Brittany Murphy, RIP
I don’t really want to be going down this road.
She was loved by many. There was something about her energy when positive.
She was trouble for many. There was something about her energy when negative.
32 is a terrible age at which to die. But in the life of an actress who was very hot for a moment and would have gone over 5 years between on-camera appearances in a major release, it must have been a very scary age to be.
After playing the chubby sidekick and becoming a second-level star doing it in Clueless, she lost some weight and got a ton of attention for Girl, Interrupted, then reset the whole thing as a Hollywood hottie – a crazy one – in Don’t Say A Word. In 8 Mile, just a year later, she was an outright sex object for Eminem and a male audience.
This started the height of Murphy’s movie career. She had a hit that really solidified both Shawn Levy and Ashton Kutcher’s movie careers, even though it was a horrible film, Just Married. But Uptown Girls, a very modest success, was when Murphy started to get a reputation in the media for being a pain, as PMK forced press to sign “will not ask/will not repurpose” agreements in order to do the junket, which occurred on the heels of some personal issues that were catnip for the tabloids. Then Little Black Book not only bombed, but became a media punching bag. And it was over.
Murphy vamped it up for Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller in an ensemble in Sin City. But the look of the film was the story and the only real boost was for Mickey Rourke. Murphy did Oscar-caliber work in the title role of the no-budget indie The Dead Girl for director Karen Moncrieff. She gave voice to the female lead in George Miller’s animated Happy Feet. But she was not being hired to be on set for studio movies. Period.
She’s done indies. She’s done voice work, including a long-standing lead on King of the Hill. Her first on-screen wide release in over five years was scheduled to be Sylvester Stallone’s The Expendables, due from Lionsgate late next summer. But with Stallone, Statham, Jet Li. Dolph Lundgren, and Steve Austin, plus cameos by Schwarzenegger and Willis, it couldn’t be too much of a role.
I don’t know where she was in her life. She seemed very happy being engaged, soon to be married, when I last spent a little off-the-record time with her. But there was no mistaking that she was still a fragile person.
We have had scary moments with fragile actresses, from Winona Ryder to Lindsay Lohan, in recent years. When Rachel McAdams’ career got very hot very fast, she took off almost two years and came back with what seems like a new attitude and some perspective on how to manage Hollywood.
This is about as scary as it gets, whatever the cause of death.
very fucking sad. i met her once during production on the wretched Summer Catch. She was nice, pleasant, kind of quiet. Had i not seen her in a movie before, you wouldn’t have known who she was. she blended in well at the time, more than happy to just sit back and chill while everyone else was talking. she was downright pleasant then. sad to see anyone die so young.
I’m re-posting this from an earlier thread since it kind of got lost amidst the “Avatar” dick-size contest between 1001 and Brack.
Very sad to hear the news about Brittany Murphy.
I’ve always felt that she was woefully underrated as an actress.
“Girl, Interrupted” (damn, she broke my heart in that one: I still remember her suicide scene w/ “The End of the World” playing in the background);
“8 Mile” (few actresses could have held their ground opposite Eminem the way she did in that film);
“Little Black Book” (not great and certainly not a hit, but a much better romcom than some other r-c hits of recent vintage like “Failure to Launch” and “Ugly Truth”);
“The Dead Girl” (another truly heartbreaking performance that, like Dave said, deserved to have gotten her some Oscar traction that year; and might have if the distributer hadn’t been so incompetent).
I don’t want to resort to cliches, but this is very sad. Besides the fact that she was beautiful, she also had a mega-wattage smile and laugh, eyes the size of saucers that did not disappear on you in times of sadness or happiness. They were always there for you to see her emotion.
I remember seeing her firstly in Clueless and boy, did she make an impact. Not to diss anyone, but she made a much bigger than Alicia Silverstone. At least on me. So much so that I kept saying to myself, I have seen her before. But of course I hadn’t. And that in some way is a measure of what a star is or can be: the deja vu factor.
Reminds me of the story Paul McCartney tells of when he wrote “Yesterday.” He woke up and it was there in his head. He played on the guitar and then spoke with his Dad, asking him where he had heard it before. McCartney was certain he had heard it and was simply relaying it.
Even in films I did not go to see, Brittany Murphy seemed to me the only reason I would ever want to go and see them.
Ramen Girl some indie movie she did is on Netflix streaming and she’s very charming in it. I always liked her. I have no personal knowledge of this but I’d be willing to wager the pressure on her to lose weight after Clueless set all this in motion. I always thought she was cute and talented.
Very sad. She seemed like a very bright girl but with an edge. It’s just wrong.
‘ramen girl’ was her first time out as producer and she was really into it…. i probably interviewed her ten times over the years and always had a great time…she was funny and always managed to seem grateful for coverage…. yeah, sad news…….
She showed talent for comedy (Clueless), drama (Girl, Interrupted, I never saw The Dead Girl), insanity (Don’t Say a Word – remember when that line “I’ll never tell… anyofyou” briefly became very popular?) and music (Happy Feet, her brief music career with “Faster Kill Pussycat”), but I always felt a bit sad for Brittany Murphy. There was clearly stuff going on in the later years after the career faded and it’s sad watching that happen (although, unlike Lindsay Lohan, it wasn’t so much in the public eye) when she was clearly talented.
And to die at 32? Damn…
BTW, I’ve heard she was dropped from The Expendables.
I hoped she’d have a big career after seeing Drop Dead Gorgeous. I always thought she did a great job voicing in King of the Hill. Sorry to see her go so soon.
kam’s post just reminded me to check the shelf in my office…i stll have the scary little rag-doll that sing-songs, in murphy’s voice, “i’ll never tellll…i’ll never tellllllll”…..and, i swear, it used to include the word ‘anyone’ but that seems to have disappeared…..
was it “anyone” or “any of you”? I remember it as the latter, but I’m probably just wrong. That catchphrase was even popular at my school. When was the last time you could say that about a Michael Douglas movie, eh?
i’ll never tell….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlcX16J1v7I
The “Boogie Wonderland” scene in Happy Feet is one of my favorite movie moments in recent years. Just pure joy, and great choreography to boot. A shame she never got to do a live action movie musical…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7vjxhqMPng
her singing in ‘happy feet’ was absolutely beautiful, she had serious pipes. how sad to die so young, rest in peace, brittany
(scoot that doll thing is seriously creepy)
Rest in peace, Brittany. Such a wonderul actress and bright light.
So very sad.
movieman – god forbid there’s an Avatar discussion in an…. Avatar entry! I’m sorry you felt no one cared about your post before. I hope now it gets the proper treatment.
“Chubby” in “Clueless?” Um, no. And mightn’t that be part of her problem?
She was heading down here to Australia over the summer months to spend New Year and record her vocals for Happy Feet 2. Such a shame since, as we’ve all been noting, her singing in Happy Feet was so good. I adore her “Somebody to Love”. And she actually had a #1 dance track with “Faster Kill Pussycat” if you weren’t aware. According to Wikipedia there is an online campaign to get the song to #1 in tribute.
I feel like she was always meant to be a stage actress. She did some solid work on film, but her over the top style of acting was more suited to the stage. She got solid reviews when she did A View from the Bridge on Broadway.
Chris… there is movie star chubby and real life chubby.
To suggest that she didn’t change her career at one point by losing every ounce of fat on her body – too skinny for my personal taste – and changing from a nice looking girl to what was seen as smoking hot, is to either be untruthful or unconscious of her journey.
Your point is taken, but the distinction is real. Whether there was also cosmetic surgery, I don’t know. But look at her in Clueless vs 8 Mile and you tell me.
If my language was clumsy, I apologize. But…
Thanks for the clarification. I agree that Murphy clearly lost weight (weight she didn’t need to lose, I suspect most people would agree). But my point was that, just because movie stars establish one definition of “chubby” as acceptable doesn’t mean the rest of us have to buy into it.
RIP. Very, very sad…
I’ll admit in the last few years she’d sort of fallen off the mainstream radar, though I’d still see her on an obviously DTV DVD cover at Blockbuster from time to time and wonder how that happened. I think a lot of us had heard or read rumors, but still, you hoped she’d find her way back to the top…
I seem to remember Ebert (who was clearly a big fan) praising her appearance at some awards show where she got up to the podium and totally changed the air in the room, keeping everyone off guard. She just had SUCH an usual energy — off-kilter, playful, funny, sexy… then you’d see her on some daytime talk show talking about her mom, and she seemed like the sweetest Jersey kid ever, all wide eyed and endearing.
Not even that long ago, she was on the Bonnie Hunt show — and this was fairly recent, even after rumors about behavior or appearance or whatever — and still just seemed like such a warm, decent, unpretentious person.
DP went through a lot of the key films, but, yeah, she could be sexy and edgy in “Spun”, then just goofy and playful in a romcom, or heartbreaking in a dark drama… Just tons of charisma and so likable, one of those performers who was magnetic in almost every moment, even in lousy movies. Watch “Just Married” or “Little Black Book”; They’re stupid movies with next to nothing else going for them, but Murphy’s giving it her all and clearly having a blast.
You should dig this, Lex:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03X0H21KM_E
It really is a terrible loss. If only she’d have been able to do a guest appearance on Glee‘s upcoming, yet-to-be-shot back nine episodes; that could’ve gone a long way toward rebuilding buzz on her musical talent, comedic skills, *and* that off-kilter energy. Alas…