50 and fantastic: the rise of the Quintastics

Are you Quintastic?

Sexy, smart and with a ferocious new lease of life at 50 – they’re women whose mid-lives are far from a crisis

IT WAS the Oscar-winning Canadian actress Marie Dressler who first isolated it as the zenith of a woman’s life. “By the time we hit 50, we have found out that only a few things are really important. We have learnt to take life seriously but never ourselves.”

As Dressler turned 50 in 1918 she was certainly ahead of her time in celebrating the heady joys of middle age but she had good reason to believe that the birthday could herald a renaissance in a woman’s life: she didn’t appear in a film until she was 42 and at the age of 65 was still Hollywood’s No 1 box office attraction. For her, 50 represented a new lease of life filled with opportunity and fresh challenges.

Back then, of course, she was the exception. For most women – and this was the case until fairly recently – hitting the half-century was the start of a steady decline towards the infirmity of old age.

How things have changed. Today a raft of successful, sensual, smart women have marked or are about to celebrate their big 5-0. This year the so-called Quintastics – those born five decades ago – include the actresses Greta Scacchi, Tilda Swinton, Kristin Scott Thomas and Julianne Moore, as well as Domestic Goddess Nigella Lawson and TV presenter Carol Vorderman.

Last year Nastassja Kinski turned 50, so did fellow actress Emma Thompson and singer Sheena Easton. Also blooming in their 50s are singer Madonna and actresses Miranda Richardson, Sharon Stone and Annette Bening, the woman who enticed Warren Beatty to quit his bachelor life.

“If you think hitting 40 is liberating, wait until you hit 50,” says actress Michelle Pfeiffer who will be 52 in April.