Once Upon A Time In America - Extra! Extra!
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Jenny From The Block
Academy Award-winner Jennifer Connelly on how Sergio Leone provided her first ride on the road to stardom
”They actually offered the role to me!” laughs Jennifer Connelly when asked about how she landed the part of the young Deborah in Once Upon A Time In America, her first stab at screen acting. “The only other time that has happened in my career was A Beautiful Mind.”
Now an Oscar-winner courtesy of her sterling performance as Mrs John Nash, Connelly’s memories of her time on the America set aren’t entirely happy. “I was really excited. But I have mixed feelings about my time as a child actor. I don’t want to suggest that I had this horrendous childhood - I had friends and did normal things - but I was a little isolated.”
Despite having reservations about her chosen profession, the adolescent Connelly continued to work in movies, playing opposite Donald Pleasance in Dario Argento’s Phenomena and David Bowie and assorted Muppets in Jim Henson’s Labyrinth.
Not that a career was what the actress had in mind when he took the role in Leone’s movie. “I had no acting aspirations - I didn’t even watch a lot of movies. I was like any kid, hanging out, climbing trees - I just slid into it. Then afterwards, people kept giving me movies and so I kept doing them!”
And what was it that Mr Leone like about the young Brooklynite? “He just wanted a young girl who could dance. And I could dance so I got the picture - easy as that!”
For Guys Without Girlfriends Only
Five terribly trivial tidbits about OUATIA
1 - Sergio Leone offered the job of directing Once Upon A Time In America to Apocalypse Now scribe John Milius.
2 - Robert De Niro paid for James Woods to have his teeth capped as he felt this would aid both men’s performances.
3 - Gerard Depardieu was Sergio Leone’s original choice for the role of Noodles.
4 - Leone has an unbilled cameo as a station ticket clerk.
5 - Once Upon A Time In America is stand-up Jim Davidson’s favourite film.
Woods’ Hoods
Five characters who make James’ Max look like a pussycat
1 - Gregory Powell (The Onion Field, 1979)
Ex-con Powell kills a cop then defends himself in court. The murder is made more distributing by the fact the victim is Cheers star Ted Danson.
2 - Lloyd Hopkins (Cop, 1988)
A hard-boiled detective who not only says rough things (“You blow away a broad’s date, the least you can do is drive her home”) but seems to mean them.
3 - HR Haldeman (Nixon, 1995)
The President’s anti-Semitic, Watergate break-in arranging right-hand man manages the rare feat of making Richard Milhous Nixon seem sympathetic.
4 - Carl Panzarm (Killer: A Journal Of Murder, 1996)
Encouraged to write about his criminal past, jail-bird Panzram reveals that he’s killed just about everyone he’s ever met.
5 - Byron De La Beckwith (Ghosts Of Mississippi, 1996)
White supremacist De La Beckwith murders civil rights leader Medgar Evers, beats the rap then spend 30 years boasting about the killing.