"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.
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 '70s 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, Idaho to land in New York 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.
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. Looking for a prescription for health care? It's right at 307 West 43 Street. Call 212-246-4422 for tickets.
OPENING TONIGHT in Manhattan is a little indie movie made on a shoestring and generating great big buzz. It is director Scott Teems' "That Evening Sun," based on William Gay's short story. This is a simple tale of an aging Tennessee farmer returning to his homestead to face family turmoil. Starring as the farmer is stage, screen and TV icon Hal Holbrook. Holbrook's performance has been cheered by film-festival-goers. In fact, there's considerable talk of another Oscar nomination. If that happened, it would be Holbrook's second Oscar nod in three years -- he was nominated for "Into the Wild" in 2007. Not bad for a youngster of 86. The movie also stars Ray McKinnon, Carrie Preston and Mia Wasikowska.
We love Hal, most of all because he is married to the divine Dixie Carter. Dixie, in conversation, always refers to her husband by his full name -- a Southern thing, a gesture of respect and love? Whatever, it's charming and I always laugh with Dixie when she does it.
THE FABULOUS Keira Knightley's coming play "The Misanthrope," which sold out to the tune of $2 million at the box office, long before the Dec. 17 opening at London's Comedy Theater, did not ease the beautiful Keira's mind.
She will play an American movie star in this 17th-century comedy, which has been updated to contemporary London. Keira says she is nervous about her stage debut. "I can't quite handle the idea -- 'Screen Actress in Big West End Hit!' When I used to audition I never got a theater job. I would completely blow it."
(E-mail Liz Smith at MES3838@aol.com, or write to her c/o Tribune Media Services, 2225 Kenmore Ave., Suite 114, Buffalo, NY 14207.)
