Another Fresh Face On The Internet

September 29, 1999

BY LUCIO GUERRERO
STAFF REPORTER

She has graced the cover of Life magazine and posed in the pages of Vogue, but Arabella Churchill has never had an audience like this.

The 49-year-old granddaughter of Winston Churchill will have people watching from around the world when a Highland Park doctor performs plastic surgery on her live on the Internet later this year or early in 2000.

She'll get the surgery--which usually would cost more than $20,000--free in exchange for the public viewing.

It will be educational, said Dr. Steven Bloch, who'll perform the nearly four-hour surgery.

"When I first saw her photographs, I thought that it was something that we could do and have dramatic results," said Bloch. "I have done other public surgeries [on the Oprah Winfrey show and for the Discovery Channel] and feel comfortable with the media."

Bloch will do work on Churchill's upper and lower eyelids, a full face-lift and laser touch-ups around the neck, mouth and eyes.
"She does look somewhat like Winston Churchill, and as she ages is starting to look like him more and more," Bloch said. "She does not want to change that. She just wants to look relaxed and rejuvenated."

Bloch also donates his time to help provide reconstructive surgery for low-income children in need through the Operation Smile program, a nonprofit organization.

Plastic surgeries on the Internet are becoming something of a trend. The first one was done on impressionist John Byner in March, followed by soap opera star Christopher Templeton and, last month, pop singer Carnie Wilson.

Churchill's surgery will be seen free on www.celebritydoctor.com. Churchill, who dropped out of public life in 1971, approached the Web site after reading about it in a newspaper in Somerset, England, where she lives.

The surgery will be scheduled as soon as she takes care of some health problems.

"I am coming up to my 50th birthday in October and have been thinking about treating myself to a face-lift as a birthday present," Churchill, who runs a children's charity, writes on the Web site.

"We are talking about a quality-of-life issue," Bloch said of the Churchill surgery. "People are somewhat judged by first impressions. If you can give someone self-confidence, then you have helped that person."