You Had Me at ‘Mariel Hemingway’

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When I learned that Mariel Hemingway was among the celebrities caught in James O’Keefe’s latest video sting, politics briefly disappeared into a sort of fog of nostalgic imagination: Mariel Hemingway!

Oh, that was a name to conjure with, back in the day!

It wasn’t just her striking beauty, although Mariel’s face seemed as if it had been sculpted by an artist — such cheekbones! More than her mere beauty, there was a frisson of the taboo about Mariel Hemingway in the era of my youth. My senior year in high school, she made her film debut at age 15 (with her older sister Margaux) in the twisted psycho-thriller Lipstick. Then in 1979 — I was a sophomore in college — she played Woody Allen’s teenage lover in Manhattan (which, as weird as it seemed at the time, seems much creepier in retrospect). Then in 1982, at a time when lesbianism was still very much an exotic idea, she played a bisexual track star in Personal Best.

All of this is to explain why the name “Mariel Hemingway” pings a certain mental resonance, so to speak, even now that I’m middle-aged and she is, too. It’s strange how memory freezes an image, an idea, in the mind this way. When I was young, grown-ups would talk about Elizabeth Taylor as a famous beauty, and I just didn’t see it. Not until many years later, when I saw her in A Place in the Sun (1951) did I realize what all the fuss was about: Wow! Legendary hotness!

(The same factor operates with women’s memories of teen idols, by the way. My high-school Latin teacher, Miss Dismer, had a lifelong crush on Michael Landon, who had been starring in her dreams since she was a young girl watching “Little Joe” on Bonanza.)

Anyway, now you know why Mariel Hemingway’s name caught my attention when I learned about the latest Project Veritas video:

The video features an undercover journalist from Project Veritas posing as “Muhammad,” a member of a Middle Eastern oil family, offering $9 million in funding to American filmmakers to fund an anti-fracking movie. He was joined by a second undercover activist posing as an ad executive.
O’Keefe entraps actor Ed Begley Jr., actress Mariel Hemingway, and director Josh Tickell, who agree to the film while promising to hide the source of the funds.
The undercover activist tells the group that “if Washington, D.C., continues fracking, America will be energy-efficient, and then they won’t need my oil anymore.”
In a phone call to Tickell, the “ad executive” states, “My client’s interest is to end American energy independence; your interest is to end fracking. And you guys understand that?”
Tickell’s response: “Correct. Yes, super clear.”
The environmental team even submitted a video of Oscar-nominated actor Mark Ruffalo offering his unwavering support for the fictitious anti-fracking film project.

More at Powerline: James O’Keefe Punks Hollywood Greens.

It’s sad that Mariel Hemingway grew up to be an America-hating Commie environmentalist wacko, but we’ll always have Star 80, eh?

 

56 comments

  2. Actually, if you saw Star 80, she was very good in that role. although it was typical of her acting career: She was always the erotic object. One could imagine her developing into a creditable adult actress, but she was in a certain sense typecast, and never escaped that.

  3. The lovely Miss Hemingway had to get fake tits to play in Star 80, and I hate fake tits. They were removed later, after one ruptured.

  6. I did see Star 80 and she was good in that roll (although it was a tough film to watch). Eric Roberts was effective in his role too, although it turns out he was not acting so much as being himself.

  8. Another case of “daddy issues”, I see.

    Daddy Abused Both My Sisters … but he wasn’t a monster

    Mariel blames her father’s drinking on the most startling of the revelations contained in her documentary. In it, she says she believes her father sexually molested her two sisters

    But she says her knowledge of it put her off sex for years.

    Note, she “believes” her father sexually molested her two sisters. But, she did “play” the part of Woody Allen’s teenage lover, so maybe there is some merit to this.

    These people sccould live in Bill Schmaldfeldt’s trailer park.

  13. I’m not at all surprised that Ed Begley Jr. got duped by O’Keefe. I’d be surprised if Ed ties his own shoes in the morning. The man is dead from the neck up.

    As far as Mariel Hemingway goes, I read that she auditioned for the lead role in “Basic Instinct.” I wonder if she hired a ***** stylist to prepare for it.

  15. You have to love the environmentalists for sheer cheek.

    On global warming, they proclaim dissent “unscientific,” although the alarmists can’t make a model come out right to save their grants.

    Yet they rail against fracking, which has been practiced for decades and studied for years with no evidence to support the hysteria, and no evidence of any ground water ever being affected or tainted (fracking takes place thousands of feet underground, even the deepest wells into the aquifer rarely go deeper than 800 feet – most half of that).

    So we must rely absolutely on science where there is no reliable science, but where there is virtual certainty on the science, it must be discarded. Uh-huh.

  17. And perhaps We Need To Know: who were the other TOM readers’ fantasy movie stars?

    1 – Kathleen Turner
    2- Darryl Hannah
    3 – Nicole Kidman
    4 – Laura Dern

  25. Sure, because all of the mouth’s siblings are ostracized, it’s all THEIR fault. Ever consider that she’s the evil bitch?

  26. I missed out on the Hemingway phenomenon, having stopped watching any sort of movie without swords, explosions, or ray guns once I started playing music all the time. I still hate productions that are pure “drama.” I like drama inside of something else (like a war movie), but not as the whole thing, including creepy stuff like they do on “Criminal Minds” all the time.

    So I’m far more likely to see hot chicks in crappy movies (like Tomb Raider). That’s just gonna have to do.

    O’Keefe has done the usual thing and slow-rolled the sting out, giving the left time to make up lies and excuses before being confronted with the other shoe dropping on them.

    Cat’s a genius.

  28. Forgot to add that I stopped watching Woody Allen movies halfway though his boring, comedy sex movie. It’s like he studied Jerry Lewis and did everything Lewis did that wasn’t funny (which was a lot).

    Once I found out about the whole “Mia Farrow and adopted daughter” business, I decided I could live without doing anything that helped line his pockets.

    Punk rock, hard rock, prog rock, Zappa movies, surrealist stuff, and even the crazy stuff by Danny Elfman and Oingo Boingo I can listen to or watch. Ditto country music, and anything about being real. So I’m not a prude, I just hate “phony.”

  37. She never really worked at her craft, but, oh, her performance in Manhattan – wonderful. I fell in love with her character, even though she was not my type.

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