Everyone knows that no one over the age of 55 has sex – or at least that’s how it seemed to a younger generation that didn’t want to think about it and were never confronted by it in the media. In Hollywood, known for its straight-laced attitude to gender and sex, older people having sex has proved a much bigger taboo than murder, drugs or teenage pregnancy.

However, movie execs have finally woken up to the ‘grey dollar’ (for ‘grey’ read subtly and naturally coloured in a salon, thank you very much!) and leading ladies are finally closer in age to their leading men rather than half of it.

After a glittering burst on the big screen in their 20s and early 30s, Hollywood sirens were expected to politely retire to the theatre when they reached a certain age. Think Judy Garland at the end of her career or, more recently, 53-year-old Kim Catrall playing to rave reviews in Private Lives in the West End.

Changing attitude
Things are slowly changing. Abbey-theatre trained actress Fionnula Flanagan, 69, is flying the tricolour for older Irish women in Hollywood. Her recurring role in TV series Lost as the controlling, mysterious and elegant Eloise Hawking has won her praise and film roles including the recent film The Invention of Lying.

Kim Catrall is another good example of the change in attitude that has finally started to make its way into the movie business. The second Sex and the City (SATC) movie, in which she will co-star, will soon hit our screens. If the first one is anything to go by, the movie will open to resounding boos from the critics and much louder cheers from the masses of women who love and identify with the franchise.

If there is one thing Hollywood is known for it is jumping on a money-spinning bandwagon and riding it until it is spun out.

Entertaining the masses
One of the reasons SATC was so enormously financially successful was that women went to see it at the cinema several times. The four leading ladies – Carrie, Charlotte, Miranda and Samantha – had become the secret imaginary best friends of hundreds of thousands of women. They saw and reported love, relationships and sex from an undiluted female perspective.

The overwhelmingly male movie critics were left shouting into an abyss their opinions about the vapidness, the simpering and the sheer lack of reality in which the film revelled.

This same narrow attitude has long ruled the money decisions in Hollywood, as powerful men decided what audiences would want to see.

Breaking the glass ceiling
More women are slowly breaking the glass ceiling of directorship, such as Katherine Bigelow, who, this year, was the first female to win an Oscar for best director. She was up against her ex-husband, James Cameron, who had been hotly tipped to take the prize.

The widening of viewpoints in the movie industry has naturally seen an evolution in story lines, particularly those that involve older people.

Opening doors
The cinema has itself been quietly evolving into a place that is not simply a date night for young people but somewhere to go on an early afternoon when you are retired. Cinemas are catering more to specific interests, such as parent-and-baby mornings, where you can bring your infant in with you and watch a film. They are also showing one-off specials, such as networked operas and ballet.

In turn, this lures a fresh type of clientele into the coke and popcorn emporiums. Story lines are starting to cater to this. The brilliant It’s Complicated, Mamma Mia and Julie and Julia, all starring 61-year-old Meryl Streep, have done brisk business at the box office, raking in nearly $351 million (about €262 million).

All three films featured storylines about mature women, their relationships with men, friends and children, and the decisions they were faced with at this time of life.

Ten years ago a Hollywood ‘actress’ (as she was then called) might have dreaded allusions to her large figure and growing ‘experience’. Now, however, the labels are much more positive for female actors over 50.

Remaining stylish
There have been knock-on effects for us ordinary mortals. A recent UK report into spending habits by Prof Julia Twigg found that women in their 60s and 70s are buying more clothes and taking an avid interest in the way they dress. Some Irish boutiques have also realised that their most lucrative clients are older women.

Much of this is doubtless sparked by the stunning 64-year-old Dame Helen Mirren, who graces the red carpets and our TV screens in seemingly effortless and ever-changing beauty and style. ICA members who base their self-confidence in their sponge cakes rather than their image should take note. When she starred in Calendar Girls, (a film about ICA sisters in the Women’s Institute stripping for a charity calendar) Mirren proved that women her age could be physically attractive without a stitch on.

UK styling consultant Lisa Maynard-Atem told stylelist.com: “I have seen a definite rise in the number of more mature clients wanting our services. Many of them reference Helen Mirren, Sophia Loren and Twiggy. They are looking at these women and realising that age is just a number and not a barrier to being stylish and beautiful.”

Having spent the first 40 years of her career primarily on the stage, Dame Judi Dench only started coming to big-screen fame in her 60s, when she played the role of M in the 1995 James Bond film Goldeneye.

These older actors have opened up a vista of storylines and plots that had previously been left aside in film-making because they didn’t warrant the label ‘sexy’.

Staying sexy
Who would have thought that a biopic about Queen Victoria could possibly be sexy? However, in Mrs Brown, Dench managed to show the intensity both of her feelings for her then-dead husband, Prince Albert, and the warmth and companionship she had with her Scottish servant, John Brown, played by Billy Connolly.

Mirren’s shimmering sexiness shines through many of her roles, from a hard-nosed newspaper editor telling Russell Crowe’s character what to do in State of Play to a member of the women’s institute willing to strip for a charity calendar in Calendar Girls.

By being given good roles in film, other women of the same age are shown contemporaries who are beautiful, talented and in control of their lives and careers. In turn, that makes it much more likely that Hollywood will continue to recognise and mine the previously neglected storylines and talents of older women.
Hopefully this will also come true for budding Irish stars like Saoirse Ronan, recently feted for her role in Lovely Bones. For years the lack of Irish women in Hollywood films has been bemoaned in the Irish press but now that some are forging their way into it let’s hope they will be able to remain for long and fulfilling careers like their male counterparts.