European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - July 28, 1991, Darmstadt, Hesse No complaints on vacation just from Reader Sandy Rooney Tribune Media in a up in the country on vacation. I done to mind writing for a few hours Early in the morning when in Mon vacation. The vacation part is not being in the office answering the Telephone answering mail lying to people who want me to do something i done to want to do. Writing is satisfying. Its All the things that writing produces that make hard work. Just to give you a couple of examples i made two mistakes in columns recently and if i Wasny to on vacation id feel obliged to answer the angry letters from people who complained. I dismissed screen focused Roberts a jewel in video roughly Caryn James the new York times i my. S she Mary Pickford or Elizabeth Taylor americans sweetheart or a celebrity tart even while Julia Roberts latest movie dying Young is flopping at the Box office the Julia Roberts phenomenon is flourish last month the tabloids raced to keep up with her personal life did she fall for Jason Patric before or after she called off her wedding to Kiefer Sutherland just three Days before the ceremony she was the heartbroken Bride an object of sympathy when photographs surfaced of her Al most Groom with a stripper. But a few weeks later one tabloid ran a photo of her and Patric under the headline a jilting Jay Leno joked that he planned to unload the blender head bought for Julia and Kiefer on Donald and Marla. No detail was too Small to report. Even now obsessive fans might be wondering what the bridesmaids will do with those $425 Manolo Blahnik dyed to match sea foam Green shoes. And while paparazzi were chasing Roberts and Patric around Dublin new York and los Angeles to commercials were getting her audience ready for the recent video release of sleeping with the enemy last Winters Roberts hit. A now at your video store a the commercial added is an extra cassette called a profile of Julia Roberts. Available As a free rental at Many stores it is an in revealing five minute promotional tape shot on the set of sleeping with the enemy. Roberts talks briefly about the character she plays an abused wife. As the publicity Rolls on Roberts powerful presence on and off screen overshadows dying Young and sleeping with the enemy two mediocre films. The disease Lupus As an unimportant skin disease. And apparently there is a form of Lupus that s serious. A lot of people who have told it me. Then in referring to thenard Thelma and Louise drive in the movie with their names on it. I said it was a Mustang. It was a thunderbird. Big Deal. I got a dozen letters and several angry phone Calls about it on my office answering machine. Is that important enough to a warrant interrupting my vacation to answer i think not. There arc readers whose idea of a Good time is catching a columnist saying it was a Mustang when it was a thunderbird. Or do i have that reversed. Its hard to have a pure uninterrupted vacation. There arc always reasons for interrupting and ruining it. You can to disconnect everything going on in your life and take off for a month without leaving a few nagging undone details behind. I know for certain there arc things i should have done that i did no to do before i came up Here. They take a Little away from my vacation. Last night i woke up in the Middle of the night and started worrying about two seriously sick friends whom i like a whole lot. I thought about How unfair it seems. These arc the kind of thoughts a person have to have on vacation. Its raining today and that ruins vacation for a lot of people. Not me. In a Happy As a Clam on a Rainy Day when in Mon vacation. There a nothing i enjoy doing on vacation that i can to do while its pouring. Sometimes the rain makes what in a doing seem even better. Too hot is different. When i went to get the newspaper this morning i heard a noise i did no to like emanating from under the Hood of the ear As i came up the Steep dirt Road to our House. I done to like that. I not Only Don t like the noise but 1 also done to like the idea of having to spend a Day of my vacation taking the ear into town to get it fixed. Someone has to go with me in the other ear to bring me Home and then when the ears ready they have to bring me Baek to town to Piek it up. These Are the sort of Days that Don t do a vacation any Good. We like to have Good old friends visit us on vacation but it s a different vacation when they re Here. 1 do More cooking and less woodworking because i feel some obligation to make them Happy Between meals. When no ones Here. 1 write until 8 a.m., have breakfast and then disappear into my woodworking shop until about i. I have lunch take a 10-minute Nap and go Baek to the shop. I m surprised How Little it takes to have a Good time on vacation. In a contented at the end of the Day if i be put up a shelf for some tools and tidied up the Racks where 1 keep my lumber. 1 done to have to have made anything. I can be Happy just cleaning out the garage and washing the car. On the other hand packing up the car to take a trip is not a Small pleasure. Its a Large pain. The Best vacations Are filled with Small pleasures. I _ 0, Andy Rooney is a former stars and stripes reporter. Twentieth Century Fox Julia Roberts in her latest dying Young. She is bigger than both of them which throws the pattern of her career into Sharp Relief. Although she is Only 23, she is an old fashioned movie Star with an up to the minute video twist. Dying Young has its own problems As a movie. It is an unabashed tear Jerker in which Roberts As a working class woman is hired to nurse a Rich dying Young Man and Falls in love with him. But it is at most a half handkerchief movie. The Spunky unswerving Way Roberts stands by her Man and a cowardly unresolved ending make the film obvious and finally not sad enough. The film also suffers from being the latest and most expendable of the generic Julia Roberts movies a pretty woman sleeping and dying a in which a sexy sometimes sluttish Young woman with Long Auburn curls meets a better educated sometimes Richer Man. Pretty woman which needs no introduction was not the first in this string. In 1988, there was Mystic pizza a charming Small film in which Roberts Long curls and All played Daisy a sexy working class woman who Falls for a wealthy Young Man. Even then she May have been setting up her career instinctively or by plan better than anyone imagined. When Mystic pizza was released i interviewed Roberts who walked into her publicists office looking gorgeous and wearing no makeup. That is an ancient and dubious Hollywood cliche and i did no to mention it because really who would have believed it then As it turns out her career is built on such reconstituted cliches. At the time she said she played Daisy a in the style of the �?T30s and �?T40s, when women were women. She a a Many a woman not a Many a girl or lady but she has it Good rapport with other women As that seemed like a Good smart quote but it might also have been a self fulfilling prophecy about Roberts own image. No one has Ever captured Roberts Appeal or her old fashioned movie Star Aura any better than that. Even in Mystic pizza she succeeded As it character that women liked and wanted to be and that men liked and wanted to have. There is no other Star who matches that Appeal. Men lust after Michelle Pfeiffer and women envy her. Meryl Streep is an on screen Chameleon who guards her off screen privacy. But like studio stars of the �?T3 s and �?T40s, Roberts provides the Appeal and is always More important than her role. Just As videos have altered movie going they have changed the nature of careers As Well. When Bette Davis turned up As another selfless melodramatic woman in now voyager audiences Hadnot been watching dark Victory on video for three years. Now anyone who hears bad reports of dying Young Cun sit Home and watch pretty woman the most rented video of All time or sleeping with the enemy again. The Public seems eager to extend that onscreen sweetness to her real life. There was an element of a will Julia be of a in the fascination with her broken Romance at least until she turned up around the world with Patric. Then the a jilting Julia backlash set in As if she should be at Home weeping into her Tea. But even if she turns out to be the Liz Taylor of her Day going through men like Diamond necklaces her audience is already lined up at Heaters and Newsstands and video stores. No studio Star could have asked for 28, 1991 sunday a Page 7
