Speaker 1: What do you do when life doesn't go according to
Speaker 1: plan that moment you lose a job, or a loved one,
Speaker 1: or even a piece of yourself. I'm Brookshields and this
Speaker 1: is now What, a podcast about pivotal moments as told
Speaker 1: by people who lived them. Each week, I sit down
Speaker 1: with a guest to talk about the times they were
Speaker 1: knocked off course and what they did to move forward.
Speaker 1: Some stories are funny, others are cut wrenching, but all
Speaker 1: are unapologetically human and remind us that every success and
Speaker 1: every setback is accompanied by a choice, and that choice
Speaker 1: answers one question, Now, what you were appointed? I'm gonna say,
Speaker 1: if I get it right, Dame Commander of the British Empire,
Speaker 1: and that it was in twenty nineteen, there a ceremony.
Speaker 1: Did the kids all come? And good? The ceremonies? Unbelieving?
Speaker 1: It was very exciting. It was no, they actually only
Speaker 1: allow you to take three people. So I took Lee,
Speaker 1: Carly and my step son Jason. And then I felt
Speaker 1: really bad because I've got two elder sisters who I'm
Speaker 1: really close to. And I was talking to one of
Speaker 1: the organizers a bit beforehand, and she said, how many
Speaker 1: of you got and I said too, and she said, oh,
Speaker 1: I think we can swing it. So I took my
Speaker 1: two elder sisters and my eldest sister. She cried through
Speaker 1: the whole thing for about three hours, but they did
Speaker 1: it at Buckingham Palace and I got mine from the
Speaker 1: then Prince Charles, who of course is law our King. Yes,
Speaker 1: and he was really sweet because I was really nervous,
Speaker 1: and he just said to me, it's about time you
Speaker 1: got this. Oh, we're all very happy for you. My
Speaker 1: guest today is Dame Leslie Lawson, or Twiggy. She's been
Speaker 1: known for nearly six decades. Twiggy is an award winning actress,
Speaker 1: a singer, a model, and in many ways, the face
Speaker 1: of an entire generation. She became a global sensation at
Speaker 1: age sixteen when her picture was discovered by a journalist
Speaker 1: at a London hair salon. Twiggie would go on to
Speaker 1: have a very prolific career as a model and news
Speaker 1: regularly gracing the pages of Vogue before pivoting to the
Speaker 1: stage and screen. Today, she's an author, a podcast host,
Speaker 1: a doting mom and grandma, and a wife to her
Speaker 1: wonderful husband Lee. I met them both thirty years ago,
Speaker 1: and I am so grateful that our bond has stood
Speaker 1: the test of time. So, without further ado, here is
Speaker 1: one of my closest and coolest friends, Dame Twiggy. First
Speaker 1: of all, thank you so much for coming on the podcast.
Speaker 1: Trying to think it's thirty years ago. We did that
Speaker 1: movie together called The Diamond Trap, unbelievable. I was a
Speaker 1: villain and you were a cup. I was a plea.
Speaker 1: But don't you remember we got so hysterical we last
Speaker 1: because you I mean, you're how tall are you? You're
Speaker 1: I I think I was six feet then I've lost
Speaker 1: a lot of height, but okay, I'm five foot six
Speaker 1: and a half and you're sitting and we had a
Speaker 1: scene if you remember, where I was meant to arrest
Speaker 1: you in the in an elevator and we had we
Speaker 1: got such giggles because you said to me, I could
Speaker 1: not You're over in second pick you up with one arm,
Speaker 1: like you're not going to be able to subdue this
Speaker 1: big Well you're not just tall and much stronger than
Speaker 1: we did. We did have it, and it was lovely
Speaker 1: because that program, you know, led us to become friends,
Speaker 1: which I will be forever grateful It was lovely. I'm
Speaker 1: so happy. I remember being really just excited but nervous
Speaker 1: and also just really wanting to you know, you don't
Speaker 1: know how much I respected you, and that's just sweet.
Speaker 1: When I look at your career and I look at mine,
Speaker 1: I do see some similar things, especially as a concerns
Speaker 1: like coming of age in the spotlight around the same time.
Speaker 1: I mean, you became famous around what's sixteen? Yeah, and
Speaker 1: how old were you? You were younger? Weren't you? Well,
Speaker 1: you know, I was eleven, because I did when I
Speaker 1: did Pretty Baby. That really kind of just catapulted me
Speaker 1: into some were you that I was eleven in that moment,
Speaker 1: I thought you were like thirteen or forteen. You were eleven.
Speaker 1: You're a baby. I was a baby. I mean I
Speaker 1: was young, sixteen, but that's young. You had a life
Speaker 1: sort of prior, do you know? Do you know what
Speaker 1: I mean? Do you remember was it a big shift? Well?
Speaker 1: When it first, you know, you've got to remember up
Speaker 1: until that moment, moment that it happened, and it literally did.
Speaker 1: I didn't plan to do it. I didn't. It wasn't
Speaker 1: a planned thing. It wasn't I was a school girl
Speaker 1: and I actually loved school. I was one of those
Speaker 1: people who loved school. I went to a grammar school.
Speaker 1: But I also loved clothes. I always made my own clothes.
Speaker 1: And in that period, which was the early sixties, I
Speaker 1: was what was called a mod, and I was only
Speaker 1: allowed to go out in the evening on a Saturday night.
Speaker 1: There was a local dance or where the mods went,
Speaker 1: and my mum and dad would let me go as
Speaker 1: long as I was home by ten o'clock. Often I
Speaker 1: would make the clothes because I'd learned to sew for
Speaker 1: my mom and my sisters, and I was I was
Speaker 1: very into fashion. I love clothes like most teenagers, and
Speaker 1: I was always playing around with makeup, but I could
Speaker 1: only wear makeup on that Saturday. And did you feel
Speaker 1: like core when you were the girl was hack of you?
Speaker 1: And yeah, it was a group of us girls minds.
Speaker 1: It wasn't minies then. This was even pre minis. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the pre white boots pre Yeah, this is like sixty
Speaker 1: two sixty three, so that was about to happen. I
Speaker 1: mean my first so called mini dress when I look
Speaker 1: at pictures, and I was probably about fourteen, went to
Speaker 1: a friend's wedding and actually it was only two inches
Speaker 1: above my knee, so it wasn't that mini. But within
Speaker 1: like two years I was wearing hardly more than a
Speaker 1: big belt. Really, they're so sure, God, but so wait,
Speaker 1: take us back a little bit too. You go, that
Speaker 1: was then err and then you had long hair and
Speaker 1: you go into a salon, I'll try and make it sure.
Speaker 1: A friend of a friend, she had a friend who
Speaker 1: worked on a woman's magazine, and she said, you know,
Speaker 1: you've got a really interested in look because I'd always
Speaker 1: at the weekend, i'd put my eyelashes on and paint
Speaker 1: my eyes, which I got off of a rag doll.
Speaker 1: I had a rag doll in my bedroom and I
Speaker 1: used to copy that. And she introduced me to this
Speaker 1: editress of a woman's magazine and she sent she said,
Speaker 1: your hair's terrible because I used to die it myself
Speaker 1: and it was like an orangey color. It was awful.
Speaker 1: And she said, you gotta, we got to do something
Speaker 1: your hair, and we'll have some test shots done of you.
Speaker 1: And so she sent me to a very posh hairdressing
Speaker 1: salon called the House of Leonard, and I actually went
Speaker 1: there to have my hair styled, and the owner, Leonard,
Speaker 1: saw me and came over and said, will you let
Speaker 1: me cut your hair? And it was weird because I
Speaker 1: didn't want my hair cut. I was a age girl.
Speaker 1: I loved my long hair, but I was too frightened
Speaker 1: to say no because he was, you know, I was
Speaker 1: in this posh salon and that was the kind of
Speaker 1: look that you know, took off. But they sent me
Speaker 1: at the following week to have a photograph taken purely
Speaker 1: for Leonard to hang in his salon to show his
Speaker 1: new haircut. So I went to this gorgeous photographer called
Speaker 1: Barry Lattican, and he was in a beautiful studio and
Speaker 1: he sat me in front of the camera and he
Speaker 1: was really sweet, and he took what has now become
Speaker 1: a very famous photo, just me looking in a fair
Speaker 1: arm sweater, looking into camera. And then a very famous
Speaker 1: fashion journalist saw the picture. She was a client, and
Speaker 1: said I love the haircut. Who's the girl? And Leonard said, well,
Speaker 1: she's a schoolgirl and her nicknames Twiggy, and she said
Speaker 1: I want to meet her, and I met her. She
Speaker 1: interviewed me, and a week later in a big daily
Speaker 1: newspaper was Twiggy the face of sixty six and that's
Speaker 1: such a weird thing. I know what happened at school
Speaker 1: did a change her relationships with your friends? Yeah? It did,
Speaker 1: because people were ringing the newspaper to book me. Because
Speaker 1: I didn't have an agent or anything. I was a schoolgirl.
Speaker 1: So it all happened so so unbelievably fast. Was it
Speaker 1: in line with anything you'd ever thought you would be doing? No,
Speaker 1: you know I was. It's so funny when I look
Speaker 1: at our home scrapbook, the old pictures are mainly my
Speaker 1: sisters who went to tap class and went to Brownies
Speaker 1: and girl guides, but none of me because I wouldn't go.
Speaker 1: I just wanted a bit at home with my mum.
Speaker 1: I was really shy. I hated doing anything without her.
Speaker 1: So the fact that what happened to me happened to
Speaker 1: me is was very very peculiar. Were you scared? I mean,
Speaker 1: was anybody with you when you're flying? Yeah? I meant
Speaker 1: part of the deal, because you know, I was sixteen,
Speaker 1: which I was a very very young, unsophisticated sixteen, because
Speaker 1: I meet sixteen year olds an hour and they seem
Speaker 1: very grown up. So I had I had a manager,
Speaker 1: and my dad said, if I'm going to let you
Speaker 1: leave school and go to these places with photographers and things.
Speaker 1: He's got to go with you and be there all
Speaker 1: the time and with your boyfriend. He yeah, he became
Speaker 1: my boyfriend. Yeah, and he was ten years older than me.
Speaker 1: God it was a bit scandalous, I suppose. But but
Speaker 1: but in a way, you know, when all the stuff
Speaker 1: started coming out over the last couple of decades of
Speaker 1: what has gone on to some were lots of poor
Speaker 1: actresses and models and how they were treated that that
Speaker 1: didn't happen to me because I had this guy always
Speaker 1: in standing at the back of the studio and he
Speaker 1: was quite a big guy, you know, muscular, and so
Speaker 1: I never got hit on. And when when you look
Speaker 1: at that relationship, you say it became it became your boyfriend.
Speaker 1: What do you think about that relationship now, Well, it's
Speaker 1: so long ago, and I ended it in the end
Speaker 1: because I grew out of it very quickly. But what
Speaker 1: was complicated was that he was managing me, so it
Speaker 1: was very complicated. But you know, we sorted it out
Speaker 1: and then I went on to meet my first husband,
Speaker 1: Arlie's dad. Now, social class is a huge part of
Speaker 1: British society. Oh yeah, your family, and you were very
Speaker 1: much working, working, very much. So yeah, but at the
Speaker 1: same time you've become sort of this face for a
Speaker 1: nation and in many ways an entire era. Well the person,
Speaker 1: the person who really cemented that for me was Diana
Speaker 1: of Reland, who she for people who don't know, she
Speaker 1: was the editors of American Vogue. And I always say
Speaker 1: that Diana of Reland turned me global because I was
Speaker 1: very famous in England, but the rest of the world
Speaker 1: probably hadn't heard of me unless they got British papers.
Speaker 1: But why do you think that is, I mean, you
Speaker 1: had such a huge impact. Well, she brought me to
Speaker 1: New York when she read all the stuff going on
Speaker 1: in England. Within nine months I was in New York.
Speaker 1: And because of me going in a few years after
Speaker 1: the Beatles, I was like part of that British invasion.
Speaker 1: I was turned into a celebrity. But what happened in
Speaker 1: New York which we didn't count on. When I arrived
Speaker 1: at the airport, you know, there was a press conference
Speaker 1: and there were crowds of people with banners saying welcome tweet.
Speaker 1: It was like because I I came in after the Beatles,
Speaker 1: so it was very peculiar, a bit scary, and I
Speaker 1: can remember going for a walk one day and we
Speaker 1: had to escape into a shop because people were coming
Speaker 1: up and saying could they touch me? And the girls
Speaker 1: started like getting bits of paper out and screaming, and
Speaker 1: that was scary. It was weird because you didn't spend
Speaker 1: that many years modeling, did you. I modeled for four
Speaker 1: years from nineteen sixty six to nineteen sixty nine seventy.
Speaker 1: But in the interim I met this amazing man called
Speaker 1: Ken Russell, you know, the film director, and he cast
Speaker 1: me in my first film, and The Boyfriend and One.
Speaker 1: So we started filming and it was a musical and
Speaker 1: I got to sing and dance and it was like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, this is am this is what I
Speaker 1: want to do. So I made the decision at the
Speaker 1: grand old age of twenty that I would follow that
Speaker 1: route rather than the modeling route, because in those days
Speaker 1: there was a bit of a down or you know,
Speaker 1: models were pretty and thick and stupid, which is an
Speaker 1: absolute rubbish, but that's what the kind of feeling was,
Speaker 1: and that I thought, if I'm going to be taken
Speaker 1: seriously as a performer, I probably got an model. Well, also,
Speaker 1: you're so recognizable and so on for you know, everybody's brain.
Speaker 1: And at a time of such high fashion, did you
Speaker 1: did they dress you? Did you pack your own clothes
Speaker 1: and dress yourself for these shows? And well I didn't.
Speaker 1: I never did catwalk. Actually, that was one thing I
Speaker 1: didn't do. I never did either. I did I did
Speaker 1: you know the top fashion magazines, so as you know,
Speaker 1: they send the clothes over you, model is sent for
Speaker 1: you to wear. But was it the same way with
Speaker 1: you when it was in because they never used to
Speaker 1: give us anything Like the stuff you've usually had huge
Speaker 1: holes in it so that people wouldn't steal it or somehow.
Speaker 1: But we never, you know, we never given anything. I
Speaker 1: know because people always say, oh, you must have got
Speaker 1: such amazing clothes, but usually they were samples anyway, so
Speaker 1: they're not going to give you the samples, right, I
Speaker 1: mean I only fit into samples for a little while.
Speaker 1: One of the reasons why I never did runway. But
Speaker 1: I was never really small enough to fit into the
Speaker 1: samples except for when I was much much younger. Well
Speaker 1: I was the I was the opposite. A lot of
Speaker 1: the samples didn't fit me because I was so tiny.
Speaker 1: I was you know, only five foot six and tiny,
Speaker 1: and was there pressure. You talk about it a lot.
Speaker 1: I mean you've you talk about sort of the idea
Speaker 1: of the physical and the industry's expectation of the female body,
Speaker 1: and you were the absolute center of what it meant.
Speaker 1: I got blamed for anorexia, and I used to go
Speaker 1: on TV and explain that I understood because I was
Speaker 1: very skinny, but that I ate like a horse. I
Speaker 1: didn't put myself up there to say this. You've got
Speaker 1: to look like listen. I was as shocked as probably
Speaker 1: more than anyone. You know, what happened to me happened
Speaker 1: because you know I didn't. I thought I was well.
Speaker 1: I was a funny little thing, really very skinny legs,
Speaker 1: not what you'd call a figure. As one journalists said,
Speaker 1: Oh great, I love how those are the things that
Speaker 1: stick out to us. But it's just but a lot
Speaker 1: of people, I think to assume that, and I think
Speaker 1: we have seen it a lot. You know, I hear
Speaker 1: those horror stories of models who eat cutton balls to
Speaker 1: fill their stomach up. I've hearing all these and you know,
Speaker 1: you look at the samples now and in the shows,
Speaker 1: and they're not getting better. I mean, I know that
Speaker 1: there's tough they say it's body inclusivity and that there's
Speaker 1: healthier bodies in there, but the clothes are not reflecting it.
Speaker 1: And when the times that I've seen shows, it's amazing
Speaker 1: how thin I know, and it's worrying actually, And I
Speaker 1: always did come out and say, look, you know I
Speaker 1: am very thin, but I'm very young. I do eat.
Speaker 1: I eat very healthily. I eat most things. And you know,
Speaker 1: everyone is not born to be a certain shape, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's not healthy to be obesely overweight, but
Speaker 1: I don't think everyone should be skinny. I really don't
Speaker 1: a body type though. It's really should not be a trend,
Speaker 1: you know, I think absolutely not. And that whole that
Speaker 1: pressure was put on you. You know that that was
Speaker 1: the ideal that you had to be that way. And
Speaker 1: I think what helped me actually because I think the
Speaker 1: fact that I only modeled for those four years, it
Speaker 1: didn't become the be all and end all of life,
Speaker 1: do you know? I mean, because I met Ken Russell
Speaker 1: and he gave me the gift of casting me in
Speaker 1: this wonderful film that he made. Did he ever tell
Speaker 1: you what he thought? Like? Did he ever say to you,
Speaker 1: this is why I want you to do this. You've
Speaker 1: never done it before, but this is what I want
Speaker 1: for you. I mean, his faith in me was extraordinary
Speaker 1: because I didn't have I didn't have an equity card,
Speaker 1: which in England I don't know about in America you
Speaker 1: couldn't do a film unless you had an equity card.
Speaker 1: And he picked it equity to get me a card
Speaker 1: because it was ridiculous they wouldn't give me a card
Speaker 1: because I was a model, and he got me one
Speaker 1: in the end, so I mean, he really did have faith.
Speaker 1: And then the studios, as you can imagine, I think
Speaker 1: it was MGM, they didn't want me in the lead,
Speaker 1: which again you know they said she's a model. But
Speaker 1: luckily at that point Ken Russell was the most famous
Speaker 1: British film director. You know, he'd done Women in Love
Speaker 1: and The Devil's I mean he was he was huge
Speaker 1: megastar in that world and he was like the Steven
Speaker 1: Spielberg of England there absolutely, and so he just God
Speaker 1: bless him, said well, if I don't have her, I
Speaker 1: won't make it. So you get on this set and
Speaker 1: it's a revelation to you. Oh, unbelievable scary. I was
Speaker 1: really can imagine how scared I was, because you know
Speaker 1: I was. It was all I knew a few actors
Speaker 1: I'd met, but I to walk on and knowing they
Speaker 1: were all professional actors, and you know, but they were
Speaker 1: all at Bar one. Everyone in that on that film
Speaker 1: were wonderful to me, and Christopher Gabele who was my
Speaker 1: leading man, and Tommy cho and that's where I met Tommy.
Speaker 1: I got him cast in that Actually. You know, it's
Speaker 1: interesting because I never felt that I was in the
Speaker 1: pocket of what I was supposed to do until I
Speaker 1: discovered comedy and musical theater. Oh okay, when did you
Speaker 1: feel like your career aligned with your actual passions? Oh gosh, well,
Speaker 1: that's funny enough. I was so nervous about doing my
Speaker 1: one and only but like you, it was like again,
Speaker 1: it was like, oh my god, this is amazing. I
Speaker 1: don't really remember opening night because I was so scared,
Speaker 1: but we got through it. I remember Tommy had hurt
Speaker 1: his back so he couldn't kick his leg as high
Speaker 1: as he wanted to, and I had I had, I
Speaker 1: had I'd got a sore throat because you know, when
Speaker 1: you put a show on You're so tired by the
Speaker 1: time you open. But anyway, we opened and they loved us,
Speaker 1: thank God. And My one and only was a musical
Speaker 1: that you did on Broadway as well, was in the
Speaker 1: West exactly. It is, yeah, amazing and you and Tommy
Speaker 1: tune ah, that's RISI BlimE. I grew to absolutely love
Speaker 1: an Adore. It was. It was, and I'll always thank
Speaker 1: Tommy for giving me that chance because it was a
Speaker 1: world I never thought i'd enter that I could, and
Speaker 1: I did grow to really love in the door. We
Speaker 1: did it for eighteen months. Okay, I want to switch
Speaker 1: over to talk about your first husband, Michael Carly's dad.
Speaker 1: How old was she when he passed away. She was
Speaker 1: coming up to her fifth birthday. It was horrendous. But
Speaker 1: that whole period was very difficult. I mean, he was
Speaker 1: an amazing man, a very talented man, but he did
Speaker 1: have an alcohol problem and it sadly, while I was
Speaker 1: doing the show on Broadway, it kind of got worse,
Speaker 1: I think because I was so busy doing that, and
Speaker 1: eventually he did have a massive heart attack and he
Speaker 1: didn't make it. While you were away what I was doing,
Speaker 1: I was doing the show, but we were separated at
Speaker 1: that time because it had become so difficult with his problem,
Speaker 1: and bless his heart, he had gone to he'd stopped
Speaker 1: drinking for about nine months, I think, and gone to
Speaker 1: AA and things, so he was trying. But I think
Speaker 1: the damage, well, we know the damage was done. But
Speaker 1: the heart, my heart really went out to Carlie because
Speaker 1: you know, I'd kind of made the decision not to Well,
Speaker 1: I couldn't be with him, I couldn't do the show,
Speaker 1: deal with the other problem. It had kind of broken,
Speaker 1: if you know what I mean. How do you keep
Speaker 1: his memory positively alive for her? How do you well,
Speaker 1: we talk about him all the time and and you know,
Speaker 1: and she knows the problem he had, and well it's
Speaker 1: nobody's fault when the alcoholism takes over, I suppose, but
Speaker 1: he gave up a lot for that, you know, the bottle,
Speaker 1: if you know what I mean, which is what happens
Speaker 1: with people who have a drink problem. I think I
Speaker 1: always say to her, he loved you more than anything
Speaker 1: in the world, which he did. You know, she was
Speaker 1: his angel. And the hardest thing for her, she can't
Speaker 1: really remember him that well because she's only five. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I mean, that's that's the hard, hard pope. But
Speaker 1: then you're all of a sudden, I mean you probably
Speaker 1: felt like you were a single mom already. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: also I had to get I mean I took obviously,
Speaker 1: I took a couple of days off. My understudy went
Speaker 1: on to deal with the things you have to deal
Speaker 1: with and and make sure Carly was all right. And
Speaker 1: then I thought, well, hold on, I've got to go
Speaker 1: back to work. You know, I'm I'm now the bread
Speaker 1: the number one breadwinner. I've got a daughter, you know.
Speaker 1: And actually the show helped, well, I carve the show
Speaker 1: now because it's about moments like that one that totally
Speaker 1: uproot your life. And I'm always very curious, um if
Speaker 1: there was a particular one or a few in your
Speaker 1: life that that really stick out to you. Well, we've
Speaker 1: just we've just talked about one. Yeah, And I made
Speaker 1: that decision. I think, well, you'll understand this, and any
Speaker 1: mother out there, in the end, it's your baby, and
Speaker 1: you are the sole provider and loved one of that child.
Speaker 1: And she, you know, she became my world and to
Speaker 1: look after that world I had to. But as I said,
Speaker 1: it helped me as well. Of course, carrying on doing
Speaker 1: the show. Was your mom helpful with Carly? She was
Speaker 1: quite elderly when Carly came along, and also she had
Speaker 1: depression issues. She was fine for a lot of the time,
Speaker 1: but then I think nowadays she'd probably be diagnosed as bipolar,
Speaker 1: but they didn't do it then, and she actually had
Speaker 1: shock treatment when she was in her fifties. Really, they
Speaker 1: gave a shock treatment. Francis Farmer and like Francis Farmer, yeah, exact,
Speaker 1: really beautiful actress. Yeah, so your sister's probably that when
Speaker 1: you say she's like your older sister was like a mum. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's why because if you can imagine, when I was five,
Speaker 1: my elder sister was twenty, so she used to take
Speaker 1: me on holiday, and you know, mum was and I
Speaker 1: loved I was really close to my mum, but she
Speaker 1: was kind of fragile, if you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: So by the time Carly came along, she was older
Speaker 1: and she, you know, dealing with whatever was going on
Speaker 1: with her um. So you know, she I used to
Speaker 1: take Carly to see her when we were when we
Speaker 1: were in England because you know, but then we were
Speaker 1: living half the time in America and they had a
Speaker 1: nice relationship, but again, it wasn't like like the relationship
Speaker 1: I've got with Carli's too. When you're so young, you
Speaker 1: don't did you really know what was what it was
Speaker 1: like growing up in that environment with a mum who
Speaker 1: who struggled. Not really, not until I was older, because
Speaker 1: my dad was amazing, right, And as I say, it
Speaker 1: would for months and months and months and months, mum
Speaker 1: would be fine and then she would have a dip. Yeah,
Speaker 1: until she wasn't. And they didn't really know how to
Speaker 1: diagnose that then and how to look at They gave
Speaker 1: her pills, the good old pills, give her a pill treatment.
Speaker 1: But she lived till she was ninety ones. And I'm sure,
Speaker 1: even if she didn't quite know how to express it,
Speaker 1: that she was truly truly proud of her little Yeah
Speaker 1: she was, she was, and you know she did your
Speaker 1: sisters have babies? Oh yeah, they've got They had surely
Speaker 1: had three, and they've had two and now they're they're
Speaker 1: all having babies. So the extended family is endless, as
Speaker 1: as as it always is. So funny, Um, so you're
Speaker 1: doing a documentary. How were you approached for the documentary? Well,
Speaker 1: funny enough, Sadie Frost and very sweet you agreed to
Speaker 1: be interviewed. Thank you. It's very honored to have been
Speaker 1: asked to appear in your documentary. Thank you. Well. I
Speaker 1: was doing my podcast, which you very kindly did, and
Speaker 1: I got a call through my producer saying, the public
Speaker 1: relations people for this new documentary on Mary Quant who
Speaker 1: was a famous British designer, directed by Sadie Frost, is
Speaker 1: coming out. This is about eighteen months ago, and could
Speaker 1: Sadie come on my podcast to talk about And I said, oh, great,
Speaker 1: because I kind of I didn't know her ever so well,
Speaker 1: but I knew her. So she did my podcast and
Speaker 1: we were chatting and I said, are you going to
Speaker 1: do another documentary? And she said, oh, I should do
Speaker 1: you and we laughed, and then when we came off air,
Speaker 1: she said, what do you think would you let me
Speaker 1: do you? And I said, WHOA, yeah, I suppose. I
Speaker 1: can't really stop being So then we went out for
Speaker 1: lunch the next week and she said, I think it's
Speaker 1: quite a good idea. What do you think? And I
Speaker 1: I said, well, you know, if you really want to, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's it's your baby. Really, Oh, it's exciting
Speaker 1: it's it's going to be very emotional when you watch it,
Speaker 1: and I'd rather it be done by somebody that I
Speaker 1: kind of know, right, And also she did a brilliant
Speaker 1: job one quant. I don't know whether you watched it,
Speaker 1: but it's a really good documentary. I can't wait till
Speaker 1: the process. This part of the process you get to
Speaker 1: experience because it's just so good for all the right reasons.
Speaker 1: And it's not praising, it's nothing, nothing about that. It's
Speaker 1: the depth of a life and you can appreciate that.
Speaker 1: If you were to look, when you look back on
Speaker 1: your many, many accomplishments in your life, what would you
Speaker 1: say your through line is? Oh, gosh, um, I think
Speaker 1: what's important in my life? I mean because of what
Speaker 1: happened to me? And again a bit like what happened
Speaker 1: to you was so extraordinary and you couldn't have You
Speaker 1: couldn't have choreographed it. If you if you or written it,
Speaker 1: people say, oh, that's rubbish, that can't happen to somebody.
Speaker 1: So my through line really was always my family. It
Speaker 1: was always very important that I had a home life
Speaker 1: because I'd met many people in our business that had
Speaker 1: gone the other way, and that the work was the
Speaker 1: most important, and and they'd kind of lost the other
Speaker 1: and they didn't seem very happy. And my personal life
Speaker 1: has always been incredibly important. I was very lucky to
Speaker 1: meet Lee, who my husband. We've been together now for
Speaker 1: thirty eight years this year. Well thank you. And that's
Speaker 1: always been my kind of rock, my home life, being
Speaker 1: mum to Carli, now being you know, grandpa. What's weird now?
Speaker 1: Because Joan is seven and other little girls in her
Speaker 1: class whose mums have probably said something because she came
Speaker 1: home and said to me, are you stuymuch? Oh they're not?
Speaker 1: Oh God, here we go. I knew it would happen
Speaker 1: one day because somebody was going to say something, all right,
Speaker 1: And I said, well, you know, I've done a few things,
Speaker 1: but I'm still your mimi, so I don't worry about
Speaker 1: it exactly. And I wouldn't have it any other way.
Speaker 1: But my role, because I said, is my family. That
Speaker 1: was the one and only Twiggy. If you want to
Speaker 1: hear more from her, listen to her podcast Tea with
Speaker 1: Twiggy Annie. iHeartRadio, app Apple podcasts or wherever you get
Speaker 1: your podcasts. That's it for us. Tucked to you next week.
Speaker 1: Now What with Brookshields is a production of iHeartRadio. Our
Speaker 1: lead producer and wonderful showrunner is Julia Weaver. Additional research
Speaker 1: and editing by Darby Masters and Abou Zafar. Our executive
Speaker 1: producer is Christina Everett. The show is mixed by Bahed Fraser.