GAMBIER — Jamie Lee Curtis took the stage in Kenyon College’s Gund Commons on Friday, tanned, svelte, bare-legged and clad in a proverbial and sleeveless little black dress and a white macraméd sweater. The performer, wearing a pair of trendy eyeglasses and her gray hair stylishly short, was in her element: In front of a rapt audience of women, talking about taking good care of oneself.
The event, held in recognition of Women’s Health Week, was presented by the Knox County Health Department and the Crozier Center for Women.
More than 200 women — and a handful of men — had vied for the limited number of tickets, which sold out earlier in the week. After a healthy lunch and a welcome by Pam Palm of the health department and Rachel Kauppila of the Crozier Center, Curtis launched into a performance that encompassed the story of her life, lessons painfully learned, her mistakes and successes as a mother, her movies and favorite co-stars, the books she has written for children and what she learned from the untimely death of Princess Diana.
But first, Curtis took off her shoes and held one in the air.
“I’m casual as a person, casual as a woman and casual as a mother. But I’m also the most competitive person you have ever met,” she said, noting that she hoped the audience would give her an excellent rating on their evaluation forms.
Curtis kept her audience laughing and learning with a speech titled “Here As I Want to Be.” She told of a rather normal childhood as the daughter of actors Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh, of believing she could not have children but being blessed with two, of low self-esteem and denial, of learning to parent with an open mind instead of just following ingrained rules and of being mindful, doing good in the world, gaining weight, getting older and breaking her family’s legacy of addiction.
Curtis, who will be 50 this year and who is on the cover of AARP Magazine’s current issue, encouraged the audience members to look at their images in their mirrors and view themselves as their own worst enemy ... and then find the courage to change that.
“I’m here as I want to be because I’m happy to be here,” she said. “I love myself more and appreciate myself more than at any other time in my life, because I faced the things that scared me. If you don’t like it, change it. We are incredible women. Just take what’s inside you and change what you don’t like.
Curtis quoted the serenity prayer that encourages accepting what one cannot change, changing what one can and having the wisdom to understand the difference between the two.
“That is now the basis of my life,” she said. “The things I’ve been able to change have made me the person I am today.”
Joking that she “barely got out of high school,” left college to break into acting, married a man she saw in a magazine and claiming “I’m not a trained actor and I can’t sing, but I can dance,” Curtis said “the single most challenging experience in my life is to have been a mother.”
She said she was deeply affected and shocked by the death of Princess Diana, and found surprising comfort in a book on meditation that had been laying by her bedside, unread.
“It said that people who are living mindfully, at the time of their death, ask themselves two questions: ‘Did I learn to live wisely?’ and ‘Did I love well?’ And that is how I have lived the rest of my life,” she said.
A social activist disguised as a celebrity, Curtis quoted Mahatmas Ghandi’s “Be the change you want to be,” and the Irish proverb, “Nodding your head doesn’t row the boat.”
“Being healthy is loving yourself enough to take care of yourself,” she said, then took off her sweater to reveal her middle-aged upper arms and make jokes about family genetics that dictate the way people age.
As she waved her arms for the cheering crowd, Curtis said, “Genetics are a huge portion of who you are. There’s nothing I can do about this. I have to accept it.”
A devoted children’s author, Curtis has said she won’t be writing any books for adults.
“But I’ll give that book to you right now. Are you ready? Here it is: Eat less. Move more. That’s my gift to you. We’re all in this together.”
Following a standing ovation, Curtis met with fans for photos and autographs. Nyla Leedy, confined to a wheelchair after a stroke and unable to use her left arm, showed off her program, which Curtis had autographed.
“And she even gave me a kiss on the cheek,” said Leedy with a happy smile.
