Grandma, What a Big Star You Are

This week, You Look Beautiful Like That has been lucky enough to meet world famous psychic, fortune-teller and bon vivant, Madame Olsen:



The 111-year old regaled us with bawdy tales of her heyday on the Hollywood social scene, parties with Truman Capote (the irrepressable octogenarian claims Capote stole his signature style from her!), gossip about her talented granddaughter Ashley Olsen, and demonstrated her fortune-telling talents for us.

(Despite appearances to the contrary, Madame Olsen is still fairly affluent - having of course predicted the stock markets' fluctuations over the years, and profited hugely from the Great Depression - and though we crossed her palm with silver for tradition's sake, she insisted on returning our coins - and paid for lunch! The 150 year old declared that she had never been in better financial health, and in any case, thanks to her thriftiness with haircare and fashion over the years, had enough put aside to have no need of our charity.)

My, Grandmother, What Great Style You Have!

To younger generations, Madame Olsen is perhaps best known for chaperoning great-granddaughter Ashley to events and parties. As she chainsmokes and toasts her starlet relative with a glass of sweet sherry, she laughingly tells us how the style she pioneered back in '01 - that's 1901, younger readers! - inspired by the paupers and orphans in the poorhouse she noticed whilst touring the UK to read fortunes for the suffragettes, has been adopted by today's ingenues, and claimed as their own!

"Of course dahling, they all think it's quite the new thing," she purrs in her odd accent, and lights her seventeeth cigarettte of the conversation. "Dahling Ashley - such a sweetheart, and what skin! Of course, in my youth I had quite the complexion - thinks she's doing something new and innovative. I haven't the heart dahling, really I haven't, to put her straight, and of course I turn a blind eye to her pilfering from my closet.

"Of course, were dear Truman here he would insist the look is his own. I'm sure he'd be tickled by the notion of young ladies adopting what he calls his style! All I know is, it works for me - people don't want their fortunes told by a tarted up starlet - but I'd much prefer to see Ashley in Halston or Givenchy, she really does have the bone structure for it dahling. Just look at us, her in grandma's clothes! So darling."

Here she takes a photo from her crocodile skin handbag and shows us exactly how Ashley is modelling herself on her grandmother:

Old Hollywood

Madame Olsen can continue like this for some time, inhaling cigarette after cigarette through her engraved holder - "a gift from Audrey, she stole it from the Tiffany's set. She always was the petty thief, though of course Truman loathed the film. Adored Audrey, but then who didn't in those days?" - working her way through a bottle of fine sherry, changing conversation tack with every sip, and dropping famous names into the conversation like flies. It takes a moment or two to realise that Audrey and Katherine are of course Hepburn, that Truman is Capote, that Eleanor is Roosevelt, and Norma is of course Marilyn.

The Stars Are in the Heavens

Madame Olsen is one of the few remaining famous faces from the 1700s. The names she drops are now mostly long since dead, and as she mentions them, her eyes go soft, as if she remembers parties from her youth, her skin unwrinkled and her laughter free from from the cracks that plague it now, and she pulls her shawl close around her as if she suddenly feels the cold. Usually when she feels frail, of course, her granddaughter is there to support her, take her arm but sadly Ashley wasn't available for the interview.

Some of her friends - and enemies - still remain, of course. She was desperately saddened to see her compatriot, 170-year-old Kimberley Jones, consigned to jail recently: "well darling, really! I remember when a gel had to work desperately hard to get arrested in this town! I recall a night when Bianca and I were turned away from the studio, if you can believe that. I spent hours crying to Jack about it, so of course he took me to the awards that year, and I was quite the turn. I did get my revenge on that set when I read their cards for them, predicted ruin and destruction all round. One shouldn't abuse the gift that way, but fun must be had, otherwise quelle point?

"I once told Mischa that she would one day be known for her work in television! Of course, she was terrified. This was back in 1873, years before television - neither of us had any idea what the word meant, but it sounded so declasse. And of course now it's true! That should serve the wicked witch right!"

At this, Madame Olsen breaks into a gleeful cackle at the memory, which soon descends into a series of hacking coughs, which makes YLBLT worried that our new favourite 200-year-old is going the way of her fellow silent films star, a woman she refers fondly to as La La, better known to the world as Lindsay Lohan's grandmother.

Heartbreak in Hollywood

"Oh, dear La La. Such a shame. I don't know which is worse darling, losing Grandmother Kim to the big house, or watching my sweet La La fade away to nothing. So sad. The doctors can't explain her deterioration, of course, but I know."

YLBLT refreshes Madame Olsen's sherry, lights her a cigarette - her hands are trembling - and raises a quizzical eyebrow. "Madame - "

"Oh, call me Margaret, everybody does! Except Ashley and her friends, who all call me grandma," she recalls with affection.

"Margaret, why do you think La La is so desperately ill?"

"Heartbreak, darling, heartbreak. The poor woman lived for her grandchild, like I do. Dear Lindsay. Oh, Lindsay was such a sweetheart - she made some talking picture, Me Girls? Nasty Gels? Some such, anyway, when you've been around for as long as I have - oh I see that look, you won't find me confessing my age so easily! Me and Zsa Zsa both, we're very discreet - younger than Moses, older than Zeta-Jones, though not by much!" she winks, before continuing: "Anyway, Lindsay was such a light in La La's life - so vivid! Such colour! Look at that face! A real character, Truman would have adored her. But since she disappeared, well, La La has just shattered. No one has seen Lindsay for months - I suspect that grotty little boy, but of course I can't say that.

"La la has been so strong, putting on a brave face, and still making appearances, but then she was never careful with money, so she still has to do the rounds. And she has her girls around her - I never took to them, but Lindsay's friends have been such a help, so supportive and sweet, rallying around their friend's grandmother. But I don't think anything can help La La now. Just look - did you ever see an old lady look so frail? Of course," and here Margaret leans forward with a conspiratorial whisper, "I read this long ago darling. All the signs pointed to it. And La La begs me to do her tarot, but, talented actress though I am, I know I couldn't hide the truth from her for long. Too, too sad, and with Grandmother Kim incarcerated, and Mischa reduced to television, really, I'm the only one left."

She makes this pronouncement not with sadness but with certainty. Then, after she predicts a tall, dark, handsome stranger to enter YLBLT's life, she wanders merrily down the street with her grandson who has come to collect her, waving cheerily to her many fans, and chattering gaily to all who approach. A 350-year-old, a grandmother, a survivor. A star.

Fortune Favours the Brave

YLBLT's sister site, Brunette Fantasy, is pleased to announce that Madame Olsen is to be its latest correspondent! Have a question about the stars of yesteryear? Want gossip on the current teen stars, who love nothing more than an evening with the miniature grande dame of Hollywood? Or perhaps you would like your fortune read by the world's finest psychic? Let us know below, or drop Margaret a line at grandma.olsen@gmail.com. Her first prediction is that weekly readings will happen every Sunday at Brunette Fantasy!