EXCLUSIVE: Marie Helvin reveals her breast cancer with KATHRYN KNIGHT
EXCLUSIVE: ‘I never thought breast cancer would happen to me… but I’ll be damned if my modelling days are done’ Marie Helvin tells KATHRYN KNIGHT
- Marie Helvin, 70, found a lump on her breast around her birthday in August
- Swiftly after the American fashion model was diagnosed with breast cancer
- Urgently needed a mastectomy and is opening up about her news for first time
Shortly before her 70th birthday in August, Marie Helvin had lunch with an old friend from her early modelling days.
‘We’re the same age and were saying how lucky we were to get to where we had, with our health and our freedom,’ she recalls.
Today, the former supermodel shakes her head at the irony of that sentiment, because just two weeks after that sunny lunch date, Marie found a lump in her right breast.
The diagnosis every woman dreads swiftly followed: she had breast cancer and urgently needed a mastectomy.
Revealing her diagnosis and mastectomy for the first time, Marie Helvin admits facing her ordeal alone at 70 has been the toughest challenge of her life
To say the former supermodel was blindsided is an understatement: Marie’s shock remains palpable today, as, just three weeks after undergoing surgery, she reveals her news — and the maelstrom of emotions it has unleashed — for the first time.
‘I had a vision, an idea of myself, I suppose, of how fit and healthy I was,’ she says.
‘As a model, my body was my instrument and I have always looked after it. I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, I exercise every day, so I guess it made me think that something like this could not happen to me because I didn’t fit the profile.
‘Now I know what a lot of rubbish that is. It’s made me realise that appearances are deceiving.’
Perhaps no more so than for someone like Marie, veteran of a decades-long high-profile modelling career who was once described as ‘the most beautiful woman in the world’.
When I meet her at her South London home, she still looks stunning, if a little fragile, her mane of black curls concealed under a woolly hat as she has been unable to wash her hair.
‘The doctors also removed some lymph nodes, so my right arm has limited movement,’ she explains.
She points out that it is only three months since we last met, when I interviewed her in the wake of her candid revelation on a podcast that her diminishing savings meant she would not rule out working in a supermarket if she had to.
Speaking about her career, Helvin said: ‘As a model, my body was my instrument and I have always looked after it. I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, I exercise every day.’ Pictured: Jerry Hall (left), Mick Jagger (middle) and Marie (right) at the London premiere of Al Pacino’s ‘Looking for Richard’ in 1997
‘Can you believe that was just over three months ago?’ she asks, her bewilderment clear.
‘Everything changed in such a short time.’
It is a theme which underpins our often emotional conversation, during which Marie breaks down more than once as she talks of how her whole sense of self has been shattered by her ordeal.
‘Before the surgery I resolved to be strong. I knew I had to get myself in the best possible shape to get through it,’ she says.
‘But now, sometimes I just sit in bed and cry for no reason. Even after everything, there is part of me that can’t believe it happened. No one can explain to me why it did. It is just one of those things.’
It is one reason she is speaking out, determined to spread awareness of the risks for women her age, and to urge people to act swiftly.
‘Breast cancer charities have done an amazing job, but I truly think that they need to highlight the fact that, statistically, women my age are one of the highest risk groups, as half of all cancers are diagnosed in people over 70.’
Marie, the ex wife of photographer David Bailey, was photographed on a Hawaiian Island on September 14, 1990. Marie, now 70, is opening up about her struggles with breast cancer for the first time
Nor is the irony lost on her that as a younger model, Marie was herself heavily involved in breast cancer awareness campaigns, appearing at charity dinners and award events.
‘You think I would have known better, because I had so much experience in the charity part. But it never actually occurred to me that this could happen to me.’ She admits that is one reason why, initially, she felt no real sense of urgency when she found a lump while doing the floor exercises she undertakes religiously every day to keep in shape.
‘There was this prominent lump — not painful, but quite large,’ she recalls. ‘I went into the bathroom, and I could actually see the outline. It had come so quickly. It’s like one minute it wasn’t there, then suddenly it was.’
Prompted by the discovery, she remembered that she had received a letter a month or so earlier, summoning her for a mammogram.
‘I’d placed it on my desk, so now I called the number and asked for an appointment, which was scheduled for September 19.
Marie admits now that it was pure naivety that she did not mention she had found a lump — and nor did she know that her first call should have been to her GP.
‘It felt that I’d got this letter and now it was time to take advantage of it — I’ve never had a problem in all these years, so what in the world would have given me cause to imagine that this could be serious?’ she says.
In the interview, Marie revealed that doctors also removed some lymph nodes, meaning that her right arm has limited movement. Marie is determined not to let cancer stop her from modelling
Either way, her situation was given renewed urgency following the death of the Queen.
Marie realised her mammogram was booked for the day of Her Majesty’s funeral when all routine NHS procedures had been cancelled as a mark of respect.
‘I rang and said I needed a new appointment, and was given a date at the end of November,’ she recalls. ‘That’s when I said “I actually have a lump’’ — and suddenly it was panic stations. They asked why on earth I hadn’t said anything before and that I urgently needed to see my GP.’
Marie was subsequently given an appointment a week later at the Breast Clinic at London’s Guy’s Hospital.
Even then, however, she admits to feeling no particular panic. ‘I told my sister I had a lump, but apart from that I just got on with things. I think there was probably a sense of denial.’
She attended hospital alone and, following her mammogram, was told she would need a biopsy — a procedure she recalls as being one of the worst parts of her breast cancer journey to date.
‘It was so painful that I was howling,’ she says. ‘They gave me several shots of anaesthetic, but I was so overwhelmed that it didn’t seem to kick in until the fourth time they punctured my skin.
‘I was squeezing the hand of the nurse so hard, I was afraid I was going to break her hand. When I came out I was in such shock that I couldn’t stop crying.’ Ten days later, Marie was called back to the breast clinic to receive her results, again electing to attend the appointment on her own, believing that should it be bad news she would cope better alone.
‘By then I had done a lot of Googling,’ she says. ‘One of the things I read is that when you go to get your results, if it’s serious, there will be a Breast Cancer Nurse Specialist alongside the doctor. So the minute I was called in and saw that woman, I knew I was in trouble.
‘Of course, I was upset when they mentioned the dreaded C word, and there were a few tears, but if someone I knew had been with me, I knew I would have cried my eyes out.’
Speaking of her diagnosis, Marie said: ‘Of course, I was upset when they mentioned the dreaded C word, and there were a few tears, but if someone I knew had been with me, I knew I would have cried my eyes out’
Marie was told that while the doctors did not know at this point what stage her cancer was at, it was growing at a reasonable rate.
‘They had already planned treatment — I needed a full mastectomy. They were also going to have remove some lymph nodes,’ she says. ‘It was a lot to take in. I remember coming out of the room and having to take a few minutes to compose myself before I got a taxi to take me home.’
The tears only started when she closed her front door.
‘I allowed myself to have a good cry, then I told myself I had to stop and not let it affect me until afterwards, because now was not the time.’
Instead, Marie says she went into ‘survival mode’.
‘I looked upon this like I was preparing for an expedition,’ she says. ‘I spent a small fortune on vitamins, supplements to get myself into the best possible shape for surgery, and I ordered everything I could possibly need, from specialist bras to button-down pyjamas, and slip-on shoes because you can’t bend over.’
‘I was determined not to panic,’ she goes on. ‘It helped that I had helped nurse my mum through breast cancer in the 1980s — returning to Hawaii for a month to look after her.
‘So I’d seen what it looked like and what she had experienced, but also that she made it through and survived another 25 years. So, of course I was scared, but not as scared as someone who has never witnessed anyone going through that. I made a choice to place my faith in the system and myself.’
That faith meant Marie also decided not to share her diagnosis with anyone other than her agent, her sister and two close friends.
‘I just wanted it to be private,’ she says. ‘I knew that if I could keep focused and save all the emotion for afterwards, I would be doing myself a favour.
‘I didn’t want to be coddled. I’ve lived on my own and looked after myself for such a long time that I’ve learned not to depend on people. If someone does something nice for me, then it’s a wonderful surprise and I’m so grateful, but I don’t expect anything.’
It is typical of her forthright attitude, yet for all her pronounced independence, I am struck by Marie’s vulnerability.
After all, there is no escaping the fact that the woman whose distinctive beauty — courtesy of her American GI father and Japanese mother — has bewitched everyone from photographer David Bailey, her husband for ten years, to the late Mark Shand, brother of Camilla, the Queen Consort, has had to face her ordeal alone.
Has she felt lonely? ‘Yes,’ she nods, her eyes filling with tears once more.
‘I’m very capable, I’ve always looked after myself, but there have been many times during this recovery period when I’ve thought, it would be nice to have someone to hold my hand, to reach over to in the middle of the night and say everything is going to be OK.’
‘Many years ago, Mick Jagger said to me: “Marie, unless you let go of a lot of these things you’re looking for in a companion, and unless you allow yourself to judge less, then it’s something that you will regret one day,” and he was absolutely right.
‘Maybe I do need to open myself up to something in future.’ Neither Mick nor any of the other A-Listers Marie has encountered over the years was aware that her surgery was scheduled for the middle of November — five weeks after her diagnosis, during which time she had several more hospital appointments.
‘I met my surgeon, Mr Hamed, who told me everything to expect,’ she recalls, her eyes filling with tears as she explains how touched she was to find that his entire surgical team knew about her long career.
‘They said that obviously the most important thing for them was to save my life, but they also wanted me to be able to continue my career,’ she says. ‘It was so kind. They tell you every woman falls a bit in love with their surgeon, and I definitely have.’
The four-hour surgery involved removing the entire right breast down to the ribcage, along with two lymph nodes, and the insertion of a silicone implant. ‘It’s big surgery, and of course I was anxious, but I had absolute trust in the doctors,’ Marie says.
Happily, her November 16 procedure went well, although lack of space on the breast cancer recovery ward meant Marie was placed in an orthopaedic ward.
‘It was the noisiest place I’ve ever been in my life,’ she says. ‘So loud! Lots of people in lots of pain and I didn’t sleep at all. I just wanted to get home to my own bed.’
Marie was discharged after two nights and taken home by a friend to start her recovery at her airy one-bedroom apartment, where, she tells me, she has latterly spent most of her time in bed.
‘They gave me strong painkillers for the first two weeks, but now I just have paracetamol, so there is some discomfort,’ she says.
‘I am sleeping a lot, although I am just starting to get some of my energy back. It doesn’t help that I had to stop taking my low-dose HRT after my diagnosis. I had no idea that the hot flushes would come back so quickly — last night I woke up four times with them.’
Being single and self-reliant means that Marie has already had to change her plans: when we last met, she had revealed she was planning to retire to her native Hawaii next year, but she has now put those plans on ice.
‘I’d already started to get rid of stuff, but now I wouldn’t want to be without the NHS, and I want to be able to see my surgeon. I think it is at least a year’s recovery time post breast cancer diagnosis, so I certainly won’t be making any decisions till then,’ she says.
Thankfully, her prognosis is good: Marie was told that her cancer was stage one, meaning it was small and hadn’t spread.
‘That’s very good news. Not such good news is that there is still something small in the skin,’ she says. ‘Normally it would be treated with radiotherapy, but because my skin is so thin it would burn. My surgeon believes we can take a managed risk and leave it for now.
‘We will continue with mammograms and ultrasound, and I will also be placed on a drug regimen which I’m presuming will be tamoxifen, which I’m not thrilled about because of the side-effects, such as depression, hair loss and skin problems, so I am researching alternatives.’
Typical of someone who refuses to let her ordeal define her, Marie is also hoping soon to make a return to all aspects of her modelling career — including lingerie and swimwear shoots.
‘My new breast is never going be the same as my normal breast, and it’s never going to be perfect,’ she says.
‘But I think it’s beautiful because it saved my life.’
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