 |
||||||||||||||||||
 |
||||||||||||||||||
 |
||||||||||||||||||
 |
||||||||||||||||||
 |
||||||||||||||||||
|
Biography
As with all long-running businesses, the selling of films has become ever-more sophisticated over the years. Audiences are now broken down into clear demographics and movies are conceived and pruned to target them. Perhaps the biggest market to have been recognized and tapped by major studios in recent times is the tweenie girl market, females who are still children but moving quickly towards maturity. Naturally, new stars were required to front the films and, predictably, there were many, many applicants. Many applicants but only two clear winners - Lindsay Lohan and Hilary Duff. Both would score smash hits onscreen, and both would engage in parallel careers in music. But it was Lohan, perhaps because of an already impressively lengthy CV, who'd come out on top. In 2004, Rob Friedman, Vice President of Paramount would say of her "Right now she's the reigning teen queen. Lindsay is identifiable. She's not an unreal personality. Audiences can relate to her". And
how. Freaky Friday was a massive hit, she then headlined another in Mean
Girls, then shared top billing with the world's most famous VW Beetle in
Herbie: Fully Loaded. And she was smart about it, too. Though her stock
had risen to the point where she was paid $7.5 million for playing the
lead in the light comedy Just My Luck, she also cleverly sought out
adult movie-making experience by taking a bit-part as Meryl Streep's
daughter in Robert Altman's A Prairie Home Companion. The reigning teen
queen was clearly preparing herself for the long haul. As time passed the area became famed for its bird sanctuary, the Muttontown Preserve woodlands and then a genetic and cancer research centre that spawned three Nobel Prize winners. Though just a few miles outside the New York conurbation, it was leafy, sparsely populated and rich. Come the year 2000 its population was still 91.3% white with a median income of over $200,000. It was Gatsby country. So, the Lohans were doing well. Lindsay's father Michael was a Wall Street trader who'd helped build his father's pasta business into a multi-million dollar enterprise (he'd later sell it off to finance a move into film production). Lindsay's mother Dina (nee Sullivan), meanwhile, brought an element of showbiz to the home, being a former TV actress and a member of the exclusive Radio City Rockettes dance troupe. Originally inspired by the Tiller girls
in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1922, the Rockettes had become the world's
top precision dance group and a major US icon. Having grown in numbers
over the years to cope with a 4-shows-a-day 365-days-a-year schedule
there were still only 36 Rockettes at any one time. Only the absolute
best need apply. Taking dancing and singing lessons from the age of four, she boosted her employment possibilities even further, eventually scoring over 60 commercials. And she loved it. Her mother's glamorous past saw little Lindsay idolising the likes of Ann-Margret (who'd toured with the Rockettes) and Marilyn Monroe while also being impressed by the absurd maturity of the young Jodie Foster. It was no wonder that she felt her
mother's influence more strongly that her father's as, in 1990, he was
given a 4-year sentence in federal prison for fraudulent trading in
commodities futures (he claimed he was just a fall guy). It would not be
the last time Lindsay would suffer due to her father's behaviour. Many household had made a start here, including Morgan Freeman, Ray Liotta and Anne Heche, and Lindsay was taken on as Alexandra Fowler, conceived in sin by show favourites Amanda Corry and Sam Fowler and now having to cope with her mother's tempestuous love life. Lohan would be her character's third incarnation, following on from child actresses Kerri Ann Darling and Hillary Scott. It was a peachy job with more dialogue than a 10-year-old would normally be trusted with, but Lindsay had to leave when an even peachier opportunity came her way. For the past six months Disney had been seeking a young actress to star in a remake of their own 1961 classic The Parent Trap, wherein Hayley Mills had cunningly manipulated a reunion of her warring parents. Come January of 1997, director Nancy Meyers finally chose Lindsay so, for the next eight months, she flitted between London and California's Napa Valley, playing the separated twins who meet at summer camp and plot to bring parents Dennis Quaid and Natasha Richardson back together. And she did a quite extraordinary job,
not simply mastering a Brit accent but also the faltering accents of
Brit and American kids trying to mimic each other. One review described
her as "frighteningly poised", she won a Young Artist award
and it was clear that Lohan was something special. Disney certainly
thought so (they'd have appreciated the $66 million US box office gross,
too), signing her to a three-picture deal and offering her the
adolescent lead as Penny in their forthcoming Inspector Gadget. Having
spent so long away from home, though, she turned it down, the role being
taken by Michelle Trachtenberg. Unfortunately she only succeeds in giving
life to a doll (Tyra Banks) who enjoys her new life so much she foils
all of a horrified Lohan's attempts to turn her back. Eventually, of
course, everyone learns to get along, Banks becomes the friend Lindsay
needs and daddy recognises his daughters pain. It was another fine role
for a youngster, demanding far more than simple cuteness. However, the producers decided that as most of the crew were LA residents the show should be filmed there, rather than New York, where the pilot was made. This was no good for Lohan and she dropped out, being replaced by Marina Malota. As it turned out it was no good for New York-based Bette Midler either. She was Golden Globe-nominated but after just 17 episodes the travel and pressure made her job too tough and the show was scuppered. In the meantime, Lindsay, also an aspiring musician, had signed a 5-album deal with Estefan Enterprises, run by Emilio Estefan, husband of the multi-million-selling Gloria. The idea was to groom Lindsay into a pop-rock starlet of the Avril Lavigne type, to be sold on to a major label. Continuing with Disney, Lohan would now
make Get A Clue, another production to premiere on the Disney Channel.
In the spirit of Harriet The Spy (a hit for Lindsay's Inspector Gadget
replacement Michelle Trachtenberg), this saw her as a wealthy New York
student with a flair for fashion and journalism who, when her teacher
Ian Gomez goes missing, outwits all the adults while seeking the truth
behind the disappearance. It was fairly typical Disney fare, complete
with flashy editing and kid-pleasing music, but it was another step
towards Teen Queendom. The girl would make serious efforts to
subvert her mother's life, getting her ears pierced, cutting her hair
and getting it on with a motorcycle boy (Curtis having great fun with
the role) while mum's desperately trying to cope in the bizarre and
profoundly unfair world of High School (Lohan making fine use of the
innate seriousness she shares with Jodie Foster). It was a screaming
success, breaking the $100 million mark with ease and, boosted by
Lohan's own song Ultimate, its soundtrack entered the Billboard Top 20. However fast she was living, though, she had nothing on her father Michael. With his marriage now in tatters, he was losing both his wife and, as Dina was acting as Lindsay's manager, his kids, too. Lindsay spoke darkly of cocaine abuse as Michael fell deeper into trouble. While Freaky Friday was one of the hits of 2003, Michael ended the year facing charges of punching and swearing at a Manhattan sanitation worker who'd parked his truck in his way. Matters got worse in May the next year when, at Dakota's communion party, he had an altercation with brother-in-law Matt Sullivan and whacked him with a shoe, sending him to hospital (he'd plead guilty in the December). June would bring an arrest for allegedly
doing a runner from a hotel bill of $3800. Then February 2005 would see
him crash his car into a utility pole at Syosset, near his Long Island
home, escaping just before the vehicle burst into flames. He was found
to be not properly licensed and way over the alcohol limit. The
following May he would plead guilty to drink driving, attempted assault,
aggravated harassment (for threatening another brother-in-law over the
phone) and criminal contempt (for breaking a restraining order by
turning up at Dina's house). It was requested that he be sent to drug
rehab rather than jail, but the request was denied and he faced up to 4
years in prison. And his troubles weren't over yet. Adapted by SNL comedienne Tina Fey it was
smart and funny, well beyond you average teen fare, seeing Lohan as a
home-schooled girl who's grown up in Africa, now arriving at High School
for the first time. Taken on as a joke by Rachel McAdams' cruel elite
clique, she's then mercilessly picked on and seeks Bushgirl-style
revenge. As said, it was sharp stuff and another big hit, making Lohan
the undeniable Teen Queen. So, having split from Valderrama and recorded her debut album between takes on her next movie, Herbie: Fully Loaded, and with her father playing up and the press inventing stories about her love-life and supposed wild-child shenanigans (as if she had time), it was no surprise when she entered hospital suffering from exhaustion, a kidney infection and an asthma attack. She would return to hospital the following February with severe chest pains. In the meantime 2005 began with a bang
when her debut album, Speak, which cast her as a Britney Spears-type
sex-pot, hit Number 4 on the Billboard charts (despite accusations that
she had dared lip-synch while performing the song Rumors on Good Morning
America). Then there'd be more success with Herbie: Fully Loaded,
another Disney production, which saw her rescue the titular VW from the
scrap-heap and, against the wishes of her motor-racing father Michael
Keaton, take on the mean and macho Matt Dillon in a NASCAR event.
Furthermore, she'd be brave enough to host Saturday Night Live for the
second time, having already performed those fraught duties around the
time of Mean Girls' release. And naturally there was still her father. January had seen Dina file for divorce, leading Michael, apparently, to threaten to kill her and the children. August would bring the divorce trial, a dirty experience that saw Michael driving for a share of Lindsay's millions and Dina battling for full custody, alimony and $1 million in damages. Still in jail, Michael would attend court in handcuffs and, requesting some $3 million a year, described both Dina and Lindsay as "emotionally unsound" and demanded they both submit to drug and alcohol testing. News outlets would quickly receive a 7-page cease and desist document ordering them not to print Michael's version of events. He'd done nothing to help his daughter's career, it was said. Rather he'd cheated on his wife and worried everyone sick by staying out for days on end. It was really ugly stuff but thankfully for Lindsay it was ruled that her earnings could not be considered in proceedings as they were not a direct product of Michael and Dina's marriage. This was especially important as Lindsay was about to be paid $7.5 million for her part in Just My Luck. Before Just My Luck would come Lindsay's first move into adult features. Though she'd brought an amazing maturity to her teen roles, she would now test her ability against some of cinema's finest actors by taking a part in Robert Altman's A Prairie Home Companion. This would concern Garrison Keillor's famous radio variety show, a hit on 558 public radio stations, which featured a comic Keillor monologue about his fake home in Lake Wobegon, plus comedy sketches and live American roots music. The movie would imagine the show being
terminated unexpectedly, leaving singing cowboys Woody Harrelson and
John C Reilly and country diva Meryl Streep to deliver one final
performance as nutter Virginia Madsen runs riot (Kevin
Kline, Tommy
Lee Jones and Altman fave Lily Tomlin would also appear). Lohan
would try to hold her own as the great Streep's daughter. After this
would come Just My Luck, another fuzzy comedy where Lohan would play a
Manhattan girl known for her outrageous good fortune who suddenly,
through some weird karmic interchange, begins to suffer the bad luck of
down-and-out Chris Pine. |
|
|||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||
 |
||||||||||||||||||
|
All original content , Copyright ©2004-2006 WestLord.com , All Rights Reserved |
||||||||||||||||||
