Ageless, timeless beauty at Marc Anthony’s wedding, Jan 28th.
I am a Salma fan.
I have mentioned before that I had a one-on-one, face-to-face conversation with her at Sundance in 2003. She was even more beautiful than her photographs, and was completely humble and down-to-earth, chatting with me as if I were an old acquaintance.
I just happened to be passing by when I saw Salma standing alone, waiting for her then-boyfriend Edward Norton to finish a conversation with some Hollywood muckety-muck. Fortunately for me, I actually had something original to talk to her about. She directed a film that was shown in the festival that year, and that film was shot about 90 miles away from the Sundance venue. Since so few Sundance entries are actually shot nearby, I asked her if she was able to get all the technical support she needed from the Utah crews without bringing in any Hollywood back-up. She told me that she was, but there were a few times in the set construction process when she had to grab a hammer and nails herself. (Her crew members verified this story.)
(I really wanted to ask her where big-time Hollywood heavyweights like Salma Hayek and Peter Fonda stay when they have a long shooting schedule in a village of 658 people, but I figured that was too rude.)
The screening of the film got a thunderous standing ovation, although you might expect that, since at least half of the audience worked on the film. They even applauded the ending credits. It’s the only movie I’ve ever watched where the audience applauded the assistant key grip. In Utah, Salma held the home court advantage.
Incidentally, that film is not especially good. As Count Floyd would finally concede after a failed showing, “OK, boys and girls, it stinks.” It’s like a made-for-Hallmark sap-fest (it was actually a Showtime Original). Its problems were not Salma’s fault because she didn’t choose the project or write the awful script. Showtime already had the film in production when Salma took over from another director who dropped out. In fact, she did a completely competent job on what is basically a Lifetime-style film, and actually won a Daytime Emmy for “Outstanding Directing in a Children/Youth/Family Special.” I’m surprised that she never tried her hand at another feature.
I wrote a rather acidulous review, as the film deserved, although I was kind to Salma, as she deserved.
Her pajama trapdoor moon in Wild Wild West was by far the high point of that lame movie – did I hear she had a BD for her butt in Some Kind of Beautiful, 2014?
Dang Scoop… Salma Hayek, Bo Derek. How many more celebs have you met?
I especially like your story about sitting next to Bo Derek in an airplane, and when you saw her later in a hotel lobby she called you by name and said hi. In front of your buddies (if I remember that correctly).
No others of much interest in the context of a nudie blog-
I had long conversations with Senator Eugene McCarthy, Bob Woodward, Mike Love, the Salkinds and Marshall McLuhan.
I exchanged a word or two with Bert Parks, Frank Cesno and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
I think Bo, Salma, Joey Heatherton and Marilyn Chambers may be the only females on the list. I can’t recall any others off the top of my head.