Salon.com > Emma Brockes

“Good in my skin”

Mon, 04 Apr 2005 15:57:00 +0000

Visitors to Jane Fonda's loft in downtown Atlanta are presented, on arrival, with two versions of the actress: on the left-hand wall, nine huge prints of her face from the time when her hair occupied a different time zone from her body; on the right, across a loft space the size of a bowling alley, a library of theoretical texts devoted to sociology, theology and what she calls the "paradigm of hierarchical patriarchy." (To the side is a vestibule that, she will explain, she designed herself to reflect the female reproductive system.) In the middle is a wall of glass overlooking the Atlanta skyline. When Fonda walks in, it is with a tense, beady look that seems to dare one to take sides: You superficial dupe, have you come here expecting a movie star?

Waking up with the election blues

Thu, 04 Nov 2004 15:40:00 +0000

The mistake we all made was in getting our hopes up. Until lunchtime on Tuesday, in accordance with the rules of superstition, lay supporters of John Kerry kept their outlook pessimistic. In bones, waters, winds and related vapors across the land, the election was divined by pro-Democrats to be in the bag for George W. Bush. This is what is known as preparing a soft landing; it is measured in units of unhatched chicks.

We will never know who was first to break rank. But the earliest note of dissension I heard was at 7 p.m. on the Heathrow Express. A man sitting in front of me called the election for Kerry, bold as brass, without qualifying it by spitting three times or chucking salt over his shoulder. "The young people will win it for Kerry," he said, as a shudder moved through the carriage and people reached for things to throw at his head. "The families of people in the military will win it for Kerry."

"Do you think so?" said his companion.

"Yes," he said, and it was as easy as that. The journey up, to be followed by a stomach-sliding descent some 12 hours later, had begun.

Thoroughly modern Julie

Thu, 14 Oct 2004 15:21:00 +0000

When it comes to Julie Andrews, you either get it or you don't. Notice of my interview with her prompts two responses: disinterest bordering on hostility from my straight, male friends, and hysteria from everyone else. People scream and hop about and, throwing their eyes to the back of their heads, collapse to the floor. In a small, sad voice my best friend says: "Give Julie our love."

"Aaaah," says Andrews, in a suite in the Dorchester Hotel. "That's so nice. Tell them I'm very grateful." She smiles, displaying perfect Julie teeth.

Affection for Andrews has grown in the 40-odd years since "The Sound of Music" was made, to the extent that she is one of the few Brits to rival the status of America's biggest stars. With impeccable manners, she always attributes this to luck and to the fact that, because she is lodged in people's childhood memories, she is almost impossible to eradicate. It has also to do with a kind of sincerity: Some stars survive by changing with the times; Andrews has thrived by resisting them.

Bart’s big mouth

Mon, 02 Aug 2004 14:22:00 +0000

Nancy Cartwright is not a comedienne. Neither, strictly speaking, is she an actress, although she once went through a phase of wanting to be Holly Hunter. She is what is known as a "voice artist", a distinction made evident at auditions, when, instead of doing a scene from A Street Car Named Desire, say, she will make the sound of a dripping tap or do what she calls "elephant sneezing". Her face is rarely recognised in public, but when Cartwright opens her mouth and says, "Eat my shorts," children cry and traffic wardens tear up her ticket.

At 44, Cartwright has provided the voice of 10-year-old Bart Simpson for the past 17 years. Her house outside Los Angeles is full of references to him; dolls, a Bart pinball machine, her Emmy awards for the show and, in the garden, a big plastic tribute to Bart's entreaty, "Don't have a cow". It is a source of both relief and frustration to her that, were her face on screen, she would currently be one of the richest and most famous women in the world; The Simpsons is watched by 14 million viewers in America alone and has made Fox TV more than $1bn. It has featured some 350 celebrity guests, including Meryl Streep, Kirk Douglas, Dustin Hoffman, Anne Bancroft, Winona Ryder and, most recently, the rapper 50 Cent.

Master of few words

Mon, 26 Jul 2004 13:40:00 +0000

In the grounds of his house, Jasper Johns has a studio, a huge converted barn in which the 74 year old does most of his work. From the east, it looks out over the hills of Connecticut; from the west, across a lawn towards the house. The estate is in Sharon, a small town two hours from New York, where the size of the properties makes running into the neighbours mercifully improbable. When we arrive, Johns is in the studio, hunched over an etching. "Just a minute," he says. He moves with a slowness suggestive of irony and has that Jimmy Stewart knack of looking doleful and amused at the same time. On the wall he has pinned a handwritten reminder: "Don't forget the string."

Johns does not particularly like talking about his art. He's aware that by explaining what he means, he risks limiting the meanings that can be derived from it by others. His claim to the title of World's Greatest Living Artist is buttressed by his amazing wealth -- one piece alone went for #12m -- and the iconic status of Flag, one of his earliest works, an equivalent in American college bedrooms to the place occupied in British ones by Matisse's Blue Nude. When he emerged on the art scene in the late 1950s, Johns' tightly controlled studies of everyday objects, his sculptures of coffee tins and ale cans, were read as a rebuke to Jackson Pollock and the abstract impressionists and he has since been called the father of pop art. He haughtily rejects both notions.

“Boy, what an awakening”

Thu, 08 Jul 2004 13:01:00 +0000

Two years ago, if you had asked Lila Lipscomb what she stood for, she would have referred you to the flag in her garden and her four grown-up children. Her priorities were, in descending order of importance, family, faith, country and a place where all three met, what she might have called "service": two of her children were in the military and she worked in the public sector, at an employment agency designed to get people off welfare. She is, as she puts it, "an extremely strong woman. And I've raised my daughters to understand that they come from a long line of strong, independent women. So the men in our lives have to be very unique. Hence Pops."

Pops is her husband, Howard, a car-factory worker. He has accompanied Lipscomb to London today by way of moral support and sits across from her in the hotel suite, eyes brimming. What she is saying is not easy for either of them. Lipscomb describes an event that changed their lives and forced a seismic shift in their political perceptions; a shift that she hopes millions of her fellow Americans will be making between now and election time in November. To her surprise, and the surprise of all who know her, Lipscomb is becoming a figurehead in the fight to oust George Bush.