Isabella Rossellini: Age, Looks Used Against Women

May 11, 2006 — -- After five decades in the limelight, Isabella Rossellini isn't done.

The daughter of Ingrid Bergman, the legendary Swedish actress, Rossellini turns 54 next month. More than 10 years after she was dropped as the face of Lancôme for being "too old," Rossellini remains firm in her convictions and has no shame about her appearance.

"I don't look 20. I mean it's obvious," Rossellini said. "You know, as long as you are thin, tall and young you can have your freedom. ... Otherwise, if you're ugly, forget it, you're old, forget it. That's the No. 1 discrimination for women."

"I often think of how they told black people that their hair was not right and they'd straighten it. The humiliation of a group is done through their physical characteristics," she said. "I see this insistence on women, youth and weight and standards that are unattainable to be a weapon of oppression that we have to fight."

Rossellini admits she has felt the pressure on older women to undergo plastic surgery. But she has resisted the call to go under the knife.

"I haven't done it because I think it has become so -- it's like Chinese feet binding, you know?" she said. "Some morning, I wake up and say let's do it. But I think most of all, I think right now I'm not going to do it because it really is more to make women feel bad about themselves. They have to become an ideal that they're not."

After a long career as a model and actress, Rossellini remains wary of the pressures placed on women, even as her daughter, now a model, follows in her footsteps.

"I understand my daughter wanting to be a model and having a wardrobe, and we play a lot with clothes," Rossellini said. "But I hope she is not victimized by the weight."

Rossellini's latest project is a 17-minute tribute to her father, Italian film director Roberto Rossellini, to celebrate the centennial of his birth. In "My Dad Is 100 Years Old," a surreal black-and-white film, Rossellini plays all the roles --