Sherilyn Fenn in Exposure September 1990 - fenn FATALE
by Martha Frankel
fenn
FATALE
Out of nowhere comes Twin Peaks' Sherilyn Fenn -talented, drop-dead gorgeous and built to last.
Forget the Dresden Beauty and the flickering, coy talent "” it was Sherilyn Fenn's tongue that made her a star. Sure, we noticed her as the weird, wacky, wicked Audrey Horne on the very first episode of Twin Peeaks doing that bizarre, Martha Graham-esque dance in decidedly dated saddle shoes. Sadly, however, like most supporting players in an ensemble cast, her fate as a relegated sideshow seemed unavoidable. Thankfully, for both us and her, this was not the case. As the weeks wore on, the superbly sublime, effortlessly mysterious Sherilyn seemed to pop up everywhere, a TV Garbo enveloped in cliffhanger mists. The girl had no shame. She spied on her evil father, Ben Horne (owner of the Great Northern Hotel), while he plotted with his many mistresses; she slithered her way into a job at a department store so she could help special agent Dale Cooper catch Laura Palmer's killer; she greeted agent Cooper in his bed (au naturel!) and convinced a madame to hire her as a brothel prostitute. By the time she took that cherry stem into her mouth and twisted it into a deliciously perfect knot, her star status was assured. The buzz about this relatively unknown upstart is already au courant cocktail chatter. Dean Stockwell, cornered at a party recently and asked whom he thought the hottest person in Hollywood was, didn't drop a beat berore answering "Sherilyn Fenn, that girl from Twin Peaks."When asked to define her ethereal allure, the always non-sensical David Lynch, producer of Twin Peaks, raves "She's five feet of heaven in a ponytail."Men adore her. My friend Roger, normally a reasonable guy, found her so provocative that if given one wish, he would be Johnny Depp and date Sherilyn. And women say that watching Fenn's smoldering, off-the-shoulder sexuality in motion is like having your deepest desires flashed on screen.
Raised in Michigan by her mother (her parents divorced when she was three), Fenn says that she never gave much thought to being an actress. "My mother's family was very musical,"she says. "My mother and her sisters (one of who was Susie Quatro) had an all-girl band when they were young. They tried to get me interested in music, but I was too timid. I wanted to do something that didn't put you in the spotlight, like be a hairdresser or a waitress. Or maybe a stewardess,"she chuckles.
When she was seventeen, her mother got tired of the cold and they moved to Los Angeles. Shortly after, an intuitive agent recognized her raw talent and convinced her to start acting. She began taking classes and got her first feature film, which shall remain nameless. "They were filming in Yugoslavia,"she cringes, covering her eyes with her hands. "You can imagine how excited I was. It was my first picture and my first time away from home. My first minute in front of the camera, I froze. I yelled "˜cut!' and everyone went berserk. I learned then that only the director can stop the picture. Of course, the movie was never released."After that came a sting of other movies, none of them career jump-starters: Meridian, ("Oh, please, don't mention that. It's one of those things that comes back to haunt you.") Just One Of The Guys, Back Street Strays, Desire, Hell at the Sunset Motel and the sexually explicit Two Moon Junction.
Sitting across from me, Sherilyn looks like a waif. She is smaller and thinner than she appears on screen, and her face is the fabulous sum of its parts: her lush brows meet above her eyes to form two impossibly perfect meridians, her eyes are the color of sapphires, her lips like those of a Kewpie doll's. She wears sandals, jeans, a blouse and a cardigan, which she gathers together in front of her to hide her decolletage the way only a woman who is used to being ogled by men would.
Has she seen what The National Enquirer said about her? She hides her head. The dish: reportedly, the wives of the actors on her last movie, Dillinger, a made-for-TV epic, started showing up on the set after it was rumored that she was walking around in cleavage-amplifying halter tops and buttock-baring hotpants.
"Oh, that's such shit!"she shrieks. "Do I look like the type who wears too-tight halters and skimpy shorts?"
No, I say, but tell her that she could, of course, pull off such an ensemble.
"Thanks, but that's not my kind of outfit. I'm basically a shy person. And besides, this is how you can tell what crap that is: it was freezing when we filmed. I was wearing long pants and boots, for God's sake."
"Simmer down, girl. It's because they're trying to figure out who you are. You came out of nowhere,"I add.
Sherilyn leans back, and a look that says she's heard this before skates across her face. "I've done a lot of work,"she says. "I made thirteen films before Twin Peaks. Of course, most of them were never released. Or if they were, you didn't see them."
Lots of people, it seems "” especially lonely men with VCR's "” have seen Two Moon Junction.
A groan reverberates throughout the room. "I just had such high hopes for Two Moon Junction. People were brutal about it afterwards. I was expected to haul that film on my back like a piano. And so I bore the brunt of the criticism. I was given a role to fill and I did the best I could. I didn't cast the movie, I didn't direct it. I'm not that comfortable with my body and I knew the nudity would be a big challenge. Despite what The Enquirer says, I don't run around showing off my body. I had this romantic idea of how much I would learn. But when I saw it, I said, "˜God, the nudity is going to eclipse anything I tried to do.' I mean, some of the criticism was about how my body looked! I don't know, it still hurts me to think about that time. I'm trying now to become more whole and not to let that criticism get to me. It's a hard thing. I try to keep myself centered. I don't to to parties and all that. I don't think being seen or being in the right place is going to make me a better actress. None of that matters. I'm not going to find what I'm looking for at those places. I care about my work and try to do what's right in my heart."
In an industry that thrives on recycling classic images (so original, Hollywood), it should come as no surprise that Sherilyn Fenn is being compared to women of yesteryear to whom she bears more than a passing resemblance. Physically, she does indeed look like a hybrid of Vivien Leigh and Ava Gardner. Although a post-Kennedy baby, she has the countenance and bearing of an FDR-era star.
"I've heard that, too,"she says, "and let me tell you, it's very flattering to be compared to Vivien Leigh, because she was such a fabulous actress. But those women were tragic. There was such sadness associated with them. And they got put into these boxesthey just wanted them to play the same role over and over. Not me. I just don't see myself that way. So yes, it's flattering. But no thanks, honey."
Although she'll bypass the victimization of that era gone by, she is not above trying on the period's accessories now and again. "The thing that was neat about the old days,"she exclaims, "was that women were women, and they were encouraged to be women. I love that. There are all these different sides to me, but that's certainly one side I loveto be dressed up and feel beautiful. To be in a great gown, and have my hair and my makeup perfect, to have my nails just right. And to have the perfect underwear on underneath. I love that look."
And David Lynch "” that most twisted of prime-time Svengalis "” clearly loved hers.
"He doesn't make people read,"she says, a smile pulling at her face as she thinks about Lynch. "He just finds people whose look he likes and hires them. When I met with him, I was in my new phase of not doing something just so I would be liked. I wanted to just be myself, and I'm shy, so I acted kind of, well, shy. I didn't try to push the conversation when there was a lull or say thing I thought he wanted to hear. If it goes okay, I thought, then good. If not, that's that. Consequently, they thought I didn't like the script! But David responded to me and cast me as Audrey. And her role just blossomed. [Producer/director/writer] Mark Frost told me that Audrey was his favorite character and they kep writing more and more for her. Audrey has let me embrace every power that people call bad or bitchy or wicked. After Two Moon Junction, I was in a shell. I felt dirty and bad and confused. I wore baggy dresses for a long time. I was embarassed doing Audrey, but David and everyone there was so supportive. When I saw the pilot I just laughed. Something happened I thought, this character has a life of her own. It was an incredible feeling, because I usually hate to see my work."
"So,"I ask, veering off to ask the question all of America wants to know. "Do you know who killed Laura Palmer?"
"No. Truthfully, I don't."
"Let's go to a psychic and ask her,"I suggest.
"What? You mean right now?"
"Yeah, we'll go down to Sweetzer, I think there's one there. We'll just go in and ask her if you did it, or if she knows who did."
The mischievous look that comes over her face is pure Audrey Horne. She picks up her keys, smiles and says, "There's one right near here on Sunset. Let's go."
The door opens right into the psychic's living room. She sits on an orange couch, pushing back her cuticles, while her son lies on the drab carpeting wathing Star Trek. The five o'clock sun streams into the place, bounces off a metallic surface and cruelly illuminates double taleum powder rings that stain the armpit areas of the psychic's housedress. It's just so Twin Peaks that we don't even laugh.
"Whaddya want?"she inquires. "A past lives reading? A future reading? A present reading?"
"A present reading,"says Sherilyn deadpan, "but we want to know something that happened a few months ago."
She sits down and the psychic takes her hand. I freeze. What if she sees something terrible?
This is a good idea for the article, but I don't want to screw up her life. "We can leave if you want,"I say.
But Sherilyn just shakes her head and looks at the woman.
"You have a long life ahead of you,"the old crone says. "You're gonna live to be ninety-five. This is amazing! All I see for you is good luck and happiness. Is your career going well?"
"Yes, I guess it is,"says Sherilyn.
"What do you do?"the psychic asks, making both of us think she might not be too good at her job.
"I'm an actress. I'm in a weeklysort of soap opera."
"Well, you're going to be very succesful. Everything I see here says that there are no tragedies ahead, no illness, nothing terrible. Just lots of luck and happiness!"
Sherilyn suddenly turns into a vivacious version of Helen Keller. I kick her under the table and she comes out of her mute trance. "Oh,"she says. "Do you know who killed Laura Palmer?"
The psychic doesn't bat an eyelash. "It was her friend."
"Was it her?"I ask jerking my thumb towards Sherilyn.
"No, no, definitely not. It was someone else and they haven't been caught yet. I can't see the name but I know the initials. The first name begins with "˜M' and the last name is "˜G.' Yes, "˜M.G.', that's the person's initials."
"Do you see anything else?"Sherilyn says.
"Just this. You were born under a lucky star. And it's going to protect you."
"Do you think it was Madeline?"Sherilyn says in the safety of the car, referring to Laura Palmer's look-a-like cousin. "Her first name starts with an M. What is her last name? I didn't think she did it, but maybe."Something catches her eye in the rear-view mirror. "Oh God, don't look, but my boyfriend's in the car behind us."
I look. And convince Sherilyn to let him pull up next to us. Introductions are made at 60 MPH, plans for dinner are arranged, lots of smiles are exchanged (sorry "” I promised not to divulge his identity. But he's an actor, he's very cute, and before he pulled away, he gave us the peace sign).
"Now that's weird, huh?"says Sherilyn, still basking in the glow of the psychic's report. "With all the people in this city, I look up and see him behind us. What are the chances of that happening?"she muses. "A lucky starwell, I can believe that now. Lots of hard work and a lucky staryou can't beat that, can you?'"
God, I love this music. Isn't it too dreamy?
give me Audrey any day.
Just finished watching season one there last night. Heart-breaking to think the next season can't keep up the consistent quality in a run of episodes.