Anointed by Newsweek as the “most beautiful film actress of all time,” Jacqueline Bisset’s career has spanned almost fifty years. With her fresh-faced appeal and elegant British manner, she enjoyed early film roles opposite Frank Sinatra and Steve McQueen. Subsequent roles paired her with many of Hollywood’s leading men. Today at 70 years of age, she remains active in roles on television and in film.

She’s also making waves in the news, speaking up about beauty and aging. The actress suggests women today are more obsessed with being “hot” rather than being “charming, romantic or beautiful.” As the actress freely admits, “I never felt beautiful.” Bisset also asserts she has always liked men “… but I didn’t feel that my looks were what they found most attractive in me.”

These comments were gratifying to read. It’s also heartening to know Bisset has chosen the path of growing older gracefully, eschewing the surgeries and Botox that have disfigured (my opinion) so many others.

I’ve posted about beauty and aging before … more than once. I think it’s inevitable for women (whatever our age) to consider how we “measure” up to the ideals that are visually thrust at us from every medium.

Few of us could understand the heady pronouncement that surely comes from being named “most beautiful” … anything. But we’d like to think as women that we’re beautiful in someone’s eyes. Some of us probably wince at the old saw, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but we accede to it because (I think it’s safe to say) everyone aspires to be beautiful.

As I reflected on Bisset’s legacy (both as a young actress and now as she models maturity and age), my reflections took form and I composed the poem below.