Was Sissy Spacek Considered Attractive?

[...]

She was bloody sexy!

Bad nose job.

I thought that was her natural nose r3 ....

The late 60s and early 70s prized white hippie-ish chicks like Spacek, Barbara Hershey, Daria Halprin, etc.

Well...she IS from small town Texas, haha

I loved her in Badlands.

Barbara Hershey is a funny one. I sometimes find her really attractive like in ‘the stunt man’ and ‘the right stuff’ and other times I barely recognise her ‘shy people’.

No, R4, she got (bad) rhinoplasty early on

Sissy must have gone to DL Fave Nanette Fabray's plastic surgeon.

She wasn’t ugly but she was no great beauty either.

I LOVE Sissy’s high school yearbook picture! She morphed into a completely different person.

Farm charm. Freckles and pug nose. Girl next door.

She was famous in a time people went to movies and wanted to watch people that could actually act. That's probably before your time, OP.

She’s butt ugly

R5, don’t forget Shelley Duvall.

She robbed Olivia of a Best Actress Oscar. Anyone can play a 13 year old country singer. Try playing Terpsichore, one of the nine muses! On roller skates!

R14 = Glenn

Look at Margot Kidder in Superman, she would never be cast today

My straight brother always had a crush on Spacek. But (and I’m not trying to mean here), he always had a thing for fragile, breakable if not already emotionally broken girls.

R19-Why?

She wouldn't be considered PRETTY

I don't think she looks like methed-out trailer trash at all. She looks like a burn victim.

Apparently she is way more beautiful in real life than in what the camera catches. Some people are just that way.

Anyway, I prefer Spacek over all home comptemporaries as she is much more low key and natural. One can barely notice her acting.

She is not that old. She could definitely nab a good role and get another Oscar nomination. Why doesn't she act more? It sure must get boring on a Texas farm.

Many successful actresses from the late 70's/80's should and could start stealing Meryl's roles.

I'd like to see Sissy in a good HBO series.

R17 She robbed Mary Tyler Moore for Ordinary People!

She had a big arc on BIG LOVE. I don’t know if it was her, or the writing or just bad casting, but she was kind of awful.

OTOH, I thought she was great on CASTLE ROCK.

r24 She lives in Virginia, not Texas.

Even for DL, this thread is remarkably boorish. She has given remarkable performances in remarkable movies. And her look is her own. What is she supposed to be, Ann-Margret? She's not Ann-Margret.

Great actress, Bad movie star.

I think the camera liked her, but the main thing was she was/is a very good actress. It wasn't all about looks then.

She's remarkable in Carrie. She really becomes that wounded, shy, wallflower so well that when she finally gets all dressed up for the prom, she's incredibly stunning. It's a brilliant transformation. I always thought she looked radiant in the prom scenes. Pre-pig's blood of course.

Only a blind person would ask that question.

Her performance in the first half of Coal Miner's Daughter (pre-fame) is extraordinary. Everything in that first half is stellar, for that matter, Tommy Lee Jones included. The stuff where Loretta's famous is more boring, but that's pretty much the case with any bio-movie; nothing to do with SS's talent.

She was dolled up in the movie “Heartbeat”

She was never a sex symbol, but she wasn't ugly, either. R31 is correct; she's photogenic. She has a fragile and flighty quality that her looks amplify. She has "an interesting face" and that is not meant as a put down. She can be pretty, and she often is when she appears on television or is photographed out of character, but the characters she often plays aren't meant to be "pretty" or conventionally attractive.

There was a movie she did called Trading Mom where she played 4 different women and one of them was a snooty French woman and I'm not sure if it was just makeup or if they gave her some sort of prosthetic, but she did look really beautiful. Almost like she was trying to channel Catherine Deneuve.

I thought she looked good in The Night Of. She probably looks the least weird as a 60 something year old woman.

At least she's appeared to let her face age normally. I applaud her for that. I think those character actress types like her have an easier go of it since they might have been attractive, but didn't really rely on their looks for most of their career.

R26 no. Mary was grand & all that. Giving her an oscar for playing a depressed WASP?!? No. Olivia all the way.

I think she's attractive in a quiet way. She looks like country folk.

Her appeal has always been that she looks like many average, normal folks from down south. I could see her being my teacher or aunt or friend's mom. That's a great quality for an actor to have. Tom Hanks has something very similar.

She was good in the Netflix series Bloodline though her nose/nostrils are distracting.

She is like Mia Farrow in that she can look plain or beautiful depending on the styling. She was not attracted to glamorous roles, however, so barely did any.

She was briefly a model with the Ford Agency and did one ad for Chanel before scoring as an actress.

Uncle Rip Torn and Aunt Geraldine probably helped a bit. Must have been weird for Sissy to win the Oscar before Ms. Page though. No more Sunday dinners.

PEOPLE once put her on the cover as "Most Beautiful" in Hollywood and the letters came pouring in: "No way". Bisset, for one, was at her peak.

I think she has always had an interesting look. The nose bob was obvious but I admire her for not reaching to make it perfect yet against again. It helped define her in a way. On screen she has a bit of a waif-like, alien look going on. But she’s quite lovely in real life and she has aged very well and had an excellent and natural looking facelift. I got to know her in Virginia a while back. Very kind and funny and her husband is a great guy. Down to earth and chill family.

^not “against” ...oops.

R47 Damn, jealous!

[quote]R46 Bisset, for one, was at her peak.

She is one of the most beautiful actresses ever, even if her personality’s a bit... quiet. (I was first going to say drab, but I think she’s just private.)

Bisset's acting really improved later in her career; Spacek was always an excellent actress.

She says being only 5'2" didn't help her modelling career. Cicely Tyson was the same height, and worked for years as a print model.