Wallpapers 05

Wallpapers 06

Denise: Television Career

Denise: Television Career
The small screen





The Making of 'Blonde and Blonder' (2007) (V) .... Herself
The 2006 Billboard Music Awards (2006) (TV) .... Herself
"Space Top 10 Countdown" .... Herself (1 episode, 2006)
- Movie Aliens (2006) TV Episode .... Herself
"VH1: All Access" .... Herself (1 episode, 2006)
- Celeb Breakups & Scandals (2006) TV Episode .... Herself
"The Tony Danza Show" .... Herself (2 episodes, 2005)
- Episode #2.27 (2005) TV Episode .... Herself
- Episode #2.25 (2005) TV Episode .... Herself
"Ellen: The Ellen DeGeneres Show" .... Herself (2 episodes, 2004-2005)
- Episode dated 11 October 2005 (2005) TV Episode .... Herself
- Episode dated 19 November 2004 (2004) TV Episode .... Herself
"The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" .... Herself (3 episodes, 2002-2005)
- Episode dated 3 October 2005 (2005) TV Episode .... Herself
- Episode dated 15 November 2004 (2004) TV Episode .... Herself
- Episode dated 23 May 2002 (2002) TV Episode .... Herself
"Live with Regis and Kathie Lee" .... Herself (2 episodes, 2004-2005)
... aka Live with Regis (USA: new title)
... aka Live with Regis & Kelly (USA: new title)
- Episode dated 26 September 2005 (2005) TV Episode .... Herself
- Episode dated 13 September 2004 (2004) TV Episode .... Herself
"E! True Hollywood Story" .... Herself (2 episodes, 2002-2004)
- Scream Queens (2004) TV Episode .... Herself
- Saved by the Bell (2002) TV Episode .... Herself
"Late Night with Conan O'Brien" .... Herself (2 episodes, 1999-2004)
- Episode dated 9 September 2004 (2004) TV Episode .... Herself
- Episode dated 10 November 1999 (1999) TV Episode .... Herself
"Tinseltown TV" .... Herself (1 episode, 2003)
- Episode dated 8 November 2003 (2003) TV Episode .... Herself
"Entertainment Tonight" .... Herself (1 episode, 2003)
... aka E.T. (USA: informal title)
... aka ET Weekend (Australia: weekend title)
... aka Entertainment This Week (weekend title)
... aka This Week in Entertainment (USA: weekend title)
- Episode dated 11 October 2003 (2003) TV Episode .... Herself
Hollywood's Hottest (2003) (V)
"Punk'd" .... Herself (1 episode, 2003)
- Episode #1.1 (2003) TV Episode .... Herself
VH1 Big in 2002 Awards (2002) (TV) .... Herself
100 Sexiest Artists (2002) (TV) .... Herself
... aka VH1's 100 Sexiest Artists (USA: complete title)
"The Rosie O'Donnell Show" .... Herself (3 episodes, 1999-2002)
- Episode dated 23 May 2002 (2002) TV Episode .... Herself
- Episode dated 25 January 2001 (2001) TV Episode .... Herself
- Episode dated 18 November 1999 (1999) TV Episode .... Herself
Death from Above: The Making of 'Starship Troopers' (2002) (V) .... Herself
2001 ABC World Stunt Awards (2001) (TV) .... Herself
"Access Granted" .... Herself (1 episode, 2001)
- Snoop Dogg: Undercover Funk (2001) TV Episode .... Herself
Playboy Exposed: Playboy Mansion Parties Uncensored (2001) (V) .... Herself
2000 MTV Movie Awards (2000) (TV) .... Herself - Presenter


The Bond Cocktail (1999) (TV) .... Herself
The Making of 'The World Is Not Enough' (1999) (V) .... Herself
Seventeen: The Faces for Fall (1998) (TV) .... Herself

Denise: Film career

Denise: Film career
Updated regularly





Jolene (2007) .... Marin
Blonde and Blonder (2007) .... Dawn
"Secrets of a Small Town" .... Brenda Rhodes (1 episode, 2006)
- Pilot (2006) TV Episode .... Brenda Rhodes
"Sex, Love & Secrets" (2005) TV Series .... Jolene (unknown episodes)
Edmond (2005) .... Allegro B-Girl
"Two and a Half Men" .... Lisa (2 episodes, 2003-2004)
- Yes, Monsignor (2004) TV Episode .... Lisa
- Merry Thanksgiving (2003) TV Episode .... Lisa
I Do (But I Don't) (2004) (TV) .... Lauren Crandell
Elvis Has Left the Building (2004) .... Belinda
Yo puta (2004) .... Rebecca Smith
... aka Whore (Philippines: English title) (Spain: promotional title) (USA: cable TV title)
... aka I, Whore (literal English title)
... aka The Life (USA: DVD title)
... aka The Life: What's Your Pleasure? (USA)
Scary Movie 3 (2003) .... Annie
... aka Scary Movie 3.5 (USA: DVD box title)
Love Actually (2003) .... Carla, the real friendly one
You Stupid Man (2002) .... Chloe
... aka Love Birds - Liebe auf den zweiten Blick (Germany)
... aka You Stupid Man (Germany)
The Third Wheel (2002) .... Diana Evans
Undercover Brother (2002) .... White She Devil
Empire (2002) .... Trish
"Spin City" .... Jennifer Duncan (4 episodes, 2001)
- Chinatown (2001) TV Episode .... Jennifer Duncan
- She's Gotta Habit (2001) TV Episode .... Jennifer Duncan
- Sleeping with the Enemy (2001) TV Episode .... Jennifer Duncan
- A Tree Falls in Manhattan (2001) TV Episode .... Jennifer Duncan
Good Advice (2001) .... Cindy Styne
"Friends" .... Cassie Geller (1 episode, 2001)
- The One with Ross and Monica's Cousin (2001) TV Episode .... Cassie Geller
Valentine (2001) .... Paige Prescott


Tail Lights Fade (1999) .... Wendy
... aka Rallye, Le (Canada: French title)
The World Is Not Enough (1999) .... Dr. Christmas Jones
... aka T.W.I.N.E. (UK: promotional abbreviation)
Drop Dead Gorgeous (1999) .... Rebecca 'Becky' Ann Leeman
... aka Gnadenlos schön (Germany)
Lookin' Italian (1998) .... Elizabeth
... aka Showdown (USA: video title)
Wild Things (1998) .... Kelly Lanier Van Ryan
... aka wildthings (USA: video box title)
Starship Troopers (1997) .... Carmen Ibanez
Nowhere (1997) .... Jana, Lucifer's Sister
"Melrose Place" .... Brandi Carson (3 episodes, 1996)
- Melrose Unglued (1996) TV Episode .... Brandi Carson
- True Fibs (1996) TV Episode .... Brandi Carson
- What Comes Up, Must Come Down (1996) TV Episode .... Brandi Carson
In the Blink of an Eye (1996) (TV) .... Tina Jacobs
"Weird Science" .... Valerie (1 episode, 1996)
- Funhouse of Death (1996) TV Episode .... Valerie
Pier 66 (1996) (TV) .... Colleen
"High Tide" .... Alex (1 episode, 1995)
- One on One (1995) TV Episode .... Alex
"One West Waikiki" .... Deirdre Mansfield (1 episode, 1995)
- Flowers of Evil (1995) TV Episode .... Deirdre Mansfield
P.C.H. (1995) (TV) (uncredited) .... Jess
... aka Kill Shot (USA: video title)
919 Fifth Avenue (1995) (TV) .... Cathy Damore
... aka Dominick Dunne's 919 Fifth Avenue (USA: complete title)
"Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman" .... Angela (1 episode, 1994)
... aka Lois & Clark
... aka The New Adventures of Superman (UK)
- Season's Greedings (1994) TV Episode .... Angela
"Burke's Law" .... Jennifer (1 episode, 1994)
- Who Killed the Beauty Queen? (1994) TV Episode .... Jennifer
Tammy and the T-Rex (1994) .... Tammy
... aka Teenage T-Rex
"Against the Grain" .... Jodi (1 episode, 1993)
- Pilot (1993) TV Episode .... Jodi
"Bodies of Evidence" .... Jennifer Ivey (1 episode, 1993)
- Eleven Grains of Sand (1993) TV Episode (as Denise Lee Richards) .... Jennifer Ivey
Loaded Weapon 1 (1993) (as Denise Lee Richards) .... Cindy #1
... aka National Lampoon's Loaded Weapon 1 (USA: complete title)
"Seinfeld" .... Molly Dalrymple (1 episode, 1993)
- The Shoes (1993) TV Episode (as Denise Lee Richards) .... Molly Dalrymple
"The Ben Stiller Show" .... Sunbathing Girl (1 episode, 1993)
- Episode #1.11 (1993) TV Episode (uncredited) .... Sunbathing Girl
"Beverly Hills, 90210" .... Robin McGill (1 episode, 1992)
- Wedding Bell Blues (1992) TV Episode (as Denise Lee Richards) .... Robin McGill
"Eerie, Indiana" .... Girl #2 (1 episode, 1992)
- Reality Takes a Holiday (1992) TV Episode (as Denise Lee Richards) .... Girl #2
"Doogie Howser, M.D." .... Blind Date #3 (1 episode, 1991)
- Doogstruck (1991) TV Episode .... Blind Date #3
"Married with Children" .... Girl #2 (1 episode, 1991)
- Kelly Does Hollywood: Part 2 (1991) TV Episode (as Denise Lee Richards) .... Girl #2
"Saved by the Bell" .... Cynthia (1 episode, 1991)
- The Last Weekend (1991) TV Episode .... Cynthia
"Life Goes On" .... Camille (1 episode, 1990)
- It Ain't All It's Cracked up to Be (1990) TV Episode .... Camille

Movieline

Movieline
Drop Dead Delectable : It's time to set the record straight



Denise Richards claims she was brought up to be a nice girl, but on the evidence of Starship Troopers, Wild Things and this summer's Drop Dead Gorgeous, most of her fans remian blissfully ignorant of the possibility. Now that she's in front of cameras as the new Bond beauty, maybe it's time to set the record straight.

Denise Richards may not yet have acheived the level of fame that makes for instant recognizability in households across the country. But to a growing corps of true believers, the mere mention of her name elicits passionate attention. Otherwise rational, sensible males go monosyllabilic at the sight of her tawny skin, her lustrous hair, her pouty lips and her impossibly stacked physique. As for women, there are those that seem to grow claws and fangs at the sight of her, but lots of others applaud her implicit parody of the classic screen sex doll and would emulate her steamy moves if they thought they could get away with it.

What's got so many hot and bothered about Denise Richards? No one who's actually seen her on-screen could possible think the question needs asking. Hollywood at large picked up on her when she appeared as the Barbella-worthy intergalactic pilot in director Paul Verhoeven's 1997 film Starship Troopers. But it was really her follow-up film, Wild Things, that supremely unguilty pleasure of pleasures, that put her over with the people who matter. A wickedly entertaining sex thriller, Wild Things featured Richards as a double-dealing high school Lolita who did double-love with Neve Campbell and Matt Dillon. A Number of beauties in the movie business might have cut an impressive figure in a self-aware cheesball offering like Wild Things, but Richards was so convincing, and so extreme in her presence in the film, you suspected she'd had a she-wolf as a mama. Radiating rich-bitch, all-that-and-a-bag-of-chips insolence and a take-on-all-comers sensuality, she earned instant icon status with every Joe Sixpack and with a good number of less predictable types, too - like thinking men, including a number of movie critics, who were greatfully relieved of the burden of any coherent thought when Richards was on-screen.

Wild Things was moderately successful in theaters, but as a renter it was killer, and it turned Richards into one of the Internet's most downloaded knockouts. Those of us who can't get enough of her in movies will be heartened to know that she's starring this month as a small-town barracuda in the black comedy Drop Dead Gorgeous. Later this year, she'll fulfill a destiny most of her fan base would have voted her into if they'd been asked to render an opinion - she'll be the newest Bond girl, Christmas Jones, in The World Is Not Enough.

When Richards walks in to meet me for breakfast at one of Santa Monica's posh beach-front hotels, she's so fresh-faced, ripe and elegantly groomed that a couple of waiters practically slam into each other trying not to stare at her. What's more, the closer she gets the clearer it becomes that she's every bit as spectacular-looking in real life as she is on-screen - and that none of this lush beauty is artificially induced. Even though she's just off an arduous flight from London, where she's been shooting the Bond film, she greets me with a chipper, soft-spoken, wholesomely unassuming politeness that wouldn't be in the average young Hollywood actress's repertoire of behaviours on her best day.

With all this encouragement, I can't resist starting the interview with some go-for-it fun. Let's get right to that persistent rumor about Richards - that she got so far so fast by being fast and loose in Hollywood. Any truth to the notion she may have gone on a few dates to achieve her current spotlight status?

Having just downed her first sip of coffee, Richards lets out a great, quintessential guy's-girl laugh at this opening question. "I've never had anyone ask me that straight to my face," she nearly chokes. Then she lets another giggle rip through the quiet dining room and tells me, "I've dated very few people since being here. But I can see how that happens to some girls, because I was very naive when I began to get into the business. Not so naive as to think that's how you get ahead, though." I remind Richards that when a beautiful young thing seems to emerge out of the ether and goes on to play the sort of nubile babes she has, suspicious minds are bound to work overtime. "In Hollywood," she replies, "if you're brought up to be a nice person, which i definitely was, and that's what you are, people think: what does she want? I've had people say, 'You're so nice' like they were suspicious of me. It's sad and strange."

It's also inevitable. I mean, the least some people can hope for is that anyone who looks like Denise Richards will turn out to be a stark, raving bitch. "Do people think orhope that I'm a bitch?" she asks, laughing and shaking her head. "Personally, I would not want to even work with a diva, let alone be one. And I'm really happy to say, I've never been around that kind of behaviour on a movie set. I'm a nice person and, sorry, but I enjoy working with nice people, too. I'm not going to be the actress who's the last one out of her trailer. Life is too short for that. People who've seen me play 'the sexy girl' in films assume that's how I must be in real life, but if I ever got to be a diva, believe me, my family would be the first ones to slap my face."

OK, then, let's put some perspective on a little tale that Hollywood insiders have passed around about Richards and the notoriously ferocious director Paul Verhoeven. As I heard it, Richards, like no other unknown actress who'd just been cast in a big-budget sci-fi epic like Starship Troopers might have thought to do, locked horns with Verhoeven over a nude scene that audiences never ended up seeing. Was there any such difference of creative opinion? Richards appears pleased to settle accounts on this one."I had first met Paul for Showgirls, the part that Elizabeth Berkley finally took," she explains. "I don't think I actually could have done that movie when it came right down to it - it was about sex. But I was thrilled when Paul remembered me, and I was so thankful when he cast me in Starship. After I was cast, though, he asked me to do nudity. He wanted to show my breasts in a scene with Casper Van Dien. I felt it wasn't necessary for my character - for that scene or for that film, for that matter."

So how loud did things get? Richards laughs, italicizing her mile-wide grin with a wink, and says,"Like, did he scream? Well, there may have been a... discussion between him and my agent. After that, I talked to Paul about a way we could shoot the scene, and we shot it. It wasn't the way he wanted and it ended up not being in the movie at all. Everyone has their vision, right? When Starship came out the critics gave us all hell, anyhow. But... I mean, it was my first movie."

First movie? Hold on. Surely, Richards can't be intentionally omitting from her résumé the little straight-to-video treasure Tammy And The T-Rex about a high school student who turns into a dinosaur. She turns crimson at the mention of the thing, lowers her face and starts explaining, "I'm not going to tell you what that movie was except to say it's something you should not watch. Let's not talk about it, OK?" I tell her I caught Tammy on cable by accident and that, if nothing else, she looked swell in it. "That's fine, we can movie on, " she says, cracking up. "You're completely embarassing me, knowing about that movie. That's why I say Starship was my first movie - it's my first real movie that made it into a theater. Everybody's got to start somewhere, right? Maybe even Susan Sarandon has a movie like that in her past. I'll tell you what - if I become a Susan Sarandon, then I'll tell you about making Tammy." Deal. But then will she also discuss the 1995 film P.C.H. she made with Casper Van Dien and Elliott Gould? And the 1994 number called Lookin' Italian? And what about 1993's spoof National Lampoon's Loaded Weapon 1 in wich she's billed below William Shatner and Dr. Joyce Brothers?

Well, to be fair let's go back to where Denise Richards first began. She started out a Midwestern suburban girl from a close, middle-class family, one of two daughters of a dad who worked for the phone company and a housewife mom. It was only when her father got transferred from Illinois to San Diego that she became, by 17, a cheerleader, a surfer's girlfriend and a teen-magazine and catalog model. On graduating, though, Richards hit the acting-class/auditioning circuit with a vengeance, for which she was rewarded with occasionaldecorative gigs on "Doogie Howser, M.D." and "Seinfeld." In 1993, she joined Ben Affleck in the cast of NBC's short-lived series "Against The Grain." After that stint the aforementioned embarassments came along, together with a recurring role as Loni Anderson's daughter on "Melrose Place." Starship Troopers, cartoon that it may have been, was the serious turning point for Richards. It got her noticed and it got her Wild Things. "I thought carefully about doing Wild Things," Richards says. "It was risky, especially at that point when I didn't have an established career in movies. It's very easy to get typecast in this town. But I thought it would be great to work with John [McNaughton], Neve [Campbell], Kevin [Bacon], Matt [Dillon] and Bill Murray. And I loved the character."
The frenzy Wild Things was destined to generate started right away. "The press junket was unbelievable," says Richards. "People had that flat-out audicity to ask me if I was bisexual, and if Neve and I had a thing going on. I can understand that, because I'm 'the new girl,' they think I must be just like my character, but get over it. I'm very comfortable with my sexuality and if a role calls for me to be with another woman, it's not a bad thing. I was more comfortable with Neve because she's a woman. With a guy, I don't exactly want to say, like I did to Neve, 'Can you protect me here? Would you mind putting your hand here or there to cover this or that flaw?'" At this Richards lets fly that great laugh and gives me one of her winking smiles as she blows an errant strand of hair.

After Wild Things, Hollywood offered Richards just about every teen-slasher-on-the-loose flick, every She's All That-style romantic comedy, plus a part in Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (or so it was rumored) and the lead in Tomb Raider. "And lots of scripts with eight-page lesbian scenes," Richards adds. "But I didn't want to do another movie like Wild Things. And I'm not a teenager. Plus I need to be around seasoned actors, to be allowed to do great projects with great directors where I'm passionate about the character - to do, like, say, a real comedy, a beautiful period peice, something dark and gritty.I need to learn. That's why I went a whole year without work after Wild Things."

A year can be a momentum-draining lifetime in a young career, though, can't it? "I worried that I was never going to work again," she agrees. "But I didn't want to do just anything for the money. A lot of times with projects I loved, they already had offers out to Gwyneth Paltrow, Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet. I'd just go in trying to do my best. Luckily my agents and managers are truly interested in building my career. They kept saying, 'You will work again.'" The movie that brought Richards out of her self-imposed hiatus was Drop Dead Gorgeous, a darkly comic, often knee-slappingly funny mockumentary about nasty, behind-the-scenes in-fighting among a bunch of all-American crazies in a small-town Minnesota beauty pageant. "I play a 17-year-old, and it's probably the last time I'll ever play a teenager again," declares Richards. "I'm clearly not close to 16, which my costar Kirsten Dunst actually is." So, exactly what is Richards's age? She laughs the question off with a wink and says, "Oh, twentysomething." (Some sources list her age as, oh, 28-ish.)

Richards's next film, The World Is Not Enough, in which she plays one of Pierce Brosnan's distractions (the other is Sophie Marceau), offers her the chance for global recognition, and for dangerous pigeon-holing. The minute she was cast as the new Bond girl, her name and face became known to millions of Bond fans and linked inextricably for the time being to images of things shaken not stirred.

"I play a nuclear weapons expert," Richards explains, adding somewhat unnecessarily, "not the lab-coat-and-glasses-wearing kind." Is she the good Bond girl or the bad Bond girl? "I'm tough, strong and sassy. It's Sophie's character's agenda to make things terrible for Bond, and it's my character's agenda to make things good. Pierce and I have a lot of chemistry together." Will the movie ignore the age gap between Richards and Brosnan (he's 46) and feature a love scene? "He's not much older than I am," she insists, "but who'd notice anyway, because he's so sexy and fun? I can't really say, but maybe we have a little love scene. It is a Bond movie, you know."

Richards seems not at all nervous about being seen as just another Bond girl, the kind who, like Honor Blackman and Ursula Andress - said to play cameos in the new movie - tend to drop off the radar screen once they've kiss-kissed-bang-banged. "It's a great thing for me to work with the director Michael Apted, who's done wonderful things like Coal Miner's Daughter and the documentary 7 Up. He's an actor's director and he's interested in the characters, so it's not just about the action. Hey, if I never get to work again because I'm a 'Bond girl' then I was never going to work again anyway. It's up to my agent and manager to provide me with the oppurtunities. My job is to work my ass off."

How does Richards cope with the anxious ups and downs of each move in a career that's finally got momentum? "It helps that my dad and mom are incredibly supportive, as they've always been. We're so close. They're very young - my dad just turned 50 this year and my mom's four years younger. They keep me very grounded. And, as always, my sister and Patrick are my best friends."

Patrick is Patrick Muldoon, former "Melrose Place" resident and Richards's Starship Troopers costar. "People say all the time, 'Never date an actor,'" she tells me. "I say, 'That depends on the actor.' I've dated other people since being in L.A., but Patrick is my first serious adult relationship. We were great friends for many years and I'd always been attracted to him, but the timing wasn't right. Then we really got to know each other on Starship. He has an incredible, sarcastic sense of humor, which is the most appealing part of a man, and a really sweet, lovable, endearing nature. And he's intense and passionate, besides being a goofball, which I love."

With a couple that looks like these two, I have to ask, who beats whom to the mirror? Richards cracks up at the question. "We don't race each other to the mirror. Although... oh, he's going to kill me for saying this, but he owns hair spray and I don't. Of course, he does have that phenomenal Irish hair." When I ask what she finds sexiest about Muldoon, she doesn't miss a beat: "I think it's really sexy watching a man shave. If I'm in the makeup trailer getting my face done, I love it when guys come in and shave. I've even shaved Patrick's face. As far as what's sexy physically, do you know what I love? There's something so sexy in the part just below the jeans, a little below the abs, just between the hips. Oh, that is soooo sexy."

For the past several months, Richards and Muldoon have enjoyed precious little time together because she's been on location shooting the Bond flick. "It really tests your sense of security being away for a long time like this," she says. "Patrick's been to visit and I come back to L.A. when I can. When we're apart we talk on the phone two, three times a day. When we met, he was doing much better in his career. We both know that careers, like life, seesaw forever. Right now, I'm working a little bit more than he is, but he's making choices about what to do next and he's very supportive of me."

With all the work Richards has been doing, and all that quality time she's beein trying to fit in with Muldoon, has she been able to rub shoulder's with famous people at swanky Hollywood shindings? "I met Tom Cruise at a party a while ago and completely lost it. There I was with one of my girlfriends and he smiled and introduced himself so sweetly. I told him who I was, then made a complete ass out of myself because I could not stop staring andsmiling. He has the most beautiful smile. I made it so obvious I was starstruck."

And has Richards had time to enjoy her new paychecks with any big time splurging? "I'm saving to buy a home," she reports. "I haven't bought anything extravagant. I didn't grow up with a lot of money, so I appreciate every penny I have. It's a big adjustment for me having someone to pick me up in a car, someone else meet me at the airport and check me in. It's fun and silly and great, but only because I can share it with people I love. During my first week in London I called my mom abd said, 'I'm lonel,' and I bought her a first-class ticket to see me. That's the stuff that makes it fun for me," Every once in awhile, though, doesn't she lavish a little largesse on herself? "I'm a clothes kind of girl," she declares, "and a serious shopper. The last time I was home from England, Patrick and I were at Fred Segal and I couldn't decide between two pairs of shoes. Patrick, who had no idea how much the shoes cost, said, 'Why don't you buy both?' So, when I went up to the counter and the guy said, 'That'll be $700,' he looked like he was going to fall over."

There's a good chance Richards will soon be able to buy those shoes in every color. She's currently deciding whether or not to do a big-budget extravaganza, but in any case, she's certain that in the next couple of years she'll be working with the kind of high-profile directors she aspires to - Jane Campion, Ang Lee and Cameron Crowe. As far as actors she'd like to share the screen with, her wish list includes Angelina Jolie and Kate Winslet. "I'm just plugging along, hoping to learn and establish myself," she says. "Hoping that each movie helps me. There is no Plan B. I would rather be a great actress than a movie star. If it meant I worked a lot less, that would be fine because then I could have the ideal: my career, chldren and a great personal and family life.

Shes Back On The Catwalk

Shes Back On The Catwalk
New Photos From The 6th Annual GM Ten


On The Catwalk



Oscar week got rolling Tuesday on a Par soundstage with GM's Ten, the carmakers annual intermingling of fashion (worn by celebs), cars (from guess who) and a concert (Beck with band.)



The concept is pretty simple: The celebs walk down the runway and the cars follow them. It's all about the visuals. If one thing stands out, it's how polished the autos are. Brazilian models don't get waxed like this.

The ambiance was set by Best productions, which had covered every surface in white and installed a sound system powerful enough to communicate with nuclear submarines via undersea vibrations.

As for the cars, the new ones looked great, but the 1952 Buick Riviera convertible stole the show. A hybrid version of this could be the ride of the millennium.

Denise Remembers Adrienne Shelly

Denise Remembers Adrienne Shelly
Actress, Director, Writer, and Producer, murdered... but remembered. : One-of-a-kind aprons to be auctioned off for cause...


Adrienne Shelly

Denise Richards

Scarlett Johansson

The Adrienne Shelly Foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated in loving memory to the uniquely gifted actor and filmmaker Adrienne Shelly, whose highly accomplished life was tragically cut short November 1, 2006.

Shelly was murdered by a 19-year-old construction worker with whom she argued about building noise in the apartment under her office in New York City.

Denise, along with friends Russell, Cheryl Hines, Jordana Brewster, Scarlett Johansson, Tori Spelling, Amy Smart, Lisa Kudrow, Ally Sheedy, Rosanna Arquette and Amanda Foreman have designed, decorated and autographed one-of-a-kind aprons to be auctioned off in conjunction with the release of "Waitress," for the benefit of the Adrienne Shelly Foundation.

An Unbelievable Talent
Adrienne Shelly’s death made her tabloid fodder, but she was so much more.

Reading the stories about the murder of actress Adrienne Shelly in New York City this week, I kept thinking of a Frank O’Hara poem that begins, “Lana Turner has collapsed!” After that he spends about half of the poem’s 17 lines talking about the weather (snow, rain, possibly hail, “but hailing hits you hard on the head/ hard so it was really snowing and/ raining and I was in such a hurry …”) and the New York City traffic. Then, “suddenly I see a headline/ LANA TURNER HAS COLLAPSED!” And then, in one of the most amazing verbal downshifts I’ve ever seen, O’Hara slows his poem down from a pell-mell rush to a super-slo-mo crawl, writing “there is no snow in Hollywood/ there is no rain in California/ I have been to lots of parties/ and acted perfectly disgraceful/ but I never actually collapsed/ oh Lana Turner we love you get up.”

O’Hara’s poem is maybe the best try I’ve ever seen to capture the difference between life as we all know it and life in the tabloids, where celebrities seem to do all kinds of things, like collapsing, that most of us just never get the chance to try. Not that you’d want to—all those exclamation points following your every deed.

Adrienne Shelly, 40, of course, suffered a terrible fate in no way commensurate with an actress’s collapse. Shelly was murdered by a 19-year-old construction worker with whom she argued about building noise in the apartment under her office in New York City. But I couldn’t help but immediately thinking of the O’Hara poem when I saw her face splashed across the front pages of two New York papers. SUICIDE ACTRESS—IT WAS MURDER read the Post headline, referring to the fact that the police revised their earlier verdict of suicide when the facts didn’t add up. The more people I talked to, the more I realized that most people didn’t have a clue as to who she was, much less how good she was. In a city where it seems like every other person is an “actor” or an “actress,” this actress’s death was written off by most people as just another cheesy tabloid tale. And the more I ran into this attitude, the more I thought about O’Hara. Adrienne Shelly’s death did not make news because she was talented or especially good at what she did. She got there because she was a show-business person with just enough glamour to make page one for a day.

And that’s a tragedy, too, because she was so good at what she did. In two of her earliest films—the two I’m most familiar with—she lights up the screen like a bottle rocket. She was mighty pretty, in an unconventional way, and that didn’t hurt, of course, but there was something about her that just made you want to watch her any time she was on screen. Both the movies I’m thinking of were made by Hal Hartley, whose indie films are as idiosyncratically recognizable as a set of fingerprints. “The Unbelievable Truth” (1989) and “Trust” (1990) are both set on Long Island—the unposh part—and both are characterized by Hartley’s trademark staccato dialogue where characters speak in complete sentences and always say exactly what they mean and still get misunderstood. In “The Unbelievable Truth,” Shelly played Audry, a high-school senior who stands up to her bully of a father, her dope of a boyfriend and then falls for an ex-con who only she can see is a truly good man. It’s a part, with scripted lines—the character of Audry is Hartley’s invention. And yet, the minute Shelly appears on screen, you forget you’re watching an actress. She inhabits the part so completely that all you know is, this is the ultimate high-school girlfriend, and someone you couldn’t live up to in a hundred years.

Then she turned around and did “Trust” for Hartley and there she really shows you what she was capable of. Still a high-school girl on Long Island, still rebellious. But where Audry was brainy and quirky, Maria is—at least at the outset—just another big-haired, pregnant teenager with a fast mouth and a lot of attitude. So much attitude that when she gets in a shouting match with her dad and winds it up by slapping his face, he drops dead of a heart attack. It’s no small tribute to Shelly to point out that you totally believe she’s capable of this while you’re watching the movie.

I went back while I was writing this and watched some of “Trust” again. In an interview, Hartley once explained that he made the movie on the spur of the moment because he wanted to work with Shelly again immediately after making “The Unbelievable Truth,” so he had very little money and very little time. The movie was shot in 11 days. The reason he could do that, he said, was because so much of the direction was implied in the dialogue. The dialogue pretty much told the actors what to do. That’s true. It’s a talky movie, like all Hartley movies. But what’s interesting about Shelly’s performance are the moments where she’s not talking, where she’s just listening to another character, or thinking by herself. Emotion travels over her face like clouds blown across a windy sky. The whole movie seems like it takes place on her face. The miracle is that while you’re watching this happen, you never once stop to think, what an actress. It’s just a girl in trouble on Long Island. When she was acting, Adrienne Shelly could make you forget all about Adrienne Shelly.

She made lots of other movies, and at the time of her death she had her sixth directorial effort (“Waitress”) almost ready for theaters. She was a person of substance, in other words, an actress for whom quotations around that word were wholly unnecessary. But for me, she was who she was because of two movies, “Trust” and “The Unbelievable Truth.” And there she will live forever.