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'Hats Off' star Weddell knows age is just a number

By Steve Persall, Times Film Critic
In print: Saturday, May 17, 2008

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Mimi Weddell is a New York actor-model who may spend hours at a cattle-call audition, pose for Vanity Fair and still make her acrobatic dance class.

She's no different from thousands of driven show biz hopefuls, except that Weddell is 93.

The documentary Hats Off, at Muvico Baywalk 20 in St. Petersburg, profiles Weddell's unique career, which began in earnest at 65 when her husband died.

Weddell isn't a star. She's played bit parts in films and TV, including Across the Universe and Sex and the City, and done photo shoots for companies like Louis Vuitton and Nike. But she is a celebrity, listed by New York magazine as one of the city's 50 most beautiful people in 2005.

And she's a character, as answers to five questions during a recent phone interview reveal.

Hats Off shows you to be an early riser, and it is 1 p.m. in Manhattan. What have you done so far today?

I haven't done anything because I have been . . . under the weather. I came back from California more than a little exhausted, after traveling to five different spots doing interviews, plus a great discussion with the Screen Actors Guild. You don't realize at the moment how tired you've gotten. I'm 93, for heaven's sake. I finally decided I would be 93 for a day."

Hats Off redefines aging while Harrison Ford is 65 and again playing Indiana Jones. Who is the better example for seniors?

Besides the fact that my story is real, there's an honesty about (Hats Off). . . . I don't know about Harrison's film, but 65 is a long way from 93. That lucky man.

Is your telephone ringing with job offers these days?

I haven't been home enough to know. I had 28 calls when I got back from California, and I'm sorry to say — maybe I feel guilty — that I haven't answered any of them. I came back after the income tax season, and I'm sitting here facing a letter from my dear accountant of 70 years. He has gotten old as I have gotten old. He now has one eye, and he's carrying on, as I am.

Director Jyll Johnstone asked to follow you around for a few days that became 12 years. How tough is being natural so long before a camera?

Jyll had a thread in her head that she was following from the word "go." It just didn't sink into my consciousness. I just went along with it. . . . It's like living outside oneself.

How does it feel to see your life immortalized on film?

Aren't I lucky? One of the first things I light upon as we're speaking is a poem called Flying Crooked by Robert Graves: "The butterfly, a cabbage white (his honest idiocy of flight), will never now, it is too late, master the art of flying straight." Isn't that lovely? Oh, la, la. I think I'm a butterfly in so many ways.

Steve Persall can be reached at persall@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8365. Read his blog at blogs.tampabay.com/movies.