When I grow up...

I want to be just like Charlotte Rampling or Françoise Hardy or both. When I was young, my sister would listen to Françoise's LPs and EPs and quoted lines from Georgie Girl. I loved both of them but never thought they were very similar. Now they have become increasingly alike. Françoise is a French girl with an British sounding last name, and Charlotte is an English girl who now stars in mainly French movies. Both have become equally butch and always look a tad stiff, stark and superior. My favorite recent film of Charlotte's was The Swimming Pool in which she blurted out to a fan on the London Underground "I am not the woman you think I am." Obviously a line that could have more than one meaning. In her youth, Françoise was held up as being the French Joni Mitchell. Joni got bitter and after doing a few overwrought orchestral albums retired to brood in Malibu and play with her granddaughter. Françoise keeps recording and showing up on French TV to do cheesy reunions with Sylvie Vartan and other '60s acts.

Looking at recent photos of both women, I think they are looking increasingly alike. I think they serve as far better role models of what I would like to grow up to be -- stylish, slightly butch, slightly superior. All qualities I admire.

I recently learned that Charlotte was in Basic Instinct 2. Gee, if she'd only told me I would have been happy to have loaned her money for groceries.