There’s a commercial on YouTube that says 6 corporations own 95% of the news outlets in America. That’s probably pretty close. Gannett owns a large percentage of newspapers. Clear Channel/Eye Heart owns a majority of the radio stations. Time Warner/CNN and the rest, who knows? It gets rather murky. The bigger issue is, are we getting “the news”? Or are we being played for fools? It really hit me when I found out Trump hater Paul Ryan sits on the board of FOX News Corp.
Most people don’t put it together but the 3 biggest Trump haters in Washington were on the last 2 Republican presidential tickets (Romney, Ryan and McCain). Most people blithely accept the media propaganda that the ‘war’ is between Democrats vs Republicans. Ha. Last week it came out that GM was moving more production overseas. This is after taxpayers bailed them out just a few years ago. The taxpayers had money stolen from them so investment banks wouldn’t lose their shorts on GM’s mismanagement. And they thank us by moving to China!
FOX News each morning tries to get conservatives angry at Pelosi, Schiff, AOC, Elizabeth Warren or any number of other ‘villains’. Liberal media does the same thing. Creating any number of nefarious boogeymen supposedly scheming with Trump to bring down America and shackle blacks, Mexicans and homosexuals in some grand plan! (I’m not really sure what or why Trump is going to do all this, but just accept it he is!)
They used to say, “When its all said and done, we’re all Americans!” That’s not true anymore, technically or ideologically. We’re going to live as “one nation under God”? I don’t think so. I have a pretty good idea how and why it happened, but absolutely no idea how to reverse the divide. I’d say we’re through. I’d say we’re done for. I’d say we’re toast. Its clear to me a reset is the only option. Otherwise the ‘cold’ civil war will turn into a hot one.
You have Democrat candidates for president perfectly willing to completely circumvent the Constitution to disarm Americans. They continue their advocacy of killing babies. They put illegals first. They want to eliminate what’s left of the free market in healthcare and go to a completely socialist system. These gulfs are too big, too profound to reconcile. This Empire has to be broken up. Just like Big Tech. Neither will be.
Not always. Sometimes. The American system has been so distorted through government interference and by third parties like insurance, that few areas of pure free market exist. The internet has areas of freedom. Car sales are another area. And a few others. But what brought it to mind was when I set out to get eyeglasses yesterday. I had seen an ad on TV from Vision 4 Less promoting their ‘Sale! This week only!‘ I realized I better get off my duff and go check it out! Because they are new on south Duff, I was hoping to get right in for the examination and I was. 15 minutes and $72 dollars later I had my prescription and was looking at frames.
20 minutes after that the gal was taking the 2 frames to the back where they match the lenses to the frames. In 1 hour no less. So I went to go run a few errands. In less then 1 hour I got a text message saying they were done. I had waited maybe 5 minutes for the examination, 10 minutes for the frame order. The whole thing didn’t take more than 2 hours I don’t think. The 2 pair of glasses only cost $117 (versus $68) because I had chosen UV and scratch protection 1 year warranty. I think those 2 are kind of like “underbody coating” on a new car. So I spent $50 more than necessary. Still beats the $348 or so I’d spend normally.
This picture is actually of a typhoon from somewhere in the Pacific years ago, but its about the same relevance as what Jason Sudoku was showing on KCCI News Channel 8 last night. Jason was clicking here and zooming there, one man standing between Iowans and certain death. Well Jason, the news was just 30 minutes earlier, did you cover it then? If this storm was stacking up the bodies like cordwood, why didn’t you take off Inside Edition? Why did you only interrupt prime time? Is it because its on a different rate structure in payments to the station? Then the syndicated programs, and not the network programs?
A lot of people had waited months for the season premiere of Hawaii 5-0. We understand the importance of actual life threatening weather events, we just don’t believe there was one, or that you treated it as such. With all your closeups and zooming and clicking, you never did convey the 2 most important aspects of a storm: “Where was it? And where was it going?” Anyone plugged into radio or TV could have been served by the National Weather System emergency alert broadcast. “Beep! Beep! Beep! There is a dangerous storm in Jonesville moving to the northeast, seek shelter now!” 30 seconds and you’re done.
But Jason on 8 and Ed Wilson on channel 13 are more into performance art. Their “street map views” and diagrams of the “hail wall”, obscure with colors and movement the only 2 things you need to know, “Where is it, and where is it going?” Instead, we got a 40 minute meteorological lesson on the minutia that make up a storm. If you were trying to enhance public safety, you failed. As one woman on your Facebook page said, you were grandstanding.
This is the photo used on the jacket of the book I recently read by Ms. Shields. I don’t normally read celebrity books, but I have always been intrigued by her. But I wasn’t the only one. She made Pretty Baby, Wanda Nevada, Blue Lagoon, Endless Love, Brenda Starr, all movies that capitalized on her captivating looks. And its kind of funny because from reading the book, I picked up that she had that typical model way of looking at her own body. I’m sure I can’t explain it right or understand completely, but models often look at themselves objectively. Not the way men do. It is their asset, to be protected and presented. Nothing more, nothing less.
As the title suggests (The Real Story of My Mother and Me), her goal was to analyze her and her mother’s relationship dynamics. That she did, for 394 pages. There was the odd tidbit of celebrity gossip about this or that co-star over the years, and the goings on in Hollywood, but the vast majority of it was an endless recounting of the dark spiral her mother lived in because of alcoholism, and what it did to Brooke. To say that Brooke was screwed up is an understatement. Back then if you thought about it at all, you just assumed her life was all rainbows and unicorns.
It takes 2 people to make an alcoholic: the broken person and the enabler. Teri and Brooke. That was their world. Brooke had a decent relationship with her divorced dad, but it was pretty much her mother her world revolved around. When I finished the book the first thought was what might her life have been like had she had a warm and nurturing mother? And the second thought was why is it so often its the whack job parents that produce these prodigies? Her first husband Andre Agassi had a nut for a dad.
Brooke’s friend Michael Jackson had a set of parents that were famous for their abuse. I’m sure the list goes on and on. For some reason that need for parental approval (and that whip cracking behind them) motivates young people to incredible heights. You got the feeling a little that Brooke thought it was her amazing looks that made her career. I’m not sure she understands there is a multitude of equally beautiful young women out there, they just don’t live in New York City and have a whack job for a parent. The stars aligned for her at a time when print culture could still control who the next megastar was (Think David Cassidy, Shaun Cassidy, Brooke, Leif Garrett…).
Another thing that stood out was a little troubling. She was jetting here, jetting there, Cannes, the Fiji Islands, making this movie, that movie, rubbing elbows with Bob Hope and other celebrities, 6 homes at one time. She led a lifestyle most of us have no comprehension of. She was able to do this because of the feelings fans had for her and the money they spent. Her fans made it possible. She seems to have zero comprehension of that. Or appreciation.
But after you read one of these you realize the volumes that you weren’t told. Things about school, relationships or jobs that you were given a glossy little picture of, but not the nitty gritty of what it was really like. I guess you get a little jaded when you realize the mission was to sell books, not give you the truth.
THE SOUND OF MUSIC, Daniel Truhitte, Charmian Carr, 1965, TM and Copyright (c)20th Century Fox Film Corp. All rights reserved. Courtesy: Everett Collection.
Oh my gosh, what a wasteland modern Hollywood is! I was flipping through the channels, desperately seeking to be entertained by something. Its pretty bad when you’ve gotten too old for the Lone Ranger and Laramie. Yesterday I discovered 17-3 Charge plays several hours of CHiPs in the afternoon. That’s good for about an hour. Whenever I start thinking about the dearth of wholesome, quality, family fare, I think of the Gold Standard: The Sound of Music.
Seriously though, without trying to sound like an old “Stay off my lawn!” geezer, what has Hollywood come up with in the ensuing 55 years? Its still #1 in ticket sales. They always want to talk about the newest and greatest highest “grossing” movie, but that’s only because of ticket price inflation. As far as butts in theater seats, I’m pretty sure SOM is still number 1. It reminds me of the pop song American Pie. Its a good song, don’t get me wrong, but the reverence in which it is held shows how bad the competition is. We should have had more songs in 50 years that were capable of using metaphor, parable, poetry and analogy than just this one song. It stands out cause, ‘Baby, baby, baby! Yeah, yeah, yeah!’ is so weak.
In the 70’s Benji was a wholesome family movie. Low budget, but nice. There were a bunch of good movies, but I wouldn’t call them family fare. John Wayne movies, Clint Eastwood movies, the first Star Wars movie. ET? A few Disney flicks, Lion King, the Little Mermaid, but those weren’t movies adults could get into also, just the kids. A few live action Disney movies over the years, but nothing in the last 40 years. I’ll have to come back later and add to this list the ones that will inevitably come to me, but as of right now its a desert.
[Charmian Carr was an interesting bird. She made one more movie after SOM with that nut job Anthony Perkins and that was it! If ever there was a natural for the movies it was her. Exquisitely beautiful with those glacier blue eyes, a wonderful charisma, she puts 99% of Hollywood to shame. She chose instead some area of decorating as a career as I understand it. Of all the obnoxious louts that the industry forces on us, to have a gem like that getaway…. and then God took her home at just age 74. And in the movie Ralph chooses the Nazis over her, my ass. Not a chance.]
Okay so its “frozen custard”. They make the best ice cream in Ames, but about half the time I forget that. Trying to get ice cream in Ames can be trying. You think of a place like Dairy Queen that specializes in it. Nope. Van Gorp’s owns the DQs in Ames and like so many others they think they’ll maximize profit by employing minimum wage teenagers. You get what you pay for. I know at the Boone DQ they had a walkout when the employees found out the McDonalds next-door was paying $5 bucks an hour more than the highest paid DQ employee! Which is what the Van Gorp’s are doing and it shows. The North one couldn’t make a malt to save their lives. The chocolate is virtually indistinguishable from the vanilla its so pale. They’re slow and after all the wait its a puny cone you get.
Ditto for the Lincoln Way DQ. I watched the kid after he spent 5 minutes unwrapping coins for the register, correcting an already served order, unwrap cones to load the dispenser, and grab mine by the lip with his bare fingers! So I went half a block to the Casey’s and get a dish of ice cream. Of course their machine was broken for the gazillionth time. Casey’s ice cream machines are always broke and their gas pumps most of the time don’t have any paper in the receipt printer. I forgot Culver’s! Its right there too on Lincoln Way! Its the creamiest and chocolatiest! Its the best in town, and I forgot it! I always associate Culvers with their burgers, especially their mushroom and swiss. Old people, we take our ice cream seriously.
When business owners try to do it on the cheap with cut-rate employees, they’re telling you they don’t think much about their product and they don’t think much about you.
Pawn shops are a funny place. I’m guessing a lot of the more genteel Iowans have never been in one. Its kind of an economic ‘dirty book store’. Aside from the palm tree growing out of the top of this one, it could be anyone of the ones dotting the Iowa landscape. My guess is very few of the items that end up there were ever dropped off with the intention of going back for them. They end up being thrift stores for tools, jewelry, electronics and guns. I remember reading one time that when pawn shops and checks into cash (payday loan) places spring up, its an indicator that a neighborhood is in full blown decline. In Ames another indicator was the explosion of clothing consignment shops.
What I don’t understand about pawn shops is their business model. I get the part about they have to ‘buy wholesale’ and ‘sell retail’. They have to pay employees, the lease and the light bill. so their goal is to pay X and sell for 2X. But that’s where it gets fuzzy for me. I don’t know about jewelry and electronics, but I do know about tools and guns. I saw a nice little 20 piece socket set yesterday for $16 bucks. You could buy it new at Walmart or Lowes for about that or a few bucks more. Why would you pay the same amount for used?
Another area is guns. You can buy a brand spanking new gun (and a good one at that) for $136 dollars at a gun show. A Taurus Spectrum .380. You can buy a new Hi-Point 9mm for $139. So imagine my surprise when I saw a used Ruger LCP for $200 at the pawn shop on Lincoln Way in Ames. New price is $219 (LCP II new price is $299 or on sale for $249). Are you wanting to sell guns or store them? They have a used Taurus PT111 for $189 I believe, a new G2C (its replacement) only goes for $215. So in both cases only $20 bucks more would buy you new of the same item, and you wouldn’t have to worry about what some nimrod previous owner did to the gun on the used market!
Assuming they do the same thing for electronics and jewelry, I don’t see how they keep the doors open. Anyone who knows market value on the items would never buy them! There must be a lot of unaware consumers. You know in the example above they didn’t give a penny more than $90 for the LCP, they could actually sell it for $130, instead of storing it for $199. Just don’t get it. “Store of wealth” (the retained value of an item), its a strange business. They seem to stay in business. You just think they could make a lot more money if they were actually interested in selling stuff instead of just ripping people off.
I led off with this photo (even though it just seems “fuzzy”) because it really captures a lot. I’m guessing she’s about 20 here (15?). This girl caused a lot of trouble for society in the 70s. She made a movie called ‘Pretty Baby‘ (1978) for heaven’s sake, about a 12 year old prostitute. Sure it was creepy. Never seen it myself. For Hollywood it was quite original. Creativity isn’t what Hollywood’s about. Using people, chewing them up and spitting them out, going for the lowest common denominator, that’s what Hollywood’s about. Her mom was taken to society’s woodshed repeatedly. Which is kind of funny when you think about it.
America was shocked to see a 12 year old portray a prostitute. It was all pretend. That’s what Hollywood is, a very expensive game of dress up. A year or 2 later Johnny Gosch and Eugene Martin from Iowa were getting kidnapped for real and forced into a living hell of real life prostitution. Did America get upset about that? Or all the thousands of other kids living a similar hell? No. But play a game of pretend, hold their eyelids open and force them to watch, and society blanches. Societal nimrods.
Right after this movie you can find pictures of an underage Brooke at the ultra swank Studio 54 nightclub. Real life exploitation of a teenager. Did anyone get upset? No. Did they get upset about the abuse of hundreds of other kids in Hollywood? No. That was kept under the rug. They didn’t have to look at that. The “right” people were making money off of that. Brooke was born May 31, 1965. She wouldn’t be 21 until 1986. About the time of the photo above. She’d lived a lifetime by then. I buy very, very few movies for myself. ‘Brenda Starr‘ (1989) is one I’m going to buy. She made that one in 1988 when she was only 23, you would have swore she was in her thirties if you didn’t know better! (Corrections on the Brenda Starr timeline below.)
But like I said earlier, Brooke caused a lot of squirming for society. People don’t like to look at themselves. She made ‘The Blue Lagoon‘ (1979), 13 years old and naked when she made that one. ‘Wanda Nevada‘ (1979), that was a creepy little film once again. Hollywood couldn’t get enough of young Brooke. Bob Hope specials, Calvin Klein ads, “Nothing comes between me and my Calvin’s”. A few years ago I saw her in a very funny commercial (I don’t remember the product but she was funnier that hell), and one thought came to mind. She came off as completely sane. Normal. Balanced. Self-deprecating. Didn’t take herself too seriously.
I remember thinking at the time, I’m glad for her. Despite adults using her her whole life, she used them back. She kept it in context. Realized it was pretend. I hope I get to read her book, ‘There Was a Little Girl: The Real Story of My Mother and Me‘ (in fact I ordered it just now). Like I said earlier, I really like the lead off photo. Its a “bridge” photo. That period between childhood and adulthood. That just happened to be a little more turbulent than for most kids. Glad she survived.
Next favorite.
1970: American child film actress, Brooke Shields. (Photo by Alan Band/Keystone/Getty Images)
My favorite.
I thought these photos represented a wide range of looks for Brooke. What’s funny is I really like her candid’s. The ‘blue jeans and sweater’ Brooke more than the glamour puss Brooke. Its hard to imagine someone being photographed more than her. She was a big deal 40 years ago. A very big deal. I just saw the movie ‘Brenda Starr‘ a few years ago. It has an absolutely tawdry past! You can see for yourself at the link I provided. It really reminded me of the problems Tom Laughlin had making and releasing the original ‘Billy Jack‘ movie. Tough guy Laughlin found out what it was like to buck the “mob”. Hollywood is run by a mafia, not Italian, Jewish. You can’t say that of course, it would be denied all day long. But it ekes out once in awhile. Like when John Travolta said “Hollywood is run for the benefit of homosexual Jewish men” (And for a few straight ones like Harvey Weinstein, notice how he never spent a day in jail?). Marlon Brando said something similar once. He and Travolta were big enough they could get away with it. Others who blurted out the truth were never heard from again. But as I say, the story of Brenda Starr, filmed in ’86 and not released in the U.S. until ’92 is a fascinating one. Both that one and Billy Jack tried to go outside the studio system. They found out what happens if you don’t give the ‘mob’ their cut. But as I mentioned above, Brenda Starr was so good I was going to buy it. That’s when I found out the legal hell it was in. There is 1 copy of it on Amazon for $716.04. That’s when I knew something was up.
[Finishing up this post I realized just how long and deep Hollywood’s pedophilia roots run. Tatum O’Neal, Linda Blair, Drew Barrymore, Corey Haim, Corey Feldman, Macaulay Culkin, Brooke Shields and a gazillion others I don’t begin to know about! Reading her book ‘There Was a Little Girl’ has been fascinating. I’m just halfway through. It sounds like she “divorces” her mother at some point. Brooke’s life was forever scarred by her drunk of a Mom. The entertainment industry was actually a stabilizing force, if that gives you an idea about how bad her mother was. But in relation to pedophilia, Brooke seems to have escaped any “me too” lecherous moments. The other thought so far, is how would things have been if she’d had a ‘normal’ mother? In a nurturing relationship?]
The hair! There were way too many women to have combined them like I did earlier into 1 group, the 70s AND 80s. So I split them up. Besides, the feel of the decades were so different. The first 4 years of the 70s (70, 71, 72 & 73) in my mind are linked to the 60s. The post-Watergate years of the 70s were their own and in no way part of the 80s. The 80s struck me as a very superficial decade. Big hair, shoulder pads, spandex, glitter, teen movies. Glitz. MTV was okay back then, they actually played music. I remember the media hated Ronald Reagan. Larry Bird and Magic Johnson were living basketball legends in the 80s. The movies? Very macho, looking back on them. Sylvester Stallone, Chuck Norris, Arnold Schwarzenegger. That generations “Brat Pack” with Molly Ringwald and crew (Good golly, Miss Molly is 51!).
The women here are a fascinating mixture. I’d love to know if there was a book on this group? These aren’t the ‘Oscar Winners’ of Hollywood for the most part. These are the women that looked good in bikinis. Jeans. Tight sweaters. Short dresses. Leotards and tights. These are the women that men dream of. They may not have been tough as leather when they got to Hollywood, but they were by the time they left. They quickly found out Hollywood was going to use them, so they turned the tables and used Hollywood. I have nothing but respect for these women. Ladies if you prefer. The words in the title of this post, “Most Beautiful”, are interchangeable with “Most Sexy”. They knew the game, and they survived it.
They knew what their bargaining chip was for the big screen (or small), and the limited time they had to “get theirs”. Most of them seemed to have retained their humanity, kept themselves sane and are just really topnotch people. In fact as I scroll down through the pictures below, I see only one that might be a barracuda. The rest just seem like really fine people. Virtually everyone of them at their peak ruled the “bombshell” roost. Their popularity for a year, maybe 2 was phenomenal! The posters, the magazine covers, the adulation, they each must have had a very wild ride at one time! They were huge.
Like I said earlier, a book needs to be done on this bunch, “Queens of the Tabloids!” or some such. With nothing but utmost respect intended. The women who won Oscars in the 80s were women like Sally Field, Sissy Spacek, Meryl Streep, Shirley MacLaine, Jodie Foster. Fine people no doubt, but not the type that make men’s hearts pound. Its hard to explain but men know what I mean. I’ve done a separate post on Meredith Dawn Salenger, I intend to do separate ones for Brooke Shields, Lydia Cornell and Heather Thomas. I’d really love to dig deeper. To get beyond the façade. And for a good many of these photos I sincerely apologize, they don’t begin to do justice to them.
LOS ANGELES – 1983: Actress Ola Ray poses for a portrait in 1983 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Harry Langdon/Getty Images)
Ola Ray (Thriller)
Meredith Dawn Salenger
Jennifer Beals
Brooke Shields (There’s a gazillion good shots of her, this one is nice.)
Nia Peeples (I finally found one of her that is worthy! You should see her in 23 Minutes to Sunrise.)
Lisa Bonet
Tanya Roberts (To not capture that red hair and blue eyes is a sin.)
Linda Blair (animal rights activist/actress and all around hottie.)
Justine Bateman – I had a picture of Justine here, but she seemed in her interviews such a fan hating egotist, I couldn’t in good conscience leave it up.
Valerie Bertinelli
Markie Post
Brigitte Nielsen
Rachel Ward (“Here, let me adjust you”) She’s a bit of an odd duck for me. Of all the beautiful and sexy women on this page she sticks with me the most. Why? I saw a grand total of 1 of her movies (Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid), a couple a dozen photos while researching this post. No interviews or anything. She’s one of those people like Nia Peeples whose eyes are truly a window to the soul, and its a good view. From what I can tell she hasn’t had any “work” done, and that is so cool. She seems so down to earth and sensible.
Lydia Cornell
Molly Ringwald
Joan Jett
Michelle Pfeiffer
Kathleen Beller (find a picture of her in a swimsuit, unreal) She was on an episode of Barnaby Jones this morning: ‘Run Away to Terror!‘ Great 70s TV! I read up on her at the link above. When I first did this 80s post I completely overlooked her! So did Hollywood in a way. I don’t know how either of us did, one of the strangest stories in Hollywood. She did okay, kept busy. She did 3 years of Dynasty, they wrote her out! How is that even possible?? No woman on that show even came close!
Marisa Tomei
Linda Purl
Heather Locklear
Heather Thomas
80s goddess Heather Thomas, not much you can say about that. She comes across as nice, pretty, nothing better than that.
[The photos I used really are a mish mash of photographic failure. 4 of the most epic failures were the ones I was forced to use for Linda Purl, Linda Blair, Meredith Salenger and Lisa Bonet. The one of Valerie Bertinelli really suffered from being scanned into digital. Tanya Roberts I couldn’t get a decent color shot that wasn’t a bikini pic. Such is life. Digital didn’t begin to appear until the nineties. Getty Images buys up the really topnotch ones. The good news is this 80s list is so much more complete than my ridiculous earlier attempt. 21 by the way, not 10. Imagine a big primal scream of ‘Nooooooooo!’ That’s what I felt like when I was going through photos and I’d see a current photo of one of my dream girls and she had undergone the plastic surgery knife. I hate that! Its like women who get boob jobs, you’re beautiful as you are! I realize a woman hits 50, 55, 60, that’s okay. We’d much rather see the natural you, not the stretched, unnatural and sometimes unrecognizable you. The big surprise for me (who started out the decade a young and dumb 21), was Heather Thomas! I knew of her at the time of course, she was everywhere. But little did I even begin to appreciate what an amazing beauty she was. Simply amazing.]
Meredith Salenger, now that’s a woman. I remember watching ‘The Journey of Natty Gann‘ as a kid, and I’m thinking she is going to be one beautiful woman. She was 15 at the time. And that is exactly what happened. Then looking at her IMDB resume, I see a couple of TV movies, some other movies, The Kiss, Dream a Little Dream, then it gets weird. I see some voice over work, some more made for TV movies (a secondary role in Lake Placid for God’s sake!), some indies, some straight to video… I don’t get it? She has the Russian Jewish pedigree made for Hollywood. She has the Harvard degree. She’s beautiful as all get out. Yet she never seemed to have the showbiz career I would have predicted back in ’85. Strange. What do I know? The history of Hollywood is littered with head scratchers. She’s on Twitter and possibly Facebook. She even did a strange/fun little WordPress blog interview with a fan/nut here. Very strange. Some of the pictures are kind of iffy. I picked the best ones I saw. (I suppose a lot of them suffered in the conversion from analog to digital, such was that era. In no way am I dissing on her. Its the over exposure and lack of focus on some.)
In the very strange interview at the link above, Meredith mentions she had no idea the ill effects that going to Harvard for 4 years would have on her career. She said no one in her family was “in the business”, to guide her. It makes you wonder what her manager was thinking? She thought she’d be able to go to college, and have her career take up just where it had left off. She’d graduate and the offers would just come rolling in. 4 years is a long time in the entertainment industry (I don’t think the Spice Girls were together 4 years). I just noticed something from looking at her photos. She’s not the ‘big toothy grin‘ type of bombshell, much more laidback. She definitely did not fit Hollywood’s stereotype of the Heather Thomas/Heather Locklear/Judy Landers beauty queen. Meredith couldn’t turn her brain off and be the mindless social butterfly. The others were just as smart, they were just able to flip a switch. So anyway, I’d go back and read that interview of her on WordPress, its quirky, but it offers some honest insight into her personality. Which is nice. (What’s kind a funny is that of all my posts covering beautiful women for the past 80 years, Meredith is getting themost hits. Bizarre.)
I just realized what happened to her. She had the worst manager of all time! Natty Gann was a real movie. Wholesome, decent plot, good direction. A solid movie. She’d come on to the scene and made a splash. Now what? What do you do next? Crap? Cause its a paycheck? Or do you hold out for something decent? Molly Ringwald at this time fell into some decent stuff. Leader of the ‘Brat Pack’. Candles, Pink, Breakfast Club. Not masterpiece theater but some solid stuff. 25 years later when Jennifer Lawrence was a teen, deciding which way her career was going, had a choice. She didn’t choose crap. She chose Poker House, Winter’s Bone, Burning Plain. Really solid stuff. Meredith when she was a teen chose crap. The Kiss? Dream a Little Dream? Those are 5’ers (not good on IMDB’s ‘10 scale‘). Nobody on her team had any vision. Teen idols don’t last very long, the flavor of the month is very fickle. Ask David Cassidy, Shaun Cassidy and Leif Garrett. Its the difference between building your career on rock or on sand. Meredith’s career was built on sand.
[1/24/21 update: It is the most bizarre thing to see the number of hits roll in every day of horny men lusting over Meredith, okay maybe that’s just me. But for whatever reason men find this obscure outpost about an obscure actress. I mean I’ve done a lot of posts on a lot of beautiful women, and to have this one standout is confusing. I mean come on now, these posts go back roughly 100 years, and the one woman men want to look at most is Meredith Salenger? One of the things I think about with her is the comparison to Brooke Shields. Brooke went to Princeton I believe for 4 years and while she had a career afterwards, it wasn’t the absolute madness of the career she had in the late 70’s and early 80’s. I don’t know if she had more focus or what. Meredith strikes me as a piece of driftwood getting tossed around by the waves, not knowing exactly what she wants.]
Iowa life 