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The Heldenfiles - The Acting Life.

Published on Sunday, Jul 13, 2008

The Acting Life. When The Cleaner premieres on A&E on Tuesday, viewers may think a young actress playing a junkie looks familiar. And different.

That's former Richfield resident April Gilbert, but you won't see her name in the credits of the drama series starring Benjamin Bratt as an unconventional interventionist. While Gilbert started acting under that name, she has changed it to Hazel Dean and is so credited on the A&E drama series.

She has also gone from blonde to redhead as part of an image makeover meant to get her more and better roles.

''There are a lot of blondes out here,'' she recently said by telephone from California. And twentysomething blondes, she admitted, are often perceived in a limited way. So she went redhead, and changed her name; the new one was also her great-grandmother's, and Dean/Gilbert also hopes to match the strong character of the previous Hazel Dean.

And how's that working out?

Well, when she auditioned for The Cleaner, she said, ''they originally wanted to have me dye my hair blond for the role.''
•

More Dean. She didn't dye her hair, but neither did she touch up the red. By the time she auditioned again, her roots were showing and ''I looked like a junkie.'' And so got the part, which pleased her a great deal. ''Roles like that don't come around all that much.''

Or any roles at all. She has gotten work here and there, including a commercial that ended up not airing (although she still got a paycheck) and a small role in the new movie Wild Child, starring Emma Roberts. But she helps pay the bills with what she called ''an unusual part-time job.'' For a board of medical examiners, she acts out symptoms of various illnesses, to test would-be doctors' ability to make diagnoses. (Yes, like Kramer on Seinfeld.)

Which is, after all, acting, and that's something she has loved since she was 5 years old. And she said, ''I would like to be working full time as an actor, and making my living at it.''
•

Keyes Dies. Actress Evelyn Keyes, known as much for her off-camera romances as her screen performances, has died at the age of 91.

Producer and close friend Allan Glaser told the Associated Press on Friday that Keyes died July 4 of uterine cancer at her home in California. The news was withheld until the death certificate was filed, he said.

Keyes' most famous role may have been in Gone With the Wind, where she played Scarlett O'Hara's younger sister — a phrase she used as the title of her 1977 autobiography.

But the book was exciting reading because of the actress's love life. Her husbands included directors John Huston and Charles Vidor and musician Artie Shaw. As AP noted, she also lived with producer Mike Todd before he left her for Elizabeth Taylor.

Through it all, she managed to be as clear-eyed about her career as she was hazy about choosing men.

''To become a big movie star like Joan Crawford, you need to wear blinders and pay single-minded attention to your career,'' she told AP in a 1999 interview. ''Nobody paid attention to me, including me. I was the original Cinderella girl, looking for the happy ending in the fairy story. But my fantasy prince never came.''
•

TV Watch. Tonight at 9, HBO premieres Generation Kill, a seven-part miniseries about young Marines fighting in the early weeks of the Iraq war, based on the book of the same name by Evan Wright. I have seen four of the seven parts so far, and it is admirable work.

 

But not escapist viewing. Coming from writer-producer David Simon (The Wire), it expects the audience to pay attention and to sort out both plot and character without excessive explanation of what is going on. The language is raw, reflecting modern young men talking among themselves, and the violence considerable. Some characters are decidedly unsympathetic (as they were in Wright's book), and the situations do not always resolve themselves tidily. But the work is often effective, and the characters and stories have the nuances of real life. Highly recommended viewing.

I have some more thoughts about Generation Kill in the HeldenFiles Online blog at http://www.Ohio.com. •

More 'Wives.' The Lifetime drama Army Wives has been picked up for a third, 18-episode season to air in 2009. The second season is running now.

''Since premiering last year, Army Wives has become a game-changer for Lifetime,'' said Andrea Wong, the network president, according to a report in Variety. ''Announcing this early renewal is a testament to the enormous faith and confidence we have in this show and its incredibly talented cast and production team.''

The series focuses on the wives (and one husband) of soldiers on a base in South Carolina. The cast includes Kim Delaney and Catherine Bell.•

Split Pepper. Singer Anthony Kiedis of the Red Hot Chili Peppers has broken up with his girlfriend, Heather Christie, People.com reports. He's 45. She's 22. They've been together for three years, and have a son.

Sounds as if Kiedis decided on the breakup, with Christie telling People that ''I really hope he finds what he's looking for.''

But what's that? Someone younger?
•

Classy Stripper. Burlesque star Tempest Storm still sheds her clothes onstage, at the age of 80, the Associated Press recently noted. But Kathleen Hennessey of AP noted a big difference between today's strippers and those of Storm's day. ''Her act is a time capsule,'' Hennessey wrote. ''She knows nothing of poles. She would never put her derriere in some man's face. Her prop of choice is a boa, perhaps the occasional divan.''

And the act still plays, the story said. ''Staring up at the 80-year-old woman in fishnets, a sheer rhinestone bra and a G-string, a young woman turns to a young man and declares: ''I want to look like that when I'm her age.''
•

Birthday Greetings to . . . Richard Anthony Marin, 62 years old today. Born in South Central Los Angeles, he became better known as Cheech Marin, who with Tommy Chong formed the comedy duo of Cheech and Chong. And if you just thought, ''Dave's not here,'' then no further explanation is required.

Trivia Time is taking a break this week.

 

Rich Heldenfels writes about popular culture for the Beacon Journal and in the HeldenFiles Online blog at http://www.ohio.com. He can be reached at 330-996-3582 or rheldenfels@thebeaconjournal.com.

 

The Acting Life. When The Cleaner premieres on A&E on Tuesday, viewers may think a young actress playing a junkie looks familiar. And different.

Get the full article here.


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