Tag Archives ⇒ actress

The lost A List

October 11, 2017
· Martin Kelley



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As A List Hol­ly­wood stars come out to tell their Har­vey Wein­stein couch harass­ment sto­ries, I have to won­der about those who didn’t make it through after say­ing no — actress­es who saw their roles evap­o­rate and left act­ing. The New York Times head­lines pro­fil­ing Wein­stein accusers touts Gwyneth Pal­trow and Angeli­na Jolie but also intro­duces us a woman who is now a psy­chol­o­gy pro­fes­sor in Col­orado. How many bet­ter actress­es and strong-minded women would there be in Hol­ly­wood if so many hadn’t been forced out?

I thought of this after read­ing by a tweet from the actress Rose Marie. She’s best known as one of the jovial side­kicks from the 1960s’ Dick Van Dyke Show. Not to dimin­ish the rest of the cast, but Rose Marie is one of the best rea­sons to watch the show, espe­cial­ly dur­ing those rare moments she’s allowed to step out from her character’s wise­crack­ing spin­ster per­sona and sing or act. On Twit­ter, she shared that she lost a music con­tract in the 1950s because she wouldn’t sleep with a producer.

What if a tal­ent­ed actress like Rose Marie had been giv­en more oppor­tu­ni­ties and wasn’t just known for a sup­port­ing part in a old sit­com? What if the psy­chol­o­gy pro­fes­sor had got­ten the Shake­speare in Love lead? (Imag­ine a world where Pal­trow was only known to 800 or so Face­book friends for too-perfect fam­i­ly pics and memes from dubi­ous health sites.)

Dis­claimer: This is a minor point com­pared with any actress­es who weren’t able to deal with the harass­ment and the indus­try silenc­ing machin­ery. I’m sure there are tragedies that are more than just career pivots.




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Anne Hathaway’s files aren’t “Diaries”

July 24, 2008
· Martin Kelley

Well the Depart­ment of Jus­tice must be a Quak­er Ranter read­er because they fol­lowed yes­ter­day’s advice and con­fis­cat­ed the pri­vate papers of actress Anne Hath­away, ex-girlfriend, board mem­ber and busi­ness part­ner of con man Raf­fael­lo Follieri. 

But yet again her pub­lic­i­ty machine rolls on. Most news out­lets are call­ing the papers her “diaries” in oblique ref­er­ence to her appear­ance in the 2001’s “Princess Diaries” movie. One tongue-in-cheek head­line read “The FBI knows whether Anne Hath­away dots her ‘I’s with hearts.” Finan­cial papers, pho­tos, doc­u­ments, etc., are reduced to “diaries”. Boy oh boy. I won­der if the celebri­ty blogs will start describ­ing the D.A. as a “fire breath­ing drag­on.” Poor lit­tle Anne bilk­ing mil­lions of dol­lars from investors, how was she to know?

The NY Dai­ly News arti­cle says the papers includ­ed pho­tos of Fol­lieri with the Clin­tons, Pope John Paul II and John and Cindy McCain. Down here in South Jer­sey we can’t help but won­der whether a few chum­my shots of the Ital­ian con man with pal Bish­op Joseph Galante. Such pic­tures cer­tain­ly exist some­where, whether in Anne’s col­lec­tion or in the pho­to shoe­box of some South Jer­sey priest. I would love to see them.

What’s Anne Hathaway doing in Cape May anyway?

July 23, 2008
· Martin Kelley

One of the things I don’t get about the press treat­ment of the Follieri/Galante scan­dal is their atti­tude toward actress Anne Hath­away. Until a few weeks ago she was the dap­per Ital­ian’s girl­friend and they were con­stant­ly pho­tographed togeth­er. But they broke up the week before the scan­dal hit the tabloids, and all we’ve got­ten are these sil­ly human inter­est sto­ries. We hear spec­u­la­tion she must be heart­bro­ken, we hear how she’s mov­ing on with her life, we even hear details about get­ting her dog back from her old apart­ment with Fol­lieri. She’s lost a lot of weight of her lat­est movie pro­mo tour and mys­te­ri­ous­ly showed up at a Cape May bar singing Jour­ney songs this week­end with a pho­tog­ra­ph­er con­ve­nient­ly in tow.

Hel­lo? She was on the board of direc­tors of the Fol­lieri Group’s char­i­ties. The New York pent­house they shared was paid for by conned mon­ey as were their lav­ish trips and high fly­ing lifestyle. Boyfriend dra­ma is the last thing she needs to be wor­ried about right now. I sure hope the FBI is care­ful­ly going through her check­book and date book right now. She both solicit­ed and received stolen mon­ey. No won­der she’s lost a lot of weight.

And what’s up with her get­ting off the plane from Lon­don and dri­ving a cou­ple of hours to the south­ern tip of the New Jer­sey? The Cape May Coun­ty house Fol­lieri bought from the bish­op was report­ed­ly just sold again. Could Anne Hath­away be on the deed or autho­rized to sign for  Fol­lieri? Idle spec­u­la­tion of course but I do wish her pub­li­cists weren’t mak­ing fools of the pop­u­lar press like this.