Rise Above It

"MIMI WEDDELL, model, actress and blithe spirit, is finally about to have her grand moment, as the subject of the documentary “Hats Off,” which opens Friday. As she is 93 and has been modeling on and off for decades, this is not an overnight success, but it is a tribute to her resilience.

“Rise above it!” is Ms. Weddell’s motto. You can see it on a piece of paper on her refrigerator door, and once upon a time you might have seen it written in ink on her kitchen floor. Her son’s daughter wrote it there when she was about 5, Ms. Weddell says. “The poor thing was leading such a restrictive life. I felt she wasn’t given a chance to do anything she wanted in her apartment.”

Ms. Weddell’s daughter, Sarah Dillon, who lives with her, disputes her mother’s story, something that happens with such zest and frequency it calls to mind “Grey Gardens.”"

NYTimes: A Place to Hang Her Hats by Joyce Wadler, March 27, 2008
See also: NYTimes Moviereview: Hats off by Jeannette Catsoulis, March 28, 2008

Art: Sie waren wir füreinander geschaffen und ergänzten einander, not dated, Hannah van Ginkel