Word: actresses
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...ever seen All About Eve, or even A Star is Born, then you already know the plot of Anna: aging actress takes fledgling actress under her wing: fledgling's subsequent rise parallels her mentor's fall...
Another twist in the story is that both actresses are Czechs transplanted in America. Anna was a beloved Czech film star until the Russian invasion of 1968, which took her film-director husband, her child, her freedom and ultimately her citizenship away. She washed ashore in New York, gradually losing her youth and her name recognition as an actress...
...same token, in order to convince that Anna is a talented actress, Kirkland displays a great deal of acting talent herself. Kirkland's performance shows the twin tragedies of Anna's considerable talent gone to waste and Anna's dissolution from dignity to near madness. Anna is a showpiece for Kirkland, one that, counter to the film's own premise, should set this deserving older actress' star on the rise...
Finally, no sampling of cookbooks would be complete without one of the genre's inevitable celebrity offerings. A typically vacuous entry this season is The Jill St. John Cookbook (Random House; 259 pages; $19.95), a bit of fluff that begins with the actress's expression of gratitude to Eastman Kodak for providing film and processing. "Thanks, Kodak!" she says, and well she might, for the collection of glistening photographs, mostly of the monthly food columnist herself, are this volume's main, albeit limited, attraction...
...prima donna power fiend. Schwarzenegger has some trouble when he has to string together several sentences at a time, but once the action gets going, he carries it along and delivers the punchy one-liner like no one else. He is paired with Maria Conchita Alonso, perhaps the only actress around with English enunciation as bad as Schwartzeneggar's. Still, she manages to give her character a toughness that keeps her from being overshadowed by her towering partner...