How can she use her body language to make herself look younger?

Your aunt knows that body language is at the very core of acting. A talented, twenty-five-year-old actor can walk on stage and project a man of eighty without saying a single word. He does it all with his body.

In Tom Stoppard’s play Travesties, actor John Wood did an amazing transformation from a very young man to a very old one. Part of the trick was in his voice, but a greater part of it was in the way he used his body.

Conversely, a good, older actor can project youth with his body movement. I was on a television talk show once with Gloria Swanson, who is definitely getting on in
years, yet she projected the image of a very young woman.

In part, she did it by covering her body completely.

A pants suit and a long-sleeved blouse with a very high neck, bracelets to take the eyes off her hands, and an enormous hat to hide part of her face all helped. Dark glasses were the final touch. The body image she projected could have been any age from thirty on.

The real illusion started with her voice. It was firm and unwavering. She never groped for a word. But the greatest part of the youth she projected was in her body movement. She moved like a young woman and sent out a constant subliminal message: “I am young, young, young!” Your Aunt Grace, in her movements and walk, probably projects the same message.