Lesley Gore and the brutality of flash pictures

OK, she died. You guys have to PROVE it was lung cancer?

That's the way a 68 year-old gets so many wrinkles.

It's a sad day, when an icon dies, and when people rush to eBay to buy CDs on her that they didn't think of buying the day before.

Somehow, running a THEN and NOW photo, as People just did, is just a tad sadder.

No need to see a blown up giant photo of the woman looking like a farmer got through plowing her face with his tractor.

Reality is fine, but it has its place!

I'm sure Lesley didn't think that the digital age would expose every fine wrinkle, and make her seem more like 78 with false teeth. Then again, maybe she didn't mind. She doesn't mind now.

It reminds me of overhearing a famous actress looking at two photos of herself. One was a carefully posed studio shot, perhaps with a little airbrush afterwards. The other was a paparazzi flash picture. She remarked to her friend, pointing to one and then the other, "In control, not in control."

Did you click the image and see it full size? POW!

The soft focus glamor pose and the reality. OW.

Today's celebrities don't have the luxury of avoiding the punishing DIGITAL camera with its high definition and fluoroscope flash. It amuses folks greatly, to see every flaw, too. Every issue of every tabloid points to a pimple not covered, crows feet around the sleepless eyes, or a bit of spinach between two teeth.

As for the unfortunate Gore, today a bunch of lesbians who never heard of her, or didn't care, will now slug down a beer and bellow, "She was one of us!" A boomer or two will feel a little older and "cry if I want to, cry if I want to, cry if I want to." And some asshole fans of the old "Batman" TV show will grumble, "We only have a few surviving villains to come to conventions!" And LAH will frickin' DAH.