Actress/author Jamie Lee Curtis, who turns 50 this year, is one of the few Hollywood stars who isn’t chock foll o’ Botox and silicone- and now she’s going public with how she feels about aging and beauty. Curtis appears on this month’s cover of AARP magazine topless, with little makeup and zero airbrushing. You know, like normal people.

Actress Jamie Lee Curtis has once again decided to bare her soul – and body – to convince women that they will be their most beautiful if they take care of their bodies and age naturally.

The star, whose curves turned heads in such early films as Trading Places and Perfect, will help celebrate her 50th birthday in November by posing gray-haired and topless on the cover of the May-June issue of “AARP The Magazine“, available March 24.

She made a similar splash in More Magazine in 2002 when she appeared makeup-free and unretouched in a sports bra and briefs, drawing attention at the time to her “fatty little tummy” and other flaws. The point, Curtis tells PEOPLE, is that glam isn’t real, but good health is.

Curtis Drops 20 Pounds on a Simple Diet
After learning her cholesterol and blood pressure were too high about a year and a half ago, she dropped 20 pounds by giving up “fattening” foods that most Americans would consider relatively healthy – like crackers, bread and granola, which have white flour and sugar and are surprisingly high in fat. She hopes American women will learn from her example.

She also gave away her uncomfortable shoes and most of her jewelry. For one, she doesn’t wear them (save for her wedding band, a necklace with a charm for her daughters, diamond earrings and a watch), and also because she wants to lighten her load off the scale. “I’ve had the experience of going into people’s homes after they’ve died, and I’m amazed at the number of things people amass and never look at again. And I’m just not that person,” Curtis says.

“I’m like the Terminator, that’s what I am,” she adds. “I should have a TV show where I go into people’s houses and terminate their possessions.”

[From People]

There is something to be said for taking care of yourself and feeling confident in the body you were born with–regardless of age. It’s sexy as hell! I think Helen Mirren is another great example of this – she looked amazing at the Oscars last month. Compare photos of Jamie to other celebs who are fighting the natural process of aging– such as Nicole Kidman and Janice Dickinson– and she blows them away. I wish more actresses would follow Jamie’s example.

Note by Celebitchy: I love how Jamie Lee Curtis has never been afraid to show her body. She is making an important statement about how normal women shouldn’t feel bad when confronted by the Hollywood ideal, which is unnatural for older women in particular. Here’s a quote from her 2002 More Magazine interview where she posed in just bike shorts and a bra with no makeup:

“There’s a reality to the way I look without my clothes on,” she says. “I don’t have great thighs. I have very big breasts and a soft, fatty little tummy. And I’ve got back fat. People assume that I’m walking around in little spaghetti-strap dresses. It’s insidious — Glam Jamie, the Perfect Jamie, the great figure, blah, blah, blah. And I don’t want the unsuspecting 40-year-old women of the world to think that I’ve got it going on. It’s such a fraud. And I’m the one perpetuating it.”

[More Magazine via Ladies Home Journal]

Jamie Lee Curtis is shown on 10/4/07 at the Visionary Ball, thanks to PRPhotos.