wowOwow - The Women on the Web

11/06/2009 6:00 am

Culture

Liz Smith: The 25 Faces of Anna Deavere Smith

And more from Our Gossip Girl: Is Oscar gleaming for Hal Holbrook? And Margaux Hemingway's tragic life headed for screen.

"What do I consider is good for gossip? It depends on the year. One year – Mariah Carey was the gift that kept on giving. Another year, it was Lindsay Lohan. Then Britney Spears. One year it was Michael Jackson. If you look at any of the great train wrecks, just before it gets really messy, they are the gift that keeps on giving."

So opined the former gossip writer and current novelist Paula Froelich.

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Many of you probably remember the beautiful model/actress Margaux Hemingway, granddaughter of Ernest Hemingway and sister of Mariel Hemingway. Mariel also became an actress and, later, a successful businesswoman. (Margaux and Mariel co-starred in one of the worst, most exploitive movies ever, "Lipstick," with its infamous rape scene.)

Margaux’s life was fraught with excess – sex, drugs, rock ‘n’ roll – and capped with emotional problems and severe depression. She became a fabulous face and presence on the scene during the lurid, liberated 1970s and early ’80s. Hemingway was so hot at one point, she maneuvered the first million-dollar contract awarded to a model. Faberge snapped her up as the spokesmodel for Babe perfume.

Eventually, too much Studio 54 and other citadels of decadence caught up with Margaux. There was a tense relationship with her mother. And accusations that she had been molested by her godfather; a charge that caused her to be on the outs with her family for several years. She struggled to maintain a career, but her time had come and gone. It was then Mariel who attracted juicy roles in films, such as Woody Allen’s "Manhattan."

In 1996, just one day short of the anniversary of her grandfather’s suicide, Margaux took an overdose of Phenobarbital and died in her Santa Monica apartment.

If you think this cautionary tale of beauty and fame gone awry would make an interesting movie, you are not alone. Richard Dupont, one of the few survivors of the Andy Warhol era, is putting together a film about Margaux. He has chosen Australian actress Melissa George to play Miss Hemingway. She is said to bear more than a passing resemblance to the young Margaux. Giselle Roman is writing the screenplay.

Richard knows his way around movies dealing with such subject matter. He and his twin, Robert, produced "Factory Girl," which allowed Sienna Miller the opportunity to give her considerable all as Edie Sedgwick. (Sienna’s performance deserved more attention than it received.)

And the brothers have a big hand in the coming documentary on Halston, which is expected to be a sensation at Sundance.

Of Margaux, Dupont says: "She rose to fame too quickly. It was all too much for this girl from Ketchum, ID, to land in NY and practically overnight become a supermodel."

It’s a story as old as showbiz, but one that always holds fascination for those who peer through the windows at the beautiful and the damned.

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Right here in New York, we have a phenomenon named Anna Deavere Smith and she is starring herself, playing 25 different people in her show "Let Me Down Easy." Anna’s spellbinding stories at Second Stage feature tributes to the strength, courage and bravery of folks like Ann Richards, Lance Armstrong and Joel Siegel. Anna interviewed more than 300 souls and wrote and staged it all. Here’s your health care for everybody’s prescription, right at 307 West 43 Street. Call (212) 246-4422 for tickets.