How can anyone forget the 1976 horror film Carrie? The pale freckled faced gawky teen outcast who gets tormented by the popular girls in her high school. The only stylish scene she has in the entire film is the simple white slip dress (I swear Jennifer Aniston copied it for her wedding day to Brad Pitt) she wears to prom only to end up doused in pig's blood. Revenge for the ruin of her big fashion moment is had on the school by lighting the prom on fire with her telekinetic powers. No one was going to rob her of finally feeling pretty.
Sissy Spacek, like Carrie, has never considered a beauty queen nor has she ever highlighted as a fashionista. Even during her hey day in the seventies. I happen to think she had her moments of style, however. Not off set but on set as Holly in Terrence Malick's Badlands(1973) and as Pinky Rose in Robert Altman's 3 Women (1977)show off a cool free folk girl look. Charmingly casual sundresses and sweet ruffled blouses offset the complicated characters she brilliantly portrays.
As an actress and Oscar winner (playing Loretta Lynn in Coal Miner's Daughter), her talent is a treasure, but I also love that her personal life is completely unlike that of most Hollywood starlets. She has been married to the art director of Badlands since 1974 and raised two children with him in Virginia where they still live to this day. Her strawberry blond locks, gentle freckles, light blue eyes, alabaster skin, and bony frame may not fit into Hollywood's standard of beauty, but this unconventional beauty is what makes my eye find interest in her.
THE FAMOUS WHITE SLIP PROM DRESS FROM CARRIE:
