Friday
Mar082019
Open Thread for International Women's Day
Friday, March 8, 2019 at 2:05PM Still sick. Apologies! So herewith an open thread. I'll give you a prompt.
Name the first three actresses you ever loved in the comments! Mine were probably Hayley Mills and Maureen O'Hara (because The Parent Trap was my favorite movie as a wee tyke) and Natalie Wood (because I was obsessed with musicals as a kid and particularly West Side Story airings on television). The trifecta of Michelle Pfeiffer, Kathleen Turner, and Meryl Streep that completely done me in* at movie theaters happened a bit later.
*aka caused my actressexuality
Reader Comments (124)
You are all giving teenager answers. I'm talking FIRSTS. If i was doing teenage years my loves were very different ;)
My movie obsessiveness was born in the 00's...but I'd say my first full fledged actress obsessions (in that I needed to devour everything they were in) were with Kate Winslet, Nicole Kidman and Angelina Jolie. I was obsessed with them in the beginnings of my cinephilia. Then that shifted to Shirley MacLaine, Elizabeth Taylor and Jeanne Moreau.
I watched a lot of television, therefore: Dawn Wells, Barbara Billingsley, Marlo Thomas
Maggie Cheung, Michelle Yeoh, Gong Li, Anita Mui (I have to list 4)
NEVE CAMPBELL - was practically my beard in middle school. I had her all over my locker and she was in every short story of mine. When my brother and I played Final Fantasy VII, we named Tifa Neve.
SANDRA BULLOCK - my parents took us to While You Were Sleeping and The Net and I was hooked. "She really is one hell of an actress," my father said after we rented "28 Days".
SARAH MICHELLE GELLAR - In the same oeuvre as Neve (popular TV show, slasher movie roles), but her ep of SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE was one of the first times I got to watch the entire show. I also loved reading gossip about her feud with Susan Lucci!
Ok, you want FIRSTS:
Lynda Carter
Jaclyn Smith
Stephanie Zimbalist
I know mine are teenage, too, but I don't know if I had any in childhood per se! Bette Midler?
Oh, gosh, I had a thing (early on) for Linda Carter as Wonder Woman, which was both revealing and spot on. Olivia Newton-John in Grease and Michelle Pfeiffer in Grease 2 also were a one-two a-ha moment, and have loved actresses (especially those who can sing) ever since.
Much like Mareko, Grease (which I called Grease 1) and Grease 2 made me a lover of Olivia Newton-John and Michelle Pfeiffer. We had a VHS tape with these movies recorded on it, and I would watch both, rewind the tape, and watch again and again. I also wore out our copy of Xanadu.
Veronica Lake really spoke to me from the moment I first saw her. Remember when AMC played classic movies? Without commercials!!!
Geena Davis
Susan Sarandon
Julia Roberts
Firsts were in the 70's, because I am that old:
Farrah Fawcett-Majors, and the rest of Charlie's Angels
Carol Burnett
Penny Marshall & Cindy Wiliams
Bonus: Marcia Marcia Marcia!!!
Julie Andrews is probably first due to Mary Poppins. My mom loves romantic comedies so I saw a lot growing up so I’d probably say Meg Ryan next. I watched Titanic when I was 7 or 8 and instantly fell in love with Kate Winslet. Mind you I’m gay lol. If I could pick a fourth it would be Julia Roberts.
I was around 15 when I watched Trois couleurs: Bleu, Wuthering Heights, Basic Instinct, Casino, Marvin's Room and The First Wives Club, so it makes sense that Juliette, Sharon and Diane had made such a huge , lasting impression on me; after that I started looking for "classics", and found out BETTE DAVIS (All About Eve, Jezebel), FAYE DUNAWAY (Network, Chinatown) ,ELIZABETH TAYLOR ( Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Suddenly, Last Summer) and AUDREY HEPBURN in virtually everything she'd done.
The 90's was such a wonderful year for actresses , I clearly remember people going to see films just because of the likes of Stone, Pfeiffer, Moore, Ryan, Davis, Sarandon, Roberts, Bullock, Lange, Streep.
Around this time I had my "Directors' Obsession" watching lots of things from Lumet,,Scorsese DePalma and Coppola.
Meryl Streep, Vanessa Redgrave, and Dian Sastrowardoyo (Indonesian actress)
Vivien Leigh
Meryl Streep
Emma Thompson
Winona Ryder
Ashley Judd
Claire Danes
I think most of us are giving teenage answers because we're interpreting the question as "which actresses did you love enough to try to watch all their available movies?"
Sigourney Weaver, Drew Barrymore, um, maybe Shelley Long. I would rush home from school to watch Cheers re runs, so off the top of my head those three.
When I was about 8 years old I was obsessed with the Tudors and begged my brother to let me watch a late night repeat of an old show called 'Blackadder' which was set in the Tudor period. I instantly fell in love with the actress playing Queen Elizabeth I but I didn't even think to learn the actress's name.
A couple of months later, I was enraptured one Christmas by Hallmark's 'Merlin' on Channel 4. I instantly fell in love with the actress playing Queen Mab but I didn't even think to learn the actress's name.
A couple of months after that, I was taken to the cinema to see 'Chicken Run' and became obsessed with the character of Mrs. Tweedy. Again I didn't even think to learn the actress's name.
Not long after we got the internet in our house and I finally pieced it together that the SAME woman played all of these roles. The first three actresses I loved therefore were Miranda Richardson, Miranda Richardson and Miranda Richardson. Which is probably why I love Cronenberg's 'Spider' so much.
Coming of age in the late 90s, early ‘00s, it was definitely Julia Roberts, Nicole Kidman, and Jennifer Lopez. I even saw Gigli in theaters, for Chrissakes.
Bette Davis ...since I was a child..
Gleen Close / Meryl Streep ...since I was a teenager
Nicole Kidman...When I saw Eyes wise shut and that MONOLOGUE when I was an adult
kate jackson, farrah fawcett, and jaclyn smith
perhaps not highbrow but they hooked me at age 8.
I didn't love any actresses when I was a child, hence my answer as Juliette Lewis, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Diane Keaton as being my 3 most beloved actresses in my teens.
Juliette just had something about her I had never seen before. There was really nobody like her. Especially in Cape Fear, Gilbert Grape and Natural Born Killers (also Kalifornia and Strange Days around that time).
Then Jennifer Jason Leigh introduced me to really mature material. I probably saw her first in Single White Female and hers was the most interesting career to follow and explore around that time. Short Cuts, Hudsucker Proxy, Mrs. Parker, Dolores Clairborne, Georgia. What a run! And then going back and seeing Last Exit to Brooklyn, Miami Blues, Flesh+Blood. She's aces in all of them. Even when the material is something like a slasher movie (Eyes of a Stranger).
Diane Keaton, like the other two mentioned above, also had something unique about her and took me on an amazing journey. Woody Allen was there too (which unfortunately I can't revisit today). I remember beng in love with her Manhattan Murder Mistery character and then just watching everything she was in and being completely blown away. My favorites were Looking for Mr. Goodbar, Sleeper, Annie Hall and I fell in love again in Something's Gotta Give.
Whoopi, Sigourney Weaver and Uma Thurman (as Poison Ivy YES)
Pfeiff, Tori Spelling (I know) and Courtney Thorne-Smith (I was a TV gal growin up)
A few of you are trying for cool points or were extremely late bloomers. What kid is watching Three Colours: Blue haha.
OK, you asked for the under 10 yrs. old first.
Julie Andrews - Mary Poppins & Sound of Music
Judy Garland - I loved her, but was scared of those flying monkeys in Wizard of Oz.
Audrey Hepburn - because of Charade, My Fair Lady, and Wait Until Dark.
I also had a real love for old movies and came to adore Ingrid Bergman, Rosalind Russell, and Shirley Maclaine.
During the 70's when I was in high school it was Diane Keaton, Meryl Streep and Faye Dunaway.
I like a wide range of actresses, but that early influence of grace, elegance and pure singing & dancing talent is still the bar that I measure actresses by.
Amy Adams
Nicole Kidman
Meryl Streep
Jill-
First, 15 is not a kid and second I am not sorry for having been introduced to such a masterpiece as Trois couleurs: Bleu at that age. Sorry, just not sorry. Watched Magnolia when I was 17 and it still remains one of my favourite films of all time.
Carrie' was the movie for wich i started to love cinema and in big part thanks to the extraordinary performance from Sissy Spacek so, she is my #1.
Julianne Moore is easily the second i love because I've seen her in many films and she is always fine.
And i have to mention the first mexican actress that impresed me, it was Ximena Ayala in Perfume de Violetas (Violet Perfume). Her work after that is very solid.
Emma Thompson
Tilda Swinton (my sis and I watched 'Orlando' repeatedly)
Anne Reinking (no substitute for her in 'Annie', and then I saw her in 'All That Jazz' as an adult)
My first was Gillian Anderson. It was "only" her TV role as Dana Scully in The X-Files, but that deeply conquered my heart. (love that she's part of a true phenomina-> The Scully effect)
Then I do like a lot of actresses like Nicole Kidman or Glenn Close obviously, but love…. I did discover her a bit "late", but since MM! Meryl is an absolute love! I know MM! is simply silly for most, for me it was life-changing.
I'd also watch everything with Christine Baranski in it, so she's my third.
Nicole Kidman, Michelle Pfeiffer and Uma Thurman.
Or namely, Dr. Chase Meridian, Selina Kyle and Poison Ivy.
Nicole Kidman
Natalie Wood
Kathleen Turner/Kirstin Dunst (The Virgin Suicides got me into cinema)
Julie Andrews - Mary Poppins & The Sound of Music. I loved, and obviously still love her, in both films so much but as a youngster did find it difficult to see that she was the same person! Mary looks much taller than Maria! Goldie Hawn - Overboard, Wildcats, Private Benjamin, Death Becomes Her. Whoop Goldberg - Sister Act, Ghost
Diana Rigg
Karen Black
Lindsey Wagner
Christina Ricci, Michelle Pfeiffer, Whoopi Goldberg
LOVE this question and everyone's answers ❤️
Marilyn Monroe. I was mesmerized even before getting to watch her films.
Isabelle Adjani. My best friend at the time had an old VHS of One Deadly Summer and we would watch it over and over mostly because of her performance. In retrospect that's such a strange movie to be obsessed with at such an early age, plus it's not even one of her best works. I also remember that we knew the entire dinner scene from Subway by heart!
Nicole Kidman. Watching Moulin Rouge! at fifteen in the theater changed my life for ever.
ps. So happy to see the impact that Whoopi had on 80s/90s kids. She's definitely fourth on my list. My mom and I were never tired of watching her movies together - such privileged family moments. Jumpin' Jack Flash is a personal favorite of mine, I think I still know some of the lines from the French dubbed version.
Jill/Eder Arcas: Agree with the latter - 15 is easily old enough to be into Trois couleurs: bleu. I saw my first Kieślowski around that age too - the Dekalog! No points-scoring at all - it's just a teenager who loves films and who is seeking out famous films or the works of famous filmmakers.
I stick by my three original choices - Fay Wray, Lois Maxwell and Cher - but I was thinking big screen. If I bring in TV too, I'd have to go with:
Linda Evans - for Dallas
Joan Collins - for Dynasty
Glynis Barber - for Dempsey and Makepeace
All great childhood memories!
In Jill's defense, 15 is pretty late an age for a typical actressexual to get to without having at least three actress obsessions or "OMG I love her!" Moments.
Julie Andrews (The Sound of Music, The Princess Diaries, weirdly Mary Poppins came later)
Lucille Ball (I Love Lucy reruns)
Kate Winslet (Finding Neverland; I was too young to watch a Titanic yet lol)
Judy Garland in the Wizard of Oz
Jennifer Connelly in Labryinth
Michelle Pfeiffer in Catwoman (what Batman Returns really should have been called!)
Michelle Pfeiffer
Shirley MacLaine
Goldie Hawn
Mine are all from 1960's television. Karen Valentine - Room 222, Dawn Wells - Gilligan's Island and Marta Krysten - Lost in Space. I actually had a poster of Karen Valentine in my bedroom when I was around 10.
Karen Valentine! I thought about listing her. Was a fan due to all her tv guest spots in the late 1970s, but especially because of The North Avenue Irregulars.
Meryl Streep, Marion Cotillard & Anne Hathaway.
Love reading all these. The first three I listed were movie stars (at least to my young eyes) but if we're talking TV it would be:
Lucille Ball
Elizabeth Montgomery
Marlo Thomas
Though I loved Karen Valentine too (and Denise Nicholas)!!!
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Oh, i think i did not understand the concept of FIRSTS. :p. In that case will be:
Sissy Spacek as Carrie White, the first love that you can't never forget
Renee Zellweger in Chicago, i was obsessed with her in that
Jane Kaczmarek in Malcolm in the Middle, from beginning to end of the series
Julie Andrews - both The Sound of Music and Mary Poppins were magical to me, and she was the reason.
Natalie Wood - West Side Story, is still, in my opinion one of the greatest films ever made. She also went on to do more complicated films like Love with the Proper Stranger and Inside Daisy Clover.
Bette Davis - Whatever Happened to Baby Jane scared the shit out of me but I also loved it. In the years since that, I have delved farther and farther back into her amazing body of work.