LONDON — In an age of feel-bad stories, between the tariffs, the wars and the toxic politics, Sadie Frost has a feel-good tale to tell with her latest film, “Twiggy,” about the model who helped define ’60s youth culture, and went on to become an award-winning actress, singer, dancer — and a dame in Queen Elizabeth’s 2019 New Year Honors list.
Frost’s film about Lesley Hornby, the freckle-faced working class girl from north London, is mostly sunshine and flowers and — shockingly — there isn’t any sex, drugs, rock ’n’ roll, or any other kind of scandal.
Given Twiggy’s heyday, and the fact that she was a teenager when she hit the big time, it’s nothing short of miraculous that she emerged successful, serene and still eager to sing, dance and model into her golden years.
The film is the portrait of a lady who’s living a good life. “She wakes up happy,” says Leigh Lawson, Twiggy’s actor husband of nearly 40 years, in the film, while friend Dustin Hoffman adds that “the success never altered her in any way. She is who she is.”
There is even more adulation from Twiggy’s peers, friends and admirers from across the generations, ranging from Joanna Lumley and Zandra Rhodes to Brooke Shields, Sienna Miller, Stella McCartney, Erin O’Connor and Poppy Delevingne.
The poster for “Twiggy,” directed by Sadie Frost and distributed by Studio Soho.
Paul McCartney and Biba founder Barbara Hulanicki also feature, as does Tommy Tune, the dancer, theater director and choreographer who gave Twiggy the role in the Gershwin musical “My One and Only” on Broadway. The role would earn her a Tony nomination in 1983.
Describing their rehearsals, the colorful 6’6”-tall Tune says in his Texas twang, “We were just bones on elastic. She was a twig, and I was a stick.”
Twiggy’s interesting, but unblemished, life presented a challenge for Frost, who came up with the idea for “Twiggy” after making “Quant,” a documentary about Mary Quant, the designer and symbol of Swinging ’60s London who popularized the miniskirt.
“She’s really inspiring and has had an amazing life, and sometimes that’s harder than if you’re telling a story about Marianne Faithfull or Anita Pallenberg who’ve done these crazy things. It was a challenge to do a film that was technically very solid as well as being uplifting and celebratory,” says Frost in an interview.
So she decided to look at Twiggy as “a survivor, as someone who kept things positive, and who didn’t get sucked up by the industry.”
In the film, Frost also highlights the class and gender barriers that Twiggy was able to break with her working class London accent, and looks that Stella McCartney describes as “blurring the lines between male and female.”
The film also focuses on the challenges that Twiggy herself had to face — the sexism, patronizing treatment from older men, and body shaming.
Twiggy and Sadie Frost
eddy massarella
In one archive clip, then up-and-coming comedian Woody Allen asks the high school dropout Twiggy to name her favorite philosopher. To her credit, she flips the question right back at him — but he’s unable to give her a straight answer.
Looking back, Twiggy says she was so nervous during that interview that she was sitting on her hands, and trying her hardest not to cry.
It was one of many cringe moments in her early career. Male interviewers suggested that she was a bad influence on young girls in Europe who were starving themselves in order to look like her, and asked her opinion about “the bust” being back in fashion.
“I was blamed for being too thin — but I didn’t diet. I was just young and skinny,” says Twiggy, who is now 75 years old. She certainly wasn’t the only skinny teen on the block. Food rationing in the U.K. only ended in 1954, when Twiggy was 5 years old, and her generation lived on simple, plain home cooking.
“You see these talk show hosts asking for her measurements, and talking about her weight and what she looks like rather than what she’s achieved — and this is right after she’s won the two Golden Globes,” for her role in Ken Russell’s 1972 film “The Boyfriend,” says Frost.
“I’ve been in the industry myself, so I really felt it was important to highlight those things, and for young women to see how things have changed, even though we’ve still got a long way to go. It was a real passion for me to make these films,” says Frost, an actress, clothing entrepreneur, producer and director.
A 1966 photo of Twiggy swinging around London.
Alamy Stock Photo
Patriarchy aside, the film is full of joy, and a visual history of London’s youthquake.
Viewers see Twiggy applying her distinctive black eyelashes (three sets on top, and painted spikes on the bottom) that mimicked those of the rag doll in her bedroom. They also get to watch how the famous London stylist Leonard Lewis, and the colorist Daniel Galvin, give Twiggy her signature boyish blond bob.
There is fashion galore, starting with the sweet Fair Isle sweater that Twiggy wears in the famous Barry Lategan test shot which led the British newspaper Daily Express to dub her the “Face of ’66.” There are also the exotic, romantic Biba creations that she loved so much, and the numerous minidresses, bright, opaque tights and low-heel shoes that all screamed youth.
Music plays a big part, too, with Twiggy (and her entire family) in ecstasy when they discover that David Bowie has mentioned her name in the song “Drive-In Saturday” from his 1973 album “Aladdin Sane.”
She also recalls, many years later, Paul McCartney making her and Lawson a vegetarian feast of a breakfast and then picking up his guitar and serenading them with a performance of “Blackbird” right there at the table.
Only part of the film focuses on Twiggy as a teenage modeling sensation. Frost says she enjoyed reminding everyone how much the model actually achieved once she ceased to become a symbol of ’60s London.
A still from the film “Twiggy,” directed by Sadie Frost.
Twiggy went on to marry twice, and had her daughter, Carly Witney, in 1978, with her first husband, Michael Witney. An alcoholic, Witney died of a heart attack when Carly was young, and Twiggy would later fall in love with Lawson.
As the years passed, she pursued acting, singing and dancing and appeared on Broadway and in the West End. Latterly, she has featured in fashion shoots, campaigns for brands including Marks & Spencer and Charlotte Tilbury, and created her own line for HSN called Twiggy London.
“There’s a vast number of things that people had forgotten,” says Frost. “Twiggy was an international star — and she was funny — she was even on ‘The Muppet Show.’ Her humility is amazing, she’s grounded, and she’s not got a hoity-toity bone in her body.
“She also taught herself to do everything. Can you imagine being 15 or 16, becoming the most famous model in the world, and then learning to act and sing and dance? She had such a strength of character, and nothing seemed to faze her,” Frost adds.
Twiggy managed to strike a work-life balance throughout her life, and it has paid rich dividends.
“Family life has always taken precedence over work,” she says at the end of the film, and her family loves her right back.
At one point, Lawson says they’ve been together for 38 years, and he’s hoping they have as many more together, while Carly tells her mother how much she loves her, and blows her kisses — just like Twiggy’s millions of fans did decades ago.
