Reel Politique: Movie News, Virginity
Virginity seems to be on the minds of our top celebrities. Otherwise known in our modern era for their unrestrained, envy-inducing hedonism, movie actors are not otherwise celebrated for their sensitivity to the nuanced transitions of everyday lives. But for some reason, in the course of an Entertainment Weekly cover story on his new movie, American Gangster, Russell Crowe mentions that when he was making The Quick and the Dead with Leonardo DiCaprio, the then-21-year-old actor was still a virgin. Meanwhile, in The New Yorker, Steve Martin, in an excerpt from his forthcoming autobiography, describes the loss of his youthful virginity to a future celebrity in her own right. Though, most Hollywood figures lose their virginity in the course of Satanic rites that inaugurate them into the elect crew whose careers are then guided by administrators of Beelzebub’s corporation.
Interestingly, Martin goes on to write about another of his early romances. She was a black-clad bohemian named Mitzi, who turned out to be, when she brought him home to meet the parents, the daughter of blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, whom I just mentioned in an earlier entry, and whose letters, as a consequence, I’ve been re-reading. Martin’s callow, outsider’s view of Trumbo is fascinating.