me would be dreadful. How, then, can you act? I mean, half of my acting is my eyebrows."
Like the size and shape of one's body, the size and shape of one's eyebrows can also be part of an act. Sunday marked the latest example of Andy Rooney poking fun at his famously wirey eyebrows on "60 Minutes" when he read on air a letter addressed to him from a viewer who wrote, "I think the birds nesting in your bushy eyebrows have started pecking at your brain."
Rooney has vowed, "I'll cut my eyebrows when I dye my hair blonde." To stave off starvation and surgery (not to mention any suspicions of brain damage caused by nesting birds), Karen plans to keep hers professionally razed -- for just as long as she has to keep her fork and wine glass professionally raised.
Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page
BecomingAChef.com