No botox, no swimsuit shoots and don’t call me Grandma! Twiggy shares her secrets to ageing gracefully

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For those of us gifted by Mother Nature with an average physique, it’s reassuring to know that even former supermodels have their hang-ups.

Take Twiggy. Sixties icon she may have been, but in her teenage mind her ‘funny little sticky’ legs were not a patch on those of fellow model Pattie Boyd, the blonde knockout who would go on to capture the hearts of both George Harrison and Eric Clapton.

‘I used to long for Pattie’s legs,’ Twiggy sighs. ‘To this day, she has the best pair of legs. They’re amazing —shapely, but long and skinny. She was gorgeous. Still is.’

The same might be said for Twiggy, who at 73 retains the piercing blue eyes and beautiful bone structure that, nearly half a century ago, saw her plucked from North London schoolgirl obscurity to be labelled ‘The Face of 66’. What a life she has had since.

She has modelled all over the world, made feature films, starred on Broadway, hosted her own chat show, recorded albums and launched a clothing line and podcast, in the process gathering an address book that’s like an A-Z of modern celebrity, featuring everyone from Dustin Hoffman (‘a great friend’) to Paul McCartney and Kate Moss.

Sixties icon Twiggy, 73, has had a career spanning modelling, acting, chart music and musicals. She's most proud of the latter, specifically her 1983 Tony award-nominated stint on Broadway in the musical My One And Only

In 2019 she was made a dame. ‘I’m so proud of being British, so I was thrilled about that,’ she says.

It’s quite the journey, and one which is being told for the first time in a documentary made by actor-turned-filmmaker Sadie Frost (another friend), who suggested the idea after appearing on Twiggy’s podcast, Tea With Twiggy, promoting her film tribute to Mary Quant.

‘I asked her on the podcast whether she was going to do any more in a similar vein and she said: “Oh, I should do you.” And I just laughed,’ Twiggy recalls. ‘But then when we came off the podcast, she said: “What do you think?” And that was that really.’

In fact, it is the first of two Twiggy life stories this year: due in September is nothing less than a Twiggy musical, Close Up, written and directed by Ben Elton (also a friend).

The film, meanwhile, is currently in the edit suite. The final footage was taken last week at the Cannes Film Festival, but it’s a safe bet that it will be a trip down memory lane, featuring stills and video footage from various eras, interlaced with commentary from showbiz luminaries.

It’s also the reason why we are meeting today at the airy Kensington flat Twiggy shares with her second husband, the actor Leigh Lawson, and which itself is something of a mini-museum of Twiggy’s star-sprinkled life.

There is a large black-and-white photograph of her modelling with Kate Moss in the bathroom, alongside a sketch signed by Dustin Hoffman, in which he is depicted in his 1989 role as Shylock in The Merchant Of Venice, alongside Lawson as Antonio.

It is all a very long way from the Neasden semi-detached where Lesley Hornby, as she was then, was born the youngest of three daughters in the aftermath of World War II.

Early days: Twiggy's mum Nell battled periods of depression, spending some time in a psychiatric hospital. She describes her dad as incredibly protective and level-headed

There was a big gap between the three girls and, at 15 years older, her eldest sister Shirley was like a second mum, particularly as their mother Nell battled periods of depression which meant that on occasions she was admitted to a psychiatric hospital.

Twiggy says: ‘I think today they’d probably diagnose bipolar disorder. ‘In the family we all think that it started after she had me, because she was 40 then, which in those days was late. And she probably had postnatal depression, which wasn’t diagnosed. And then there was the war.

‘When my other sister, Vivien, was just a baby, a bomb dropped at the end of our back garden and blew the windows in. It must have been so frightening. So I think her nerves were shattered. But I was so protected by my dad and my sisters.’

Twiggy adored her dad Norman, a joiner and master carpenter who had migrated down south from his home town of Bolton, Lancashire. ‘I loved my mum but he was special,’ she says. ‘He was incredibly protective and level-headed.’

Norman certainly seems to have had commendable foresight. From the moment ‘Twiggy’ — the name was a spin-off from her childhood nickname, Twigs — was launched on the world after being spotted by a fashion journalist modelling a new cropped hairstyle for celebrity hairdresser Leonard Lewis, he made sure that she was never left unsupervised.

‘One week I was at school and within three months I was doing the Paris collections for Elle magazine and Vogue,’ she says, shaking her head at the memory. ‘I mean, it was mad. I was 16 — and a very green 16, really. I see 16-year-olds now and they seem so grown up.

‘When this all kicked off and I was getting all these bookings, Dad said: “Well, you can’t do that on your own.” So whether it was my mum, my dad, a friend, I never went into a photographic session without somebody with me, and I think that’s why I sailed through that period.

‘I didn’t have any issues. I didn’t even think about it, but my dad obviously did. He worked in film studios, he built sets, so maybe he saw stuff, although he never said anything to me.’

Chic but so sensible: Twiggy always attended castings and shoots with chaperones and never touched drugs, crediting her dad for her level-headedness

While the fashion world, like others, has been rocked by allegations of sexual assault in the wake of the #MeToo movement, thanks to the watchful eyes of chaperones, Twiggy emerged unscathed.

Nor did she ever touch drugs. ‘I’ve always just been sensible — although I am partial to a glass of rosé,’ she smiles. ‘Again, I think that’s down to my dad. He’s where I get my level-headedness from.’

That doesn’t mean to say Twiggy didn’t have fun. Bar the occasional touch of homesickness, she loved every second.

Last year Pattie Boyd, she of the endless legs, spoke of how she struggles with the over-sensitivities of today’s young people and yearns for the freedoms of the Sixties.

While Twiggy doesn’t quite take it that far, she has some sympathy with her friend’s sentiment: ‘I was talking about this with someone the other day,’ she says. ‘How it’s far more difficult in acting and directing. 

'You have to be careful what you call people now. I mean, we get emails sometimes and it says “he/him’’ at the bottom. I don’t quite know what to make of it. 

'I think some things had to change and the MeToo moment was a good thing, but the pendulum’s gone a bit too far the other way and it needs to come back to some sort of balance.’

By the late 1960s, Twiggy was at the height of her modelling career when the late, legendary director Ken Russell took her under his wing and seemed determined to make an actress of her.

Close: Twiggy and her second husband, the actor Leigh Lawson, live together in a Kensington flat, which itself is something of a mini-museum of Twiggy’s star-sprinkled life

‘We used to have these amazing nights at his house with his wife Shirley where he’d screen old films — Busby Berkeley, all the Fred and Ginger films. It was an amazing education in film and life, too. Really, he became my mentor.’

It was Russell who cast her as the lead in his 1971 musical extravaganza The Boy Friend, against what Twiggy recalls now was widespread opposition.

‘Everyone tried to stop me doing that film because, in their eyes, I was just a model,’ she says. ‘And in those days I think the theory was that models were a bit stupid. So Equity wouldn’t give me a card and the film studio were very nervous. But Ken said he wouldn’t do it without me.’

His stubbornness was thoroughly vindicated: Twiggy went on to win two Golden Globes for her role as shy schoolgirl Polly Browne, and a new career was born. ‘I suddenly thought: “I love this.” So rightly or wrongly, I made the decision to do something different.’

More acting roles followed, as well as a music career and chart success, with an eponymous album in 1976.

It was already an impressive CV, but it was her 1983 Tony award-nominated stint on Broadway in the musical My One And Only of which she remains proudest.

She was cast by her Boy Friend co-star turned director, Tommy Tune, and recalls her initial terror at the thought of performing live on stage. ‘I said to Tommy: “I can’t do that.” And he said: “No such thing as can’t, get on a plane.” So I did, and it proved to me that I could do something I thought I couldn’t. That has stayed with me ever since.’

By then Twiggy was mum to her ‘pride and joy’, daughter Carly, now 45, with first husband Michael Witney. He died just six years into their marriage from a heart attack at the age of 52, but their union had not been without its problems. ‘He was a good man but he had an alcohol problem,’ says Twiggy.

Pin-up: Twiggy appeared on the cover of David Bowie's 'Pin Ups' album, which was released in 1973

She returned to the UK, buying the Kensington flat that has been her London base ever since (she also has a country home in Sussex).

She says: ‘When I think what I paid for it and what it’s worth now, it’s unbelievable. It was expensive — I could afford it because I’d done a Broadway show for 18 months — but not expensive in the way it would be today.

‘The cost of everything now is off the scale. Most young people in the 1960s could buy something, even if it was a bedsit, and that’s not the case now, is it? In that sense I feel sorry for young people.’

Three months after completing contracts on her home, she met actor and director Leigh and they have been together ever since. ‘Thirty-eight years together, 35 years married,’ she says.

Leigh is there at the start of the interview, and from the snapshot I see of the duo together they seem to have a lovely, warm relationship. ‘We have, actually. I think we met at a good time. Fundamentally we just like being together. We’re best friends as well as husband and wife.’

Still, in a world littered with showbiz divorces, their longevity is notable. What’s their secret?

‘I think separations don’t help,’ she says. ‘So when we met, if Leigh got a big job somewhere, I would make sure that I’d go with him; and if I got one, he’d come with me. We wanted to be together, but also I knew that separation is very difficult in a relationship.’

There certainly seems to have been a steadfast thread of common sense in Twiggy’s life.

In a career spanning 55 years she has barely put a foot wrong. There was a minor scandal when an advert she made for Olay eye cream in 2009 was banned by the ASA after complaints that airbrushing made it misleading — although, as she pointed out at the time, that was nothing to do with her — and she was axed after just four weeks from a stint hosting ITV breakfast show This Morning alongside Coleen Nolan back in 2001, which she won’t discuss today. 

In fact, she seems almost determinedly grounded. ‘We’ve all met people in the entertainment business who are kind of flying, they’re not quite with the world, are they? And that’s not me. I love going to the supermarket, just ordinary things. I love my job, but my life is real life with Leigh and my kids, my grandkids, my friends.’

Twiggy certainly loves being a grandmother — or ‘Mimi’ as she’s known, having rejected the term grandma. Her face lights up when she talks about Carly’s children, Joni, now eight, and three-year-old Theo.

She is also a step-grandma to Leigh’s son Jason, who has three children aged eight, five and three. ‘And then Leigh’s got a nephew who he’s almost been like a dad to, and he’s got three now, so when we get a houseful, it is noisy. But I love it. It’s what life’s about, isn’t it?’

Moreover, while I meet ‘photoshoot’ Twiggy in full make-up and with styled hair, ‘Mimi’ Twiggy is usually bare-faced, with a ponytail. ‘That’s me when I’m out and about. Sunglasses, hair just pulled under a baseball cap,’ she says.

Nor, unlike many people of her vintage in the public eye, has she gone under the knife.

‘I’m kind of proud of my wrinkles’ she says. ‘I understand when people have little tweaks and maybe I’ll even do it, I don’t know. But what I don’t think I’d ever do is all the stuff they inject, when they get those funny cheeks that look like cotton wool balls have been stuffed in them. It would frighten me.’

She has never even had Botox, long seen as an entry-level ‘tweakment’ for the modern celeb. ‘It’s botulism, isn’t it?’ she grimaces. ‘And I never fancied the idea of that floating round my body.’

She is relaxed about exercise, too, other than a once-a-week Pilates session which she says has eliminated a bad back that had plagued her since she turned 60. ‘I’m bigger than I was — but I should be at my age,’ she says.

The week before we meet, Martha Stewart has caused something of a sensation by posing in a swimsuit at the age of 81, looking for all the world like a Playboy Bunny. Could she be tempted?

‘No, in a word,’ she says. ‘I didn’t do it then and I wouldn’t do it now. I don’t mind other people doing it. It’s just not my thing.’

That was another astute decision from the admirably level-headed teenage Twiggy, meaning there are no unfortunate nudes or skimpy underwear shots to come back and haunt her.

All in all, she could teach today’s celebrities a lesson or two. And if it irritates her sometimes that, in a career packed with all manner of activity, it is her modelling days she will be remembered for most — ‘funny little sticky legs’ and all — then she has long since come to terms with it.

‘She’s done very well for me, my funny little friend,’ she smiles. And she has.

• Close Up: The Twiggy Musical opens at the Menier Chocolate Factory in September.