'Makeover Queen' Says Surgery Doesn't Spring From Vanity

July 20, 2007 — -- This story originally aired on June 24, 2005.

Before plastic surgery turned into TV entertainment, before cosmetic procedures grossed $12 billion a year and before the notion of slicing into perfectly functioning body parts became routine, Cindy Jackson, way back in the 1980s, blazed the trail.

"I was the first extreme makeover," she said from her home in London.

What's changed?

"My entire face: my forehead, nose, eyes, cheeks, chin, lips. The surface of my skin has been completely redone. My neck has been lifted and I've had liposuction from my waist to my knees," she said.

From the time "20/20" first met Jackson, more than a decade ago, she's helped to clarify why reshaping one's body doesn't necessarily reflect a colossal ego.

But does she consider herself vain?

"No. I'm not vain. People who look in the mirror and think they look pretty good are vain. I look in the mirror and I always see room for a little improvement."

She says nips and tucks and peels and slices are the only way to get ahead in a society that respects — and rewards — beauty.

"What I've been through was painful, yes. It was hell," she told "20/20" in 1995. "But it wasn't as painful as living my life as a plain, ordinary, aging Midwestern woman."

Jackson's quest to achieve a new life through a new look began with the same glamorous icon that millions of little girls have idolized: Barbie.

"I looked at this doll and her glamorous life and her glamorous clothes and I wanted to live that life," she said. And indeed, with her curvy figure, sculpted face and long blond hair, Jackson could pass for Barbie — or her mom — anywhere.

But other women, like Eve Ensler, who helped liberate women in the bedroom with her smash hit "The Vagina Monologues," thinks Barbie is a bad image. "From the time you're little, you are inundated into believing that there's a right way and a good way of looking," said Ensler. "And it's usually what you're not, you know."

Ensler continued. "A lot of our energy is spent, frankly, mutilating ourselves, and I think it's a heartbreaking campaign, and I think we should abandon it."