Twiggy
Sadie Frost’s engaging documentary on Twiggy reveals a celebrity who has stayed true to her roots.
Aka Lesley Hornby
Image courtesy of Studio Soho Distribution.
The actress Sadie Frost gave us her first feature film as a director in 2021. That was the documentary Quant and it was a natural fit given that the skills of Frost herself extend to being a fashion designer. On the face of it she is continuing in the same vein with her second full-length documentary Twiggy but, even though Twiggy’s fame stems first and foremost from her work as a model, one discovers from this film that Twiggy, now seventy-five years old and a key presence in the new footage here, is striking in a way that goes far beyond that particular aspect of her career.
Twiggy certainly had luck on her side in coming to the fore at the right moment. Entering the field of fashion in 1966 she was acclaimed the face of the year by Deirdre McSharry of the Daily Express. Fame was instantaneous not only because she was a mere teenager at the time (she had been born in 1949) but due to her appearance: she was thin and somewhat androgynous (gamine indeed) and those factors were notable since they were in total contrast to the voluptuous looks of most fashion models at that time. Standing out in this way, Twiggy, that being the name adopted for her work, would be on the front page of Vogue and Tatler by the age of seventeen. Having started out in England (she was a London girl), Twiggy would soon become famous in America (she won the approval of Diana Vreeland) and, indeed, across the world.
In telling her story, Sadie Frost has sensibly enough opted for a standard format, one that brings together archive footage and new material including that in which Twiggy addresses the camera directly while essentially following her life story in chronological order. What quickly emerges here is the extent to which Twiggy, quite lacking in airs, comes across as inherently honest. This is illustrated at once with a clip from 1967 when she was interviewed on arrival in New York City. Asked “Are you beautiful?” she replies “Not really”. Yet, despite having that view of herself, Twiggy’s face was attractive and distinctive and, as the film suggests, a further part of her appeal in the swinging sixties lay in the fact that, whereas most models were distant figures in a world of their own, Twiggy was instantly relatable.
Despite having no interest in fashion myself, I became aware of Twiggy due only to her exceptional celebrity as a model in the sixties. However, the film finds Frost handling Twiggy’s early years most adroitly aided by her editor Liz Deegan who also worked on Quant and who here also has an associate in Kristina Hetherington. First, she sketches in the working-class childhood, a happy time albeit overshadowed by her mother being what would later come to be recognised as bipolar. This is followed by Twiggy’s friendship from the age of fifteen with the then 25-year-old Justin de Villeneuve who would guide her modelling career and become her manager in 1966 but would eventually emerge as too controlling. Twiggy may have been infatuated but she resisted his suggestions of marriage and, growing out of that relationship, broke it off. When she did marry in 1977, it was to the American actor Michael Witney, the father of her daughter Carly who features in the film’s new footage. Sadly, he developed drinking problems which would drive them apart and then die at the age of fifty-two in 1983. But in 1988 Twiggy would meet the actor Leigh Lawson quickly leading to a very happy marriage that has lasted right up to the present day (Robert Powell, an interviewee here, describes them as soulmates).
My only awareness of Twiggy outside of her initial fame came when consequent on Ken Russell having become a friend and mentor, she was offered in 1971 the lead role in his film version of Sandy Wilson's musical The Boy Friend. In my eyes Russell's treatment totally lost the charm and innocent pastiche of the stage show and I hated it, but Twiggy herself was not to blame and in any case won two Golden Globe awards for her debut role. Later films, W (1974) and Club Paradise (1986) – the latter with Robin Williams and Peter O’Toole – may have been enjoyable experiences for Twiggy but were not successful. However, Twiggy also reveals the extent of her work in other spheres. In 1983, having earlier appeared in Cinderella on the stage in England, she was on Broadway at the behest of Tommy Tune (another contributor here) and won a Tony nomination for her role in the Gershwin musical My One and Only. On television both in the UK and in the USA, she had series built around her and in 1981 played Eliza Doolittle opposite Robert Powell in a TV adaptation of Pygmalion. Even more striking because we see Twiggy in performance is her ability as a singer (I was quite unaware that she had recorded albums of songs).
In line with the film’s title, I have throughout referred to Twiggy as Twiggy but she is, of course, Dame Lesley Lawson having been made a dame for services to fashion, the arts and charity in 2019. Her various involvements do not lessen (she even returned to modelling in recent years, this time for Marks & Spencer). She declares that she has no wish to think of retirement and this able film certainly made me aware of the range of her achievements. But above all else the documentary makes one realise the continuing strength of her personal appeal. Indeed, she emerges as one of those people whom the camera loves although it actually feels more than that. The honesty found in that clip from 1967 emerges as deeply engrained in her character and you believe that Twiggy still sees herself as a lucky girl from Neasden who has been favoured by good fortune. Her fame in the 1960s may have won her a place in social history but perhaps her greatest achievement is to have remained herself.
MANSEL STIMPSON
Featuring Twiggy, Carly Witney, Leigh Lawson, Joanna Lumley, Tommy Tune, Robert Powell, Dustin Hoffman, Brooke Shields, Sienna Miller, Pattie Boyd, Edward Enninful, Rankin, Alexandra Shulman.
Dir Sadie Frost, Pro Nick Hamson and Simon Jones, Ph Diana Olifirova and Lucas Tucknott, Ed Liz Deegan and Kristina Hetherington, Music Mara Carlyle.
Soho Talent/Film Soho-Studio Soho Distribution.
97 mins. UK. 2024. UK Rel: 7 March 2025. Cert. U.
