Fabulous in Their 50s

Not everyone is excited about entering into their 50s. But when Oprah Winfrey hit the big 5-0 in 2004, the talk show host raved about it in an article for her O magazine. “What I've learned in this first 50 is that if you can allow yourself to breathe into the depth, wonder, beauty, craziness, and strife—everything that represents the fullness of your life—you can live fearlessly,” wrote the now 58-year-old, who ended "The Oprah Winfrey Show" last May after 25 seasons. “All these years I've been taking lessons from life experiences and feeling like I was growing into myself. Finally, I feel grown.”

Just this past September, Heather Locklear entered her sixth decade – which will hopefully be better than her last. It’s been a rough couple of years for the former “Melrose Place” actress, between three canceled TV shows, two arrests (one for DUI; one for hit-and-run), two failed relationships, and that 911 call her sister made a few months ago, claiming Locklear was suicidal. Still, despite the hardships, the blonde has still managed to hang on to her good looks – even if she might have gotten a little help from a surgeon’s scalpel.

Not only is Iman proud of her 56 years, she flaunts them. The Somali supermodel, who has her own eponymous $25 million-dollar makeup line, says that in her culture “aging is something that is earned.” And forget plastic surgery or fillers -- the wife of David Bowie credits good old-fashioned “cleansing, toning, and moisturizing” for her youthful glow. “The skin you take care of in your teens and 20s is the skin you will inherit in your 30s, 40s and beyond,” Iman told styleist.com. “So you must have a daily skin care routine."

It’s hard to believe that Jon Bon Jovi has joined the 50+ Club – especially with that fantastically full head of hair. The rocker – whose first hit with rock band Bon Jovi was 1986’s “You Give Love a Bad Name” – has vowed that he will try to stay as youthful looking as possible. “You're never going to see the fat Elvis in me,” he told Scotland's Daily Record just before his March 2 birthday. “People I admired like Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, and John Belushi all died at 27. I've got jeans older than that. Between the ages of 42 and 48 has given me some of my greatest memories yet. When I look at my peers Bob Dylan, Jimmy Page, Bruce Springsteen, Bono -- they're all over 50 and still doing great … That's the team I want to play for.”

At 51, Julianne Moore looks more like she’s in her 30s. What’s her secret? The Oscar-nominated actress claims sunscreen – and lots of it – is the key to her youthful complexion. She also shuns plastic surgery, even injectables. “I don’t believe it makes people look better,” the mom of two has told Allure. “I think it just makes them look like they had something done to their face, and I don’t think we find that instinctually appealing.”

Thanks to her character on “Sex and the City,” Kim Cattrall’s name is synonymous with being sexy. And at 55, she’s still got it eight years after the HBO show went off the air. So it makes sense that Cattrall is the face of Olay’s Total Effects anti-aging body line. “I look at people like Judi Dench, who's in her 70s, and I think, 'What the hell am I frightened of?,' she said last year. “In my life and career I want to embrace aging because I think that's what's interesting.” Although she admitted to trying Botox in 2008, she says the experience scared her off plastic surgery. “I don't want to look in the mirror and not recognize who's looking back.”

Madonna has been the Queen of Pop for three decades, but she certainly doesn’t look like it – or act like it. Ever since she split from her latest husband Guy Ritchie in 2008, the Material Girl has dated a string of young men, whose ages match the way she feels inside. “We live in an ageist society, connected to women," the 53-year-old has said. "I think women in an unconscious way are valued for their youth, youthful beauty, not so much for their wisdom and experience. Hopefully, we're going to change all that." But does she rely on Botox or plastic surgery to stay eternally youthful? Madonna’s not saying.

For Michelle Pfeiffer, turning 50 was bittersweet. The actress, now 53 and always known for her good looks, says she had to learn to accept getting older – and now, she owns it. "Honestly, there's certainly a mourning that takes place,” she has said. “I mourn the young girl, but I think that what replaces that is a kind of a liberation, sort of letting go of having to hold on to that. Everyone knows you're 50. So you don't have to worry about not trying to look 50. And then it becomes, 'Hey, she looks good for her age.'”

He’s no Chachi any more! Scott Baio hit the 50 mark in September 2010, and no he didn’t celebrate the milestone with a bunch of hot women – he held a charity event to benefit the Bailey Baio Angel Foundation, which he set up after his daughter tested positive for metabolic disorder GA-1 when she was born in November 2007. Getting older has definitely tamed the former playboy – Baio has been married to Renee Sloan since 2007.

With her flawless, perpetually glowing complexion and free-spirited style, Scottish actress Tilda Swinton certainly looks younger than her 51 years. Though she’s been in countless feature films as an adult, amazingly, as a young woman Swinton was so shy she refused to have her picture taken."There are pretty much no photographs in existence of me between the ages of about nine and 25,” the actress told Time magazine in December. “My shyness made me crafty... I got very good at sliding sideways out of the frame at the last minute."