People: Forever Carrie: Sarah Jessica Parker turns 60

Once Carrie, always Carrie: Even around 20 years after the end of the success series “Sex and the City”, fans of the main actress Sarah Jessica Parker in New York’s West Village are still flocking-so many that the owner was forced to protect her staircase with a goal from photo-bearing fans.

Parker, who turns 60 today, made the role of sex columnist Carrie Bradshaw, the world star – she almost didn’t even have accepted her. After reading the script, her husband, the US actor Matthew Broderick, said that this series would “make it too famous” – and she too had doubts, Parker once said in an interview. “The producer then persuaded me to make the first two episodes and then to continue. I went to work on the first day, loved it every second and never looked back.”

“Sex and the City” shaped the picture of New York

The series became a world success – and shaped the picture of New York. Six seasons and two movies long for millions of fans worldwide pursued the relationship crises, party adventures and everyday problems from four women in Manhattan – Bradshaw (Parker), Samantha Jones (Kim Cattrall), Charlotte York (Kristin Davis) and Miranda Hobbes (Cynthia Nixon). It was about friendship, men, shoes, cocktails, love and children – but above all and as explicitly as never before on US television for sex.

Fans fell so strongly for the series that since then there have been their own bus tours in New York only the “Sex and the City” locations. In the meantime there is even a continuation series with “And Just Like That …”, the third season of which is scheduled to start in summer.

Already as a child on stage and in front of the camera

Of course, Parker also played other roles – at the theater, in film and on television, before and after “Sex and the City”. Already as an eight-year-old she stood in front of the camera for the television film “The Little Match Girl”, then for the Hollywood film “The Club of Teufelnen” and again and again she also played on New York Broadway, several times together with husband Broderick.

So far, none of her other roles came to Carrie Bradshaw’s success – even though the series is far from reality, as Parker admits. “Even people who love shoes – they don’t have so much time to be with their friends,” says Parker. “I always found that most unrealistic in the whole series how much time they all had.” And yes, she also likes to wear high heels – but otherwise she is very different from Carrie, Parker repeatedly emphasized.

“I’m just working on”

You do not read reviews and do not interfere with failures, says Parker. “I just continue to work and some things are successful and not other things. And so I imagined my career.” Parker has long since pushed into other industries: it sells wine, designed shoes and reads, among other things, – so passionately that she has already published her own book series and this year has been involved as a juror at the renowned Booker Prize.

With Broderick, Parker is – after headlining relationships with Nicolas Cage, John F. Kennedy Jr. and Robert Downey Jr. – Married for almost 30 years. When she met the actor that was already famous at the time, she was absolutely fascinated, Parker recalls. “But his success was very relaxed. He wore him like a New Yorker.” The couple has three children, a son born in 2002 and twin daughters held by a surrogate mother in 2009. “We have good days, medium days and bad days. That is a marriage.”

“How to run around with the Empire State Building”

Parker was born in 1965 in the 5,000-inhabitant town of Nelsonville in the US state of Ohio. Her parents separated shortly afterwards and the mother married again. Parker has a total of seven siblings and half siblings and grew up in poor conditions. “There were some Christmas without gifts. But my parents gave us a lot of love.”

Parker went to New York as a child – and the city is still her great love to this day. Parker takes part in public life aggressively, shows himself on the street and on the subway, supports local shops and restaurants and publishes pictures of them on social media. She is constantly recognized, addressed and photographed by other people, says moderator Andy Cohen, who has been friends with her for a long time. “Run around with her is like running around with the Empire State Building.”

Nevertheless: she would never leave the metropolis voluntarily, Parker says again and again. “I would never have imagined my life. As a small child, I dreamed of becoming an actress. Everything else came as a surprise and was wonderful.”