This is 81: Denise Nicholas Responds to The Oldster Magazine Questionnaire
"My favorite age—amazingly—is right now. I’m in good health, I’m in my own beautiful home, I’m writing (and getting very fine reviews), I’m still driving my own Benz… I’m good to go."
From the time I was 10, I’ve been obsessed with what it means to grow older. I’m curious about what it means to others, of all ages, and so I invite them to take “The Oldster Magazine Questionnaire.”
Sometimes you’ll find responses from writers, musicians, and artists you’ve heard of—like Kate Pierson, Neko Case, Rosie O’Donnell, Ava Duvernay, Jerry Saltz, Lucy Sante, Ricki Lake, Hilma Wolitzer, Elizabeth Gilbert, Judith Viorst, Cheryl Strayed, Deesha Philyaw, Chloe Caldwell, etc.—but more often it will be people (of all ages) you haven’t heard of, Humans of New York-style. (Check out all the Oldster interviews…)
Here, author, actress, and activist Denise Nicholas responds. -Sari Botton
PS If you’re enjoying the work I do here at Oldster, please consider supporting it by becoming a paid subscriber. 🙏
Denise Nicholas was born in Detroit in 1944 at Henry Ford Hospital. After attending elementary school in Detroit and intermediate/high school in Milan, Michigan, at age 17 she entered the University of Michigan.
During the Civil Rights Movement, at age 19 she left the university and joined the Free Southern Theater in Jackson, Mississippi. Two years later, she left the Deep South for New York City to begin a professional career as an actor, first in theater in New York City, where she appeared Off Broadway and as a member of the Negro Ensemble Company, and then in Los Angeles, where she was cast as the female lead in Room 222 in 1969.
After working in TV and film for more than 20 years as both an actor and, eventually, a screenwriter, she earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the University of Southern California and began writing fiction. Her acclaimed novel Freshwater Road, which Newsday called “perhaps the best work of fiction ever done about the civil rights movement,” appeared in 2005, and her memoir, Finding Home, which James McBride called a work of “deep talent and understated eloquence,” appeared in 2025. She is at work on her second novel, preparing an essay for a forthcoming anthology about caregiving, and also leads a small private writing class in Los Angeles called the Longwood Writing Workshop.
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How old are you?
81.
Is there another age you associate with yourself in your mind? If so, what is it? And why, do you think?
In my memory bank, there are many good age years to focus on, years that I thought were the be-all in terms of positive living–career successes, great travel, good/positive relationships. However, in all honesty, I also measure as good years those that knocked me upside my head teaching me something. There are no hard lines here, no separated years that are one emotional or mental experience. My best age is right now for the kinds of things I’m doing.
When my looks were super important, I had many good years as an actor on television and a bit in film. Those years would be considered great on the physical side—25 to 50. These “now” years are less about my perceived looks and more about my mind and soul. I’m more contemplative now. My brains are working as fast as they used to but they’re definitely going deeper. My responsibility load would sink a lot of younger ships. So, I’d say since my 50s, I’ve been all about retraining myself to be a writer. I’m still going, so my 60s, 70s, and now into these first 80s years have been just great.
Physically I feel very good. I live in a two-story house, and I’m still bounding up and down these stairs with much greater ease than folks way younger than I am now. My mother lived to be 104 and died only recently. She had dementia, and while that disease shortened her mental life, she was well into her 90s before it became apparent.
Do you feel old for your age? Young for your age? Just right? Are you in step with your peers?
People continually tell me that I’m youngish for my age. Actually, I feel pretty darn good for whatever age. My friendship group includes people of different ages: I have very close pals who are at least 20 years my junior. I have friends who are older. We all hang out.
What do you like about being your age?
Learning how to let crap go. I own me. I accept my missteps and failures. I no longer beat the hell out of myself for my dumb moves.
What is difficult about being your age?
Knowing that I’m getting closer to the “end game” moment. Knowing that my decision to not have children has repercussions that haunt.
In my memory bank, there are many good age years to focus on, years that I thought were the be-all in terms of positive living–career successes, great travel, good/positive relationships. However, in all honesty, I also measure as good years those that knocked me upside my head teaching me something. There are no hard lines here, no separated years that are one emotional or mental experience.
What is surprising about being your age, or different from what you expected, based on what you were told?
So, the stories I’ve heard from older people about not feeling great, folding under the weight of time, I do not yet feel. I certainly don’t feel in any way decrepit—yet. Physically I feel very good. I live in a two-story house, and I’m still bounding up and down these stairs with much greater ease than folks way younger than I am now. My mother lived to be 104 and died only recently. She had dementia, and while that disease shortened her mental life, she was well into her 90s before it became apparent.
What has aging given you? Taken away from you?
More calm. A more philosophical way of being here. I’m more thoughtful, less demanding. I’m still a “moonstruck” kind of person: I search for beauty in nature, in my home. I’m more able to let dumb stuff go.
Age has taken/is taking my remaining sensuality. I invested in that part of myself as a woman from early on, and I’m extremely comfortable at this point that it’s heading on down the road. I’m good.
How has getting older affected your sense of yourself, or your identity?
Some of the more negative effects of aging have to do with the sense that as a woman, some of my power was in my youthful good looks, and that’s leaving with a quickness. Society does that to women, of course. I had long been aware, alerted, and I balled up my fists to find power in other ways. And I’ve succeeded.
The changes in how others responded to my looks ever since my earliest years created an angst, especially with that first diminishment we women endure as we begin to age. That’s been softened thanks to my long-ago decisions to fill out and strengthen various expressions of my brain power. I became a writer, first of all, but I also purchased and managed rental property, and then ultimately took over management of my mom’s care for her last five years. All of this shifted my personal sense of emphasis away from my looks and more toward my intellectual/emotional self.
Age has taken/is taking my remaining sensuality. I invested in that part of myself as a woman from early on, and I’m extremely comfortable at this point that it’s heading on down the road. I’m good.
What are some age-related milestones you are looking forward to? Or ones you “missed,” and might try to reach later, off-schedule, according to our culture and its expectations?
I’m such a maniac about getting things done, I can’t identify anything for this question.
What has been your favorite age so far, and why? Would you go back to this age if you could?
My favorite age—amazingly—is right now. I’m in good health, I’m in my own beautiful home, I’m writing (and getting very fine reviews), I’m still driving my own Benz… I’m good to go.
Is there someone who is older than you, who makes growing older inspiring to you? Who is your aging idol and why?
Until dementia robbed her mind, my mom was the most gently aging person I’d ever seen. Even in her last months of life, I’d sit by her and look at her skin, her hair… She aged so gracefully for so many years. She was my idol.
What aging-related adjustments have you recently made, style-wise, beauty-wise, health-wise?
I’m back to working out after a break for hip replacement surgery last January. Going up and down my home’s stairs all day helps. I have an “exercise guru” who also leads me through meditations as well as workouts.
Beauty-wise: more moisturizers all over the body every single day. I do not wear a full face of makeup every day, either. So far, don’t need it. My style is middle of the road in terms of dress, with periodic forays into younger looks that still work on this particular woman’s body.
I’m back to working out after a break for hip replacement surgery last January. Going up and down my home’s stairs all day helps. I have an “exercise guru” who also leads me through meditations as well as workouts.
What’s an aging-related adjustment you refuse to make, and why?
I’ve tried to continue driving at night when alone. Had to stop that. Not too much else to tell here. I’m still doing everything I ever did but maybe a little less? I do run out of energy quicker than in years gone by. But even taking that into consideration, I’ve got my life set up to keep rolling until I can’t. I’m still rolling.
What turn of events had the biggest impact on your life? What took your life in a different direction, for better or worse?
My younger sister’s murder in New York City in 1980 did a lot to push my writing life to a front burner. Michele was a writer.
What is your number one regret in life? If you could do it all over again, what is the biggest thing you’d do differently?
I’d be a better friend to a dear person who died quite young. I was too busy being a TV celebrity at the time.
My younger sister’s murder in New York City in 1980 did a lot to push my writing life to a front burner. Michele was a writer.
What is high up on your “bucket list?” What do you hope to achieve, attain, or plain enjoy before you die?
I want to write one more book—a love story.
Is there a piece of advice you were given, that you live by? If so, what was it, and who offered it to you?
My dad: “Don’t stay too long at the fair.”
What are your plans for your body when you’re done using it? Burial? Cremation? Body Farm? Other?
Body Farm.
How do you feel about dying? And what do you expect to happen to your “soul” or “spirit” after you die?
The spirit is our memory. There are no ghosts flying around trying to keep us safe. But memories can animate our todays as if they absolutely have been lurking around trying to keep us safe.
I certainly don’t want to die, but now that I’ve lost most of my earliest friendship group, both of my siblings, and most of the rest of my family, I guess there’s no other way.
I’ve only very recently experienced my mom’s death, and since my family is now the size of a pea, I had to handle it alone, including adding a new word to my vocabulary that still makes me giggle: cremains.
I hope those who have cared for me will keep some memory of me, as I keep my incredibly beautiful memories of the people I have loved.
What’s your philosophy on celebrating birthdays as an adult? How do you celebrate yours?
Champagne. Small group of pals. No more big parties. Memories.
Not to be especially superficial, but who looks like Denise at 81??? I'll have what she's having! x
I love how clearly you name the shift from being valued for how you looked to being rooted in your mind and judgment. There’s no bitterness in it, just ownership.
And the way you talk about letting things go, not from resignation but from self-possession, feels like the quiet upside no one tells us about. This reads like someone fully at home in their age.