Models are many things. They’re young, beautiful, thin, glamorous, mysterious. Some say they are capable of secret powers. Like X-ray vision. Or the ability to fly. But actresses, in many cases, they’re not. Director Rouben Mamoulian, filming the famous close-up of Greta Garbo at the end of Queen Christina requested she look blank, suggesting that audiences would read the emotions into her face. Well that’s fine and dandy when you’re Garbo, but when you’re a model looking blank on screen, you look, well, vapid.
And where does it say that acting is the natural next step after modeling? At a certain age, why can’t they go off to some island where they can gain weight and let their looks go to hell? Imagine a Model Survivor series with an emaciated Heidi Klum tearing apart a warthog with her teeth. But until that day, here’s a truncated model movie hall of shame.
Lipstick (1976). Supermodel Margaux Hemingway (granddaughter of Ernest) is a riot in this camp classic, running through a parking lot in a red evening gown blowing away loony rapist Chris Sarandon with a rifle. Margaux’s sister Mariel appeared and unfortunately got better notices, which ultimately led to Margaux’s next film venture, the dismal Killer Fish in 1978.
Tattoo (1981). Swedish mannequin Maud Adams stretches herself by playing Maddy, a model stalked by a germ-phobic psychopathic artist (Bruce Dern) who knocks her out with chloroform, takes her to a remote beach house, and tattoos the living shit out of her. “You’re sick, you’re twisted!” she screams while he masturbates watching her through a keyhole because, in his words, “the body’s not committed yet.”
Fair Game (1995). In her world-denounced film debut Cindy Crawford is hilariously wooden as a lawyer targeted by former KGB agents. William Baldwin gets to bare his butt playing a cop who trying to protect her. Crawford shows great flair in the shower, screaming and emerging from the water in a wet T-shirt.
Kiss Them For Me (1957). Weirdly schizophrenic romantic dramedy by Stanley Donen about naval pilots on leave in San Francisco who fast-talk their way into a posh hotel suite. Glamour girl Suzy Parker is paired with Cary Grant, but there’s no chemistry thanks to her chilly demeanor on screen. Mercifully Jayne Mansfield is on hand to liven things up by squealing like a pig in the background. Suzy was more successful playing a doomed actress in The Best Of Everything in 1959.
Blood Feast (1963). When asked where he found leading lady Connie Mason for the gore classic, director Herschell Gordon Lewis meanly replied, “Under a rock.” But Mason was Playboy’s June 1963 playmate and was foisted on the director by producer Dave Friedman. She has since delighted a generation with her astonishingly deadpan delivery. “She never knew a line. Not Ever.” Lewis admitted. “Whatever talent she had didn’t lie in acting.”
Her Alibi (1989). Blue Bloods star and NRA spokesasshole Tom Selleck stars as a blocked writer of trashy detective novels who pretends to be the alibi for a beautiful murder suspect (Paulina Porizkova– the gorgeous Czech model and wife of the Cars lead singer Ric Ocasek). In this deadly dull romantic thriller by, of all people, Bruce Beresford (Breaker Morant), Selleck mistakenly thinks she’s trying to kill him and they lamely fight off murderous Rumanians. This hardly catapulted the statuesque beauty Porizkova to a full-time acting career.
Alien From L.A. (1997). Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue cover girl Kathy Ireland starred as a missing archeologist’s ditzy daughter. She falls down a hole somewhere in Africa and ends up in Atlantis where she’s considered an alien. This laughable mess ended up on Mystery Science Theater 3000 and propelled Ireland to a career in TV movies, a line of clothing at K-Mart and a Hollywood Square frequently reserved in her name.
Prisoner Of Love (1999) Naomi Campbell is a legendary beauty and one of the great supermodels, but it seems unlikely she brags about her starring role in this stinky 1999 erotic thriller. She stars as Tracy, a barmaid in the East Village who unfortunately is witness to a mob killing. Handsome Eric Thal plays Johnny, a small-time hood who is given the assignment to kill her. He falls for Tracy and abducts her instead to keep her safe. The erotic sparks this movie needs never ignite because of her bland performance. “You better prepare yourself- you’re going to see a whole other side of me,” she tells Johnny. Sadly, that is so not true.
Brenda Starr (1987). Stunningly beautiful child model Brooke Shields starred in Louis Malle’s controversial Pretty Baby in 1978 but then went through an awkward mid-period in her career which resulted in bad career choices like this unwatchable piece of crap based on the spunky comic strip reporter. It makes Warren Beatty’s Dick Tracy (1990) look like Citizen Kane in comparison, and sat on the shelf for over five years before dumped into empty theaters. Fortunately, her later work made up for this debacle- a recent stint on Law & Order: SVU was sensational.
Skyscraper (1995). Former Guess Jeans spokesperson, Playboy centerfold, millionaire widow, bovine beauty and tragic tabloid queen, Anna Nicole Smith plays a sexy, jump-suited, helicopter pilot battling Eurotrash terrorists holed up in a L.A. skyscraper in the most inadvertently funny action movie ever made. Smith seems heavily medicated throughout and the movie uses every opportunity to tear open her jump-suit and reveal her scientifically enhanced assets.
Thanks Dennis. This was hilarious!