This Anti-Ageism Activist Considers Being Old Her Super Power

Soon after blowing out the candles on the birthday cake marking her half century on the planet Mariann Aalda experienced a galvanizing revelation: "I've been a woman and Black my whole life but not even that prepared me for the discrimination I faced after turning 50."

Born on May 7, 1948 on the South side of Chicago to parents who'd endured the Jim Crow era, Aalda recalls her father Dewey, a Pullman Porter on the railroad, carrying the dictionary into the bathroom to educate himself as he'd felt duty-bound to quit high school to help send five younger siblings to college. He and wife Mantha, a seamstress/homemaker, exhorted Aalda and her younger sister Kathy to: "Do better, be better."

Aalda explains, "That way no one could think 'little colored girls,' as we were called, were 'less than.'" Both of Dewey and Mantha's daughters graduated college.

The future "Age Disrupter" as she has twice been hailed by AARP magazine, explains, "Our parents were very protective. They socialized Kathy and me to be 'acceptable Black people.' This meant cause no waves around white people: "Know your manners. Know your place." The latter dictum entailed "avoiding places where African Americans are unwelcome." 

Ever the obedient daughter, Aalda followed the rules throughout her tenure at South Illinois University where she studied journalism and theater. Then came New York City circa the 70s and her first serious run-ins with the two brick walls known as sexism and racism. She claims: "All the words that end in 'ism' are bullies." 

The first inklings of the sway 'isms' would have in her life came when she began competing for jobs first in public relations, then acting. "I worked harder and was paid less than men," she says.

Married to her college sweetheart, Aalda describes her show biz start "doing bawdy sketch comedy and political satire on a pull-down stage off the side of a seen-better-days moving van with my infant Christopher on my hip." Her agent dubbed her "Miss Feminine Hygiene" in recognition of all the douche commercials Aalda booked.

In 1981, her acting and trailblazing careers began in earnest when she turned a contracted three-month stint on the soap opera "The Edge of Night" as hard-driving, hard-loving criminal defense attorney Didi Bannister Stoner into a fan favorite who schemed and seduced her way into viewers' hearts until the soap's 1984 cancellation.

During this period, Aalda faced her share of obstacles, joining the handful of African American actresses on daytime TV in an "orchards and onions" letter writing campaign. The former missives landed on the desks of advertisers and sponsors who Aalda explains, "did a good job of positively representing Black people," while the latter spelled out inaccuracies.

Another initiative involved speaking up at membership meetings of the actors' union AFTRA (American Federation of Television and Radio Actors) concerning their treatment of Black performers "primarily as extras on soaps."

The young woman raised to make no waves was becoming increasingly comfortable rocking every boat in her vicinity. 

Her talent and tenacity enabled Aalda to forge an enviable career that included playing Redd Foxx and Della Reese's daughter in the CBS sitcom "The Royal Family," three seasons on HBO's football dramedy "First & 10" with a then-revered O.J. Simpson, a recurring role on "Designing Women" as Anthony's "yuppie-from-hell girlfriend," and appearances in movies ranging from "The Wiz" to "Beaches" and "Pretty Woman."

Then came the big 5-0 and the subsequent gaslighting by casting directors. Aalda says, "A lot of my career I was the wife, the girlfriend, the pretty girl … What do you do with the pretty girl when she gets old?" Her agent's 'solution' was to "gain 50 pounds and morph into character acting."

His client had other ideas on how to deal with the most formidable "ism" of all. As she recounts in her 2019 Ted X talk, "If you don't want to be  invisible, complacency is NOT an option. To me, getting older is just part of the journey and not letting anybody's no stop my yes is still my north star!"

Simultaneous with her acting career stalling, Aalda's husband left. However, when dealt a blizzard of emotional blows, it's never been this performer's style to cocoon under a mound of blankets. Her summation of that tumultuous time: "I was still Black. I was still a woman. I just added 'old' to the mix. I still had to make a living."

The next career evolution was as a certified hypnotherapist with a clientele of primarily midlife women depressed about getting older. Aalda's diagnosis: "They were under a spell the culture put them under that women lose value with age. That really pissed me off."

As she rendered suggestions to the women under hypnotherapy to reject the idea they were over the hill, Aalda's subconscious took in this message as well: "Hollywood is not the boss of me!"

Once again, she shook off the 'no's' and reclaimed authorship of her future, creating a solo show: "Snap Out of It! You've Only Been Hypnotized into Believing You're Over the Hill."

At 75 ("my Diamond Jubilee Year!"), the indefatigable Aalda is juggling multiple roles including actor (Violet Givens in Peacock's "The Bay"), comic, hypnotherapist and writer. Currently she and co-creator Iona Morris are turning their 'adults only' stage show "M.O.I.S.T. – Multiple Orgasm Initiative for Sexual Transformation" into a book.

But Aalda's primary mission is "prosecuting ageism." The activist proclaims indignantly, "There's so much shame around getting older to the point that women don't want to admit their age. Why? I'm 75. If someone says, 'Oh, you don't look like you're 75', I ask, 'Why is that a compliment?' I don't look good for 75. I just look good."

The day after my hour-long interview with Aalda, during a Zoom call with a 30-year-old, I found myself feeling offput by my jowly neck. Almost instantly I ordered myself to Snap Out of It and focus instead on a 66-year-old face aglow with hard-earned wisdom and experience.  

Sherry Amatenstein is a NYC-based psychotherapist, author of four books, and contributor to many publications including Better Homes and Gardens and the Washington Post.
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