Your Turn: Marjorie "Maude" Chardin

From Harold and Maude, directed by Hal Ashby
Nominated by Jane Bratton

When I grow up, I want to be like Maude.

I was a teenager the first time I saw Harold and Maude. I understood the moviegoers who were turned off by the main plot -- which finds the 79-year-old Maude engaged in a romantic relationship with 20-year-old Harold.

Years later, however, I've come to not only appreciate Maude's propensity for mischief and merriment, but her views on life as well. "Play as well as you can," she reminds us.

I imagine her indelible spirit was hard-won. After all, she survived the Holocaust and had the tattooed number on her arm to prove it.

But how else do we come to embrace life with sheer joy unless we have survived -- and evolved from -- our darkest hours?

At 45, I know my inner Maude is in there somewhere. Now it is up to me to find her.

Tags: Independent Women | Movies | Romantic Heroes

6:18 PM ET | 01-29-2008 | permalink

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