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If you want to be beautiful nowadays, you have to grit your teeth:
Tony sees it the same way. The 52 year-old translator takes a
great deal of pleasure in telling people his age (he looks younger
of course), and started with various corrective operations four
years ago. The swim rings, called love handles in America,
had to go. For ten years, Tony had been dieting and torturing
himself doing sit-ups in the gym. Nothing helped, the rolls of
fat on the stomach and back area stubbornly stayed put. The operation
he had done by Manhattan's star surgeon Darrick Antell
lasted only two hours. The fat was gone, and the skin shrank back
within the course of a few weeks. Since then Tony "likes to show
himself again in a skimpy Speedo swimsuit on the beach."
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Thrilled with the
results, he soon thereafter had a face lift, the bags under his
eyes removed, his eyelids raised, his lips treated with his own
fat. Now Tony has two thin scars just in front of his ears and
is looking well-rested. In addition, Dr. Antell injects
Botox between his brows, a paralytic agent which freezes the muscles
so that wrinkles disappear on his forehead. Up until now, Tony
has paid 53 000 Deutschmarks for the renewal work. "Even if my
friends think I am crazy, I am proud of the result and am no longer
afraid of growing old," he maintains. The 52 year-old describes
the boost to his self-confidence as huge. "I much prefer traveling
on the subway now because women pay more attention to me." His
surgeon, Dr. Antell, a man with the aura of a priest, nods
benevolently. Aging, as our parents suffered it, is a thing of
the past. Is that what women really want? Men styled like models
and movie heroes? Care for yourselves but stay as you are —
you would like to shout to them — we don't only want to work
on our external appearances.
But the cash desks of the surgeons continue to ring. Dr. Antell
knows why: "I could save some from ten years on the psychiatrist's
couch." And Bill Clinton could use a consultation with him. Why
he hasn't had the bags under his eyes removed, the doctor doesn't
understand. Friends of the President have told Dr. Antell
that it is entirely calculated: "So that you can see how hard
he is working for this country." But Dr. Antell is quite
convinced that "as soon as Clinton is finished with this job,
his first step will be to visit a plastic surgeon."
by
Claudia Zeschke
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