Going on 50, Jamie Lee Curtis bares a bit of skin

BEIJING, March 24 (Xinhuanet) -- Actress Jamie Lee Curtis, although closing in on her 50th birthday, is shown with gray hair while wading in water up to her chest on May/June issue cover of AARP The Magazine.

The star of "True Lies," "A Fish Called Wanda" and the original "teen scream" movie "Halloween" becomes eligible for membership in AARP, the nonprofit organization for people 50 and over, when she celebrates her birthday Nov. 22.

"I want to be older," she tells the magazine. "I actually think there's an incredible amount of self-knowledge that comes with getting older. I feel way better now than I did when I was 20. I'm stronger, I'm smarter in every way, I'm so much less crazy than I was then."

Curtis, who is married to Christopher Guest and the mother of two children, says she decided to make a change in her lifestyle two years ago when a tabloid published a photo of her and gave her weight as 161 pounds.

"I was like, 'How dare you ¢w I'm not 161 pounds!¡¦ I was indignant. I got home and I went on a scale and I was 161 pounds. I was in denial about it," she says. "So I started a really healthy way of eating, just avoiding things that I had been shoving in my mouth. Over the course of a year, I dropped about 20 pounds.

"Now, I get up at (5 a.m.) every day, filled with energy. I play tennis three times a week, and I do yoga."

Curtis says growing older means paring down to an essential version of yourself.

"I've let my hair go gray. I wear only black and white. Every year I buy three or four black dresses that I just keep in rotation. I own one pair of blue jeans. I've given away all my jewelry, because I don't wear it."

(Agencies)