Payday Loans
Courtney Love
  1. Chloe Webb, Sid and Nancy, 1985.    Courtney, future widow of Kurt Cobain, plus Helena Bonham Carter were in the mix for Nancy Spungen, the girl in the thoroughly wasted life of the Sex Pistols bass player, Sid Vicious.  “Clover” played her friend, Gretchen, instead. And director Alex Cox also chose her for his next endeavour, Straight to Hell, 1986.   Courtney is related to Douglas Fairbanks – her grandmother was his cousin. 
  2. Jennifer Jason Leigh, Last Exit To Brooklyn, 1988.      Brooklyn 1952… Filmed in the Red Hook area (2nd avenue at 58th street) in the summer of ’88. Plus Bavaria Studios as the director was Germany’s Uli Edel. He auditioned Love for Hubert Selby Jr’s creation, Tralala, gave her to Patricia Arquette, who proved pregnant. Enter: JJL promising Edel she was prepared to dye her hair, bare her breasts more times than he could count and endure the gang-bang scene. And she did. (Applause).
  3. Sharon Stone, Basic Instinct, 1991.
  4. Cameron Diaz, Feeling Minnesota, 1995.    Courtney was Kurt Cobain's widow by now, singing with her own  group,  Hole.  She lost Minnesota  but won Larry Flynt's wife in Milos Forman's The Public vs Larry Flynt, 1995. 
  5. Renée Zellweger, Jerry Maguire, 1996.    “You had me at Hello…”Once Tom Hanks passed and Tom Cruise breathed a sigh of relief, auteurCameron Crowe started searching for The Girl: Dorothy Boyd.   Love, Patricia Arquette, Cameron Diaz, Bridget Fonda, Janeane Garofalo, Nicole Kidman, Jennifer Lopez, Parker Posey, Molly Ringwald, Winona Ryder, Mira Sorvino, Marisa Tomei, Uma Thurman, even Zellweger, came and went. Recommended by Edward Burns (one of the Jerry possibles),  Connie Britton made a good test with Cruise and she was Dorothy - depending on Zellweger’s call back meeting with him. “We have video of that because I was filming,”Crowe told Mike Fleming Jr for Deadline Hollywood’s 20-years-later feature in 2017, “and you just see something happen when Tom sees her. He lights up… As Jerry discovers Dorothy, we discover Renée. That was a very personal thing for me and the way I feel about movies.”
  6. Sonic Youth, The Simpsons #152: Homerpalooza, TV, 1996. Since its 1989 birth, the yellowtoon family Simpson smashed records for episodes, audiences, and the most guest stars (as themselves or others). From Buzz Aldrin, Glenn Close (Homer’s Mom), Dennis Franz (Evil Homer!), George Harrison, Stephen Hawking, Dustin Hoffman, Bob Hope, Eric Idle to Paul and Linda McCartney, Conan O’Brien (a Simpsons writer made good), Michelle Pfeiffer, Mickey Rooney, Ringo Starr, Meryl Streep plus Barry (and Betty) White!  Not all celebs played ball. Love (and her group, Hole) would not help send up Chicago’s Lollapalooza  music fest.  New York’s Sonic Youth did.

  7. Helena Bonham Carter, Fight Club, 1999.      
    Director David Fincher looked everywhere for his Marla Singer.  Sarah Michelle Gellar, Winona Ryder, Kyra Sedgewick, Renee Zellweger.  Plus two great Brits: supermodel Vanessa Angel (71 screen roles since 1985), and Anna Friel. After seeing her Wings of the Dove, Fincher wanted HBC, the suits wanted the better known Reese Witherspoon, and Reese wanted out - ‘too dark!”  Courtney Love claimed the film’s star, Brad Pitt, had her dropped because she wouldn’t let him play her late husband in a  Kurt Cobain biopic.  Team Pitt retorted:  “You cannot be fired for a job you didn’t get.” And, anyway, directors select actors, not actors…  and yet co-star Edward Norton vetoed any idea of New Jersey comic Janeane Garofalo as she "didn't have the chops to do it." HBC modelled Marla on the final years of Judy Garland.  Fincher even called her Judy on-set get her back in her mindset.


  8. Natasha Henstridge, Ghosts of Mars, 2000.  Or how auteur John Carpenter lost his public.   He aimed for a “mindless and silly” thriller, a la Commando and Rambo,  and the fans thought  it was straight horror. “It's called Ghosts Of Mars for Christ's sake, why would people take this movie seriously?"  He had gone through some choice choices for his leading lady.  From the fiirst signed (but injured) Courtney to Famke Janssen,Franka Potenta and Michelle Yeoh. He didn’t make another film for nine years and when  he did, his wife, Cindy King called The Ward his chick flick, The line-up (choice again) included  Mika Boorem, Lyndsy Fonseca, Mamie Gummer, Amber Heard, Laura-Leigh and  Danielle Panabaker.   

  9. Nicole Kidman, Moulin Rouge! 1999.
    “Ah,” said Courtney.  “The one that got away, which I am still not completely over.”  Particularly after director Baz Luhrmnann told her she was   “a great representation of tragedy.”  Then again,  Baz got what he wanted. - permissions to use to use Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit in the opening  .Love agreed, although rarely allowing movie use of her late husband Kurt Cobain’s music. Nicole’s other rivals for Satine had been Drew Barrymore, Sophie Ellis-Baxter, Natalie Mendoza, Sharleen Spiten Hilary Swank,  Kate Winslet, Renee Zellweger, and - opposite Heath Ledger - Catherine Zeta-Jones. “They didn't have to be big singers,”  Baz explained,  “but they had to be able to move you emotionally. Basically, Ewan [McGregor] and Nicole were the best for the job. That’s the bottom line of it.”

  10. Angelina Jolie, Girl, Interrupted, 1999,  One  Flew into the Cuckoo’s nest… Courtney Love auditioned  (Parker Posey refused to) for the sociopath Lisa Rowe – in ihe true story of Susanna Kaysen  after committing herself to  a  psychiatric institution and kept there for two years, although she was quite sane. She meets other teenage patients, headed by Jolie as Lisa. “I did npot think she was insane. he was just incredibly honest, which, I guess, made her seem crazy." Ryder spent seven years finding the book, buying it, battling to raise interest and a budget, producing it and playing Susan. And then the Oscars went  to…  Angelina!   

  11. Demi Moore, Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, 2003.  Drew Barrymore bought the movie rights and proved herself as star and producer with the 2000 movie and even this no-so-hot sequel. The same three Angels (Drew, Cameron Diaz, Lisa Liu) were kind enough to involve a fourth, a fallen Angel called Madison Lee. Drew looked at Love and Joan Cusack and then a suit must have joked: Why not a fallen star?  The biggest of those was Demi Mooore. This was her comeback chance..  There were allegations that “Gimme Moore”  tried to take it over.  She didn’t. No one  did. Film flopped. So no 3 or 4. Indeed no more Angels until actress-turned-auteur Elizabeth Banks’ lukewarm  … as many as 17 years later!

      

 

 

 



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