Larger Roles Full-Figured Women Proving That Talent Can Count More Than Dress Size In Doing Well On TV

Rosie O’Donnell. Kirstie Alley. Oprah Winfrey. Cybill Shepherd.

All these women are big in TV Land, and we’re not just talking about ratings.

Known not only for their star power, they’re now being held up as living proof that success doesn’t begin at size 4 and end at size 8.

Which is not to say, in an industry ruled largely by fantasy, that size 14 has become the ideal. But life is good for these Big Girls.

“I think it has a ways to go, but the reality is that probably until Cybill, full-figured women were relegated to downscale roles, or they were buddies,” said Nancy Nadler LeWinter, one of the co-founders and publishers of Mode.

A slick, New York-based, bimonthly fashion magazine that hit the streets last March, Mode targets women size 12 and beyond. Its message for full-figured women is an affirming, “You go, girl!”

“With ‘I Love Lucy,’ Ethel was the buddy,” LeWinter recalled. “With Mary Richards, Rhoda was the buddy.

“Then when Rhoda got thin and got her own show, Brenda (her ample sister) was the buddy. Before Cybill you didn’t have really curvy, sexy ladies getting the guy.”

LeWinter cited Kirstie Alley as another actress with the Mode image.

“Another person we love is Kirstie Alley,” LeWinter said. “But even though she is changing the perception, the truth is the press still talks about Kirstie. It’s ‘Oh my God … she wears sleeveless dresses with those arms?’ Well, yes, she does, and why not?”

LeWinter, who places Alley “in the 14 range,” agreed that the curvy actress is sexy and appealing in a Real Woman kind of way.

“One of the things we have learned in the process of doing the magazine is what a 14 is,” she explained. “and it’s not - gasp - 14! It’s 14, an average-size woman.

“I think women like Cybill and Kirstie and Rosie have said, ‘Hey! I have breasts and I have hips. Yeah, this is me, and I’m proud of it.”

Julie Lewit-Nirenberg, LeWinter’s partner at Mode, agreed, noting that for these women it was talent that tipped the scales in their favor.

“For these women it has nothing to do with size,” said Lewit-Nirenberg. “It has to do with their individual talent, which is just over the top.

“But it is interesting that it doesn’t matter what size they are. I think Oprah was as successful as a full-figured woman as she is now. She’s just Oprah.”

Even though she’s engaged in a very public struggle with her weight over the years, Winfrey has still had the benefit of a different cultural aesthetic. As an African-American woman from a culture which is much less weight-conscious and fat-phobic, and where having a few healthy curves is not only accepted but viewed as an asset, she was as popular at 237 pounds as she is now.

“Sister, Sister” leading lady Jackee and three of the four divas on “Living Single” - Queen Latifah, Kim Coles and Kim Fields - are further proof of a different standard. In the midst of the mainstream misconception, all of these women are living it up - and loving it up - on the small screen.

Both LeWinter and Lewit-Nirenberg find it ironic, almost comical, that the skinny “ideal” persists at a time when the average American woman is between 5 feet 4 and 5 feet 5 inches tall, weighs 147 pounds and wears a size 14.

In fact, according to plus-size apparel manufacturer Just My Size, 8.5 million American women wear a size 16 or larger. Television rarely depicts that.

Could it be that scriptwriters keep a handy-dandy copy of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ dietary guidelines for Americans in the top drawer? According to that table, the aforementioned average woman is “moderately overweight.”

Obviously, most Hollywood insiders believe audiences don’t want to see the American norm and make no bones about it.

E. Duke Vincent, vice president of Spelling Television (“Melrose Place,” “Beverly Hills, 90210”) was recently quoted in People magazine saying, “It’s a world of fantasy. I do not believe that you or anyone else would watch, unless it were a comedy, a show about a full-bodied Cindy Crawford as a model.”

And so, TV continues to serve up, for the most part, a steady diet of women as waifs. Big-breasted waifs, mind you, but waifs nonetheless.

Just My Size spokesperson Christine Alt is among those who feel it’s high time we got more hips, tushes and thighs to match those bouncing TV bosoms.

Alt has lived at both ends of the spectrum. At one point in her career as a runway model - following in the footsteps of her sister, Carol - she was 5-foot-10, size 4 and anorexic.

Now a more “physically and psychologically healthy” size 14 to 16, she applauds high-profile women who are proud to be considered plus sizes.

“I think we have a long way to go, but we are moving, and we’re better than we were 10 years ago,” Alt said. “I think that psychologically we haven’t gone much further - there is still a stigma attached to size and weight in regards to women - but we are able to obtain more.

“Ten years ago, I don’t think Rosie O’Donnell would have had a show. But the fact that people of size can have their own talk shows says it’s changing - slowly.

“I think the important thing is that now you have successful women who are saying, ‘You know what? I’m fine the way I am and if you don’t like it, it’s your problem, it’s not on me,”’ Alt said.

Le Winter and Lewit-Nirenberg agree that full-figured stars share the same outlook, and that’s what enables them to become icons.

“It’s 100 percent attitude - one hundred percent of enjoying who you are, no matter what size you are,” LeWinter said.

“That’s why in one issue we had Bette Midler, who has always enjoyed strutting whatever she has - she’s had more or less of it at different periods of time in her life.”

Will there come an era when a size 20 leading lady plays the vamp who steals men, toys with them, then tosses them aside in prime time?

“Maybe I’m the Pollyanna of the group, but I think so,” LeWinter said. “I think it will happen because women are getting tired of being told who or what they have to be and how they’ve got to fit norms that aren’t normal.

“Now they can get beautiful fashions to complement their size, and they can be as glamorous as anybody else. The more of those types of things there are available, the more empowered you are to say, ‘Accept me as I am.”’