Abstract
This chapter explores the later life celebrity of British television actor Elisabeth Sladen. It charts her run as investigative journalist Sarah Jane Smith who was introduced to iconic science fiction series Doctor Who as a conscious response to the currency of the women’s movement, through her rise to UK children’s television stardom in millennial postfeminism, playing the same role in spin-off show The Sarah Jane Adventures, thirty years after her departure from the original series in 1976, and at the age of 60. It explores the problematic of negotiating her ageing, as it intersects with postfeminist norms of femininity, also considering Sladen’s death at the height of this renewal of her fame, and what this meant for her narrative of ‘successful’ ageing.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Women, Celebrity and Cultures of Ageing |
| Subtitle of host publication | Freeze Frame |
| Editors | Deborah Jermyn, Su Holmes |
| Place of Publication | Basingstoke and New York |
| Pages | 162-177 |
| Number of pages | 15 |
| Publication status | Published - 2015 |