'Family Ties' star Tina Yothers embraces the 'What Not To Wear' process
<CITE class="byline vcard"> By Sarah D. Bunting
By Sarah D. Bunting | Yahoo! TV ? <ABBR title=2013-03-01T13:25:30Z>6 hours ago</ABBR></CITE>
The only person who's more excited about former child star Tina Yothers's "What Not To Wear" makeover than Tina herself is her daughter, Lily.
Tina, who played Jennifer Keaton on "Family Ties" for most of the '80s, is now a stay-at-home mom, and she embraced the process enthusiastically -- quite a change from last week's anticlimactic non-reveal with a reluctant Shannon Elizabeth. But before she got with the "WNTW" program, Tina had been wearing a lot of shapeless hoodies and unflattering capris -- usually in black. (After "Family Ties," she dyed her hair black, but the black clothing goes back decades; Tina shared that, on the "Family Ties" set, co-star Michael J. Fox used to call her "Johnny Cash.")
After "WNTW" hosts Stacy and Clinton surprised Tina at the Gotham Comedy Club (with some mean heckling: "Your clothes aren't half bad; they're all bad!"), Tina explained why she's hiding in what Clinton called "frumpy mom gear." She's lost confidence; never a "stick figure" teen star, Tina explained that she appealed to the "average" girl. "'Average' doesn't mean 'schlumpy,'" Clinton pointed out gently.
And Tina was in some serious trouble, wardrobe-wise. She was living in yoga pants even though, as she noted dryly, "I don't do yoga" (hee!). And Tina's date-night outfit? Yet another blobby black cardigan, cropped jeans, and flip-flops. Even Lily, 7, begged Tina to let her dress her mom before she went out. Pushed by Stacy and Clinton to talk about why she hides in shapeless black shmattes, Tina sighed that she doesn't think she "can achieve attractiveness"; her coping mechanism is to "go big, or not go at all." Stacy noted that Tina's not fooling anyone, and suggests that Tina learn about shapes and cuts that work for her body -- instead of refusing to deal with said body at all.
After Stacy congratulated Tina for confronting her fears of the form-fitting and the non-pant, and explained how elastic waistbands and the right pleating can work on Tina's body, she and Clinton threw out all of Tina's clothes and sent her out shopping. Tina pinky-swore (love it!) that she'd try to break out of her
<CITE class="byline vcard"> By Sarah D. BuntingBy Sarah D. Bunting | Yahoo! TV ? <ABBR title=2013-03-01T13:25:30Z>6 hours ago</ABBR></CITE>
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Yahoo! TV/screengrab/TLC - Tina Yothers on "What Not to Wear."
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View Photo Tina Yothers, Michael Gross, and Meredith Baxter attend the NBC's 75th Anniversary Special on May 5, ? - <IMG title="Tina Yothers (Jennifer Keaton)
Eight-year-old Tina Yothers had just three professional TV credits to her name when she joined the cast of "Family Ties," but she easily matched wits with her more mature co-stars while playing the Keaton's youngest daughter, Jennifer. She even scored four Young Artist Award nominations and one win in 1985.
When "Ties" ended, Yothers appeared in the TV movie "Laker Girls," the short "Spunk: The Tonya Harding Story," and the special "A Perry Mason Mystery: The Case of the Jealous Jokester." By the mid-'90s, though, the acting roles had stopped coming her way. She focused on music instead, starting the band Jaded with her brother Cory.
In 2004, she returned to acting, this time on the stage, when she starred in "Lovelace: The Musical." She also was a member of the ensemble at the Burt Reynolds Dinner Theater in Boca Raton, Florida, from 2005 to 2007.
Yothers returned to television in the reality show "Celebrity Fit Club" in 2008. And she traded households with Niecy Nash on "Celebrity Wife Swap" earlier this year. On the show, fans were able to see a grown-up Yothers living happily with her husband, Robert Kaiser, an electrician, and their children." alt="Tina Yothers (Jennifer Keaton)
Eight-year-old Tina Yothers had just three professional TV credits to her name when she joined the cast of "Family Ties," but she easily matched wits with her more mature co-stars while playing the Keaton's youngest daughter, Jennifer. She even scored four Young Artist Award nominations and one win in 1985.
When "Ties" ended, Yothers appeared in the TV movie "Laker Girls," the short "Spunk: The Tonya Harding Story," and the special "A Perry Mason Mystery: The Case of the Jealous Jokester." By the mid-'90s, though, the acting roles had stopped coming her way. She focused on music instead, starting the band Jaded with her brother Cory.
In 2004, she returned to acting, this time on the stage, when she starred in "Lovelace: The Musical." She also was a member of the ensemble at the Burt Reynolds Dinner Theater in Boca Raton, Florida, from 2005 to 2007.
Yothers returned to television in the reality show "Celebrity Fit Club" in 2008. And she traded households with Niecy Nash on "Celebrity Wife Swap" earlier this year. On the show, fans were able to see a grown-up Yothers living happily with her husband, Robert Kaiser, an electrician, and their children." src="http://l2.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/f9vHS2BDZreVdOZycBrZLg--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Y2g9NzY4O2NyPTE7Y3c9MTAyNDtkeD0wO2R5PTA7Zmk9dWxjcm9wO2g9MTQzO3E9ODU7dz0xOTA-/http://l.yimg.com/os/423/2012/09/20/familyties-watn-Yothers-jpg_225652.jpg" width=190 height=143>View Photo Tina Yothers (Jennifer Keaton)
Eight-year-old Tina Yothers had just three professional ?
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The only person who's more excited about former child star Tina Yothers's "What Not To Wear" makeover than Tina herself is her daughter, Lily.
Tina, who played Jennifer Keaton on "Family Ties" for most of the '80s, is now a stay-at-home mom, and she embraced the process enthusiastically -- quite a change from last week's anticlimactic non-reveal with a reluctant Shannon Elizabeth. But before she got with the "WNTW" program, Tina had been wearing a lot of shapeless hoodies and unflattering capris -- usually in black. (After "Family Ties," she dyed her hair black, but the black clothing goes back decades; Tina shared that, on the "Family Ties" set, co-star Michael J. Fox used to call her "Johnny Cash.")
After "WNTW" hosts Stacy and Clinton surprised Tina at the Gotham Comedy Club (with some mean heckling: "Your clothes aren't half bad; they're all bad!"), Tina explained why she's hiding in what Clinton called "frumpy mom gear." She's lost confidence; never a "stick figure" teen star, Tina explained that she appealed to the "average" girl. "'Average' doesn't mean 'schlumpy,'" Clinton pointed out gently.
And Tina was in some serious trouble, wardrobe-wise. She was living in yoga pants even though, as she noted dryly, "I don't do yoga" (hee!). And Tina's date-night outfit? Yet another blobby black cardigan, cropped jeans, and flip-flops. Even Lily, 7, begged Tina to let her dress her mom before she went out. Pushed by Stacy and Clinton to talk about why she hides in shapeless black shmattes, Tina sighed that she doesn't think she "can achieve attractiveness"; her coping mechanism is to "go big, or not go at all." Stacy noted that Tina's not fooling anyone, and suggests that Tina learn about shapes and cuts that work for her body -- instead of refusing to deal with said body at all.
After Stacy congratulated Tina for confronting her fears of the form-fitting and the non-pant, and explained how elastic waistbands and the right pleating can work on Tina's body, she and Clinton threw out all of Tina's clothes and sent her out shopping. Tina pinky-swore (love it!) that she'd try to break out of her
