Let’s Solve This Blind Item From a 1999 Issue of Movieline!
I love digging through old magazines. A ton of stuff simply isn’t available online, and these now-defunct publications offer a fun insight into our near pasts. Plus, I just miss the age of the magazine, when you had dozens of choices, and they were all supported by sturdy financial investments. Can we go back to that time instead of our current hellscape? So, while browsing some old magazines in my local charity bookshop, I found this issue of the American movie magazine Movieline from February 1999, and I had to have it.
Founded in Los Angeles in 1985, Movieline was a film and entertainment publication that positioned itself as the snarky Gen X sibling of stuff like Premiere. It was meant to be cool, sardonic, but also enthusiastic about the biz. It was an interesting time to be focused on film after all, with the Sundance indie boom of the '90s (and Miramax of it all), and the dominance of actors like Tom, Brad, Leo, Arnold, and Julia. Alas, Movieline was shut down in 2009 by Penske Media, which bought it the year before, and its website, Hollywood Life, is a low-level celebrity gossip site. So, a ton of its reviews and reporting has been lost to corporate stupidity. But hey, at least I have the 1999 Sex Issue.
This issue is EXTREMELY 1999. Catherine Zeta-Jones is on the cover. There are stories about rising stars Kate Hudson and the late great James Van Der Beek. One feature singles out the best parts of certain celebrities’ bodies (best eyes: Mel Gibson; best skin: Rose McGowan.) A David Thomson write-up on the sex symbols for the 21st century includes Matt Dillon, Angelina Jolie, Rupert Everett, and, uh, Kevin Spacey.
It’s a fun read, and one that made me nostalgic for a time I didn’t exactly live through as an adult (I was 8 in February 1999.) Honestly, I could have spent all day just looking at the ads – so many cigarettes, and the back pages included a directory for porno stores and LaToya Jackson’s psychic hotline! – but it was the reporting that fascinated me the most. Did you know Sean Connery almost played Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings trilogy? And that other candidates for the role included Kenneth Branagh and Sam Neill?! And then there are the blind items. Like this one.
ALL ABOUT EVIL
Ever wonder how this modestly talented beauty gets role after role while way more talented girls get stuck on the sidelines? She uses good, old-fashioned back-stabbing to stomp out her competition. On one occasion, she badmouthed her opponent to a director just hours before the unsuspecting doll went in for a screen test. She’s also known to fill her adversaries’ ears with terrible advice that costs them jobs. For laughs, she’s urged actresses to offer sexual favors to directors she knows are either strictly gay or strictly family men. And how about the time she stayed up all night to crank call a competitor who the next day had a final meeting for a role both wanted? The evil woman better watch out—those she’s set up are comparing notes and plotting against her.
Oooh, juicy stuff, right? Well, I have a newsletter, and I assume nobody’s going to sue me for this, so why don’t we try to solve it?
Which actress was red-hot in the late ‘90s but not considered as talented as her contemporaries, and who could realistically be labelled by people as a troublemaking diva? I’m not sure there’s a non-shady way to say this, but the instant that I read this blind item, my mind went, “It’s Gwyneth, right?” But wait! I think my reasoning is sound!
In February 1999, Paltrow was a month away from winning her Best Actress Oscar for Shakespeare in Love. But it was considered a two-person race between her and Cate Blanchett for Elizabeth, another rising star who had a bit more critical pull than Gwyneth. But this is also pre-GOOP Gwyneth, and she wasn't a poorly reviewed performer. Aside from Shakespeare in Love, in 1998, she had four other movies where she'd been well-received. In 1996, she'd received some stellar reviews for both Emma and Hard Eight. And she was the Queen of Miramax, a title given to her by Harvey Weinstein.
She was also once friends with another talented actress who defined the era: Winona Ryder. You probably know this story already. Winona and Gwyneth were great pals during this time, but they apparently fell out when Gwyneth saw the script for Shakespeare in Love in Winona's house and decided to snag the role for herself. The pair never reconciled after this seeming betrayal. It makes for a great story, and it’s one that’s endured for decades now.
According to Amy Odell's pretty definitive biography of Paltrow, Ryder's name had been bandied about for the movie, but "it was never sent to Winona as an offer." But she "wanted to do the part, and Gwyneth had recommended her for the part." Those quotes came from Weinstein himself, pre-jail. The rumour that Paltrow "stole" the role? That, Gwyneth reportedly told friends, came from Winona. Whether or not you believe that is probably dependent on how you feel about these women. Most people I know don’t like Gwyneth, for legitimate reasons and otherwise. Becoming the quack queen of the out-of-touch will do that to you.
But it’s also true that Paltrow has been pretty shady over the years in ways Winona was not. In April 2009, in the weekly Goop newsletter, Paltrow made mention of a person that most people suspect is Ryder. She wrote:
“Back in the day, I had a ‘frenemy’ who, as it turned out, was pretty hell-bent on taking me down. This person really did what they could to hurt me. I was deeply upset, I was angry, I was all of those things you feel when you find out that someone you thought you liked was venomous and dangerous. I restrained myself from fighting back. I tried to take the high road. But one day I heard that something unfortunate and humiliating had happened to this person. And my reaction was deep relief and… happiness.”
If this is about Winona then it’s super catty to reference her mental health struggles and shoplifting arrest with the glee of schadenfreude. Of course, it could be about anything, but I feel like Gwyneth knew how this would be read by the world.
Blind items are often placed for a reason. It’s a good way to shape a narrative, to make someone into a villain without much work. there’s a reason that people keep referencing the garbage site of tinhat misogyny that is Crazy Days and Nights despite the fact that it’s a proven crock of sh*t and THEY HAVE A DISCLAIMER ADMITTING THEY JUST MAKE SH*T UP! Look at how many blind items we have right now about Chappell Roan determined to “prove” she’s a villain to cash in on this recent non-drama involving a security guard in Brazil. And any blind about a woman in Hollywood in the ‘90s has me worrying that Harvey’s fingerprints are all over it. We know how he treated Paltrow, how terrified she was of the man who helped to make her career. She would later describe their dynamic as being akin to an abusive relationship. Given how frequently he smeared the women who dared to push back against him (see Ashley Judd), would it be so unusual that he’d fling the Queen of Miramax to the wolves to keep her in line?
There are other candidates for this blind item. I thought about a few women who were considered the hot stars of the moment who could have been likely subjects for this sort of snark. Ashley Judd? Mira Sorvino? Meg Ryan? Truly, though, I do think it’s meant to be Gwyneth. It’s mean, probably untrue, but also kind of hilarious. Can you imagine the vagina egg icon making crank calls like she’s Bart Simpson? Was she asking Winona if Hugh Jass was on the line?
Let me know who you think the blind item is about, and tell me if you’d like more stuff like this, because I have way too many magazines cluttering up my flat that need to be put to work.
