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'Botox made me look like I was from Planet of the Apes'

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By Anita Singh in London
Tuesday Dec 29 2009

Susan Penhaligon, the actress hailed in the Seventies as the "British Bardot", has told how disastrous Botox left her looking like "a character from 'Planet of the Apes'".

Ms Penhaligon decided to have cosmetic treatment after turning 60 in July this year. However, she was deeply unhappy with the results and said she wanted to warn other women about the perils of the procedure.

"I was a complete wally to have it in the first place," she said. "It very nearly had a disastrous effect on my career and on my confidence as a person. I will never go near it again. I'm simply going to let nature do what it will to me."

The actress found fame in the 1970s comedy 'No Sex Please: We're British' and the drama 'Bouquet of Barbed Wire', and most recently appeared in the ITV soap 'Emmerdale'.

She said: "For many years, I never considered that I needed anything like Botox. I thought it wasn't necessary for me because I'm an actress and need all my expressions.

"But as I noticed more and more people having it, I got interested in it and started thinking: 'Shall I have it to help me get work, or shan't I?'

"When I woke up on my birthday this year I thought: 'How did I get to be 60?' Yet I actually looked pretty good for 60, and 60 is not what it was in my mother's day."

Ms Penhaligon, who lives in Surrey with her partner and 30 year-old son, went into a west London clinic "on a whim" and signed up for Botox injections.

"I was treated by a fully qualified cosmetic doctor in a perfectly legitimate clinic, and he told me he only gave me a very small amount of Botox. When I left he said: 'You'll be very pleased with it', although it felt like the whole of my forehead had been punctured."

The actress woke the next day with a "terrible headache". "I looked in the mirror and saw to my horror that my eyebrows had dropped, pushing my eyelids down. I resembled Roddy McDowall's character in 'Planet of the Apes'."

She returned to the clinic and was given more Botox to "adjust" her appearance, but it made her look worse.

Monster

"I was even heavier on the brow, not unlike Frankenstein's monster. I then got on to the internet to do some research and discovered that some people have what is known as 'droopy eye' or 'droopy brows', which means that the Botox has relaxed the muscles in the forehead and the brow drops down over the eyelids. It affects about 1pc of people."

Penhaligon said actresses were under increasing pressure to retain their youthful looks.

"If you're a serious actress, you want to be playing good parts," she said. "You don't want to be constantly battling against getting older because eventually, however much you Botox, the younger actress who hasn't had Botox will overtake you.

"Trying Botox has made me realise I want my lines, my frown, my life in my face. I'm going to grow old gracefully, not chasing the youthful actress that I was." (©Daily Telegraph, London)

- Anita Singh in London

Irish Independent