Third Act for Women

Apparently, only men get in on the action in “life’s third act”--or so Tom Tugend seems to believe (“There’s Plenty of Action in Life’s Third Act,” April 11).

He ought to read the statistics about who the survivors really are. For every widower in my town, I know half a dozen lively widows who are really getting in on the action--they’re involved fully in life, and I don’t mean s-e-x as a substitute for real life. They travel, they volunteer, they take courses at colleges, they even do a little theater.

But Hollywood producers don’t acknowledge female existence, as evidenced by the minuscule paragraph thrown them in which Christopher Dorr--who chose to make a movie about an old rascal, not about a female live-wire--says that “it’s almost impossible to get lead roles” for older actresses. Well, sure it is--he’s part of the cadre who’ve made sure of that, isn’t he?

Well, the invisible sex in “life’s third act” will be more and more absent from the movie theater. Not that Hollywood gives a damn, but you know what? We’d like to see some genuine role models, not a bunch of alter kockers who have been given juicy roles just because they were born with outside instead of inside plumbing.

MIMI MERRILL

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