EXCUSES, EXCUSES, EXCUSES
Elle “The Body” Macpherson recently complained, “Modeling does not train you in any way, shape or form to be an actor.” We noticed, Elle. Fortunately it does prepare you for lying (her recent claims that she wasn’t pregnant), humiliation (her turn in Batman & Robin) and full-frontal nudity (Sirens).
Quentin Tarantino recently singled out Ralph Meeker as the actor whose career he would most like to resurrect. His excuse for not doing so? Meeker is dead. Even so, Tarantino complained that by the end Meeker had been reduced to a low-rent appearance in 1977’s Hi-Riders. Interestingly enough, the director of that film, Greydon Clark, was a pre-QT hirer of burnt-out stars. For 1980’s Without Warning, Clark hired Meeker, a pre-City Slickers Jack Palance and a pre-Tucker Martin Landau and gave work to a pre-NYPD Blue David Caruso. Another late-in-the-game Meeker employer, director William Richert, was also QT before QT was cool. For Winter Kills (1979), an anarchic thriller, Richert hired Meeker, Richard Boone, Sterling Hayden, John Huston, Dorothy Malone, Toshiro Mifune, Anthony Perkins and featured Elizabeth Taylor in an uncredited cameo. Quentin is still one of Hollywood’s best and still has never done anything that someone else didn’t do first.
Speaking of Caruso, Freckle Boy “got real” with People this week, claiming that his NYPD Blue tantrums were misunderstood. “Sometimes I appeared angry, but I was just trying to summon the energy to do the take,” he said. Ahhhhh. So, in Kiss of Death, when he appeared stiff and untalented, he was only trying to make Nicolas Cage look good. And while shooting Jade, he sometimes appeared megalomaniacal, but was only trying to get really lean corned beef for lunch. Now we get it.