Andie MacDowell Has a Message for Hollywood: Stop With the Older-Women Clichés

“Don’t do cliché older people,” she says. “That’s all I really care about. There are a lot of older women down here [in South Carolina], and they’re doing fantastic things with their lives. They’re making things happen.”

And so is MacDowell. For Glamour’s latest edition of Icons Only, she expands on that topic, as well as why it’s important to take back the word matronly (“Why can’t I be matronly in a gorgeous, powerful way?”), and which one of her kids she wishes she would have listened to more.

Greg Williams

Glamour: Your full name is Rosalie Anderson MacDowell. When did you change it, and why?

Andie MacDowell: I moved to New York in 1979. I went into Elite one day and some of the girls had naked pictures, and I was real embarrassed. So, at first I was afraid to walk in. But I did, and a model scout said, “Who are you?” I told her, “I’m Rose MacDowell.” She said, “Come with me,” and she looked through my book. And then she said, “When can you move here?” I said, “Two weeks,” just like that, not knowing. I thought I could get it together by two weeks.

And so I went home, told my dad. He did not like the idea. It’s the only time I ever stood up to my father, because he was quite… He wasn’t mean, but dignified, respectful. He said, “You’re not doing that.” And I said, “I’m sorry, Daddy, but I’m going to go.” I had $2,000. I bought a Ralph Lauren suit. I was so naive. I was so small town, I had no clue. I spent most of the money on the Ralph Lauren suit. It was a pencil skirt; how stupid.

And where were you going to live in New York given that you just spent most of your money on this suit?

Oh, I just finagled my way. You have to be quite savvy. So anyway, in the agency, they said I looked too ethnic, too European. This is 1979. We hadn’t quite opened up yet. The world had not opened up to dark-headed girls. Everybody was blonde, blue-eyed.

They wanted to change my name, so they called me Mac for a few days, for MacDowell. It never really resonated with me and made me feel kind of odd. So I went back in and said, “Look, my middle name’s Anderson. My sister used to call me Andie as a joke. How about Andie?” And they said, “Sure, that’s great.” So I was just Andie, no MacDowell, until I started doing movies. But my friends still call me Rose.

How did you feel about that?

It didn’t bother me. I was so in awe of everything. I had so much to learn. My greatest gift was being able to pay attention and watch people and figure it out.

I didn’t own anything. I didn’t have anything. I didn’t know anything. So everything was interesting to me, and then I moved to Paris right away. I did modeling work for Glamour, actually.