All the talk about Bea Arthur over in Cafe Society is reminding me of my mother’s alleged resemblance to her.
So, suppose that
1- a new movie is to be made of your life and
2- thanks to CGI and a newly discovered wormhole, you can use any actor, living or dead from any time in their career
3- for that matter, it doesn’t have to be an actor
Who would you cast?
For me, I’d cast a heavily made up and padded Kenneth Branagh (not quite accurate, but movies tend to upgrade appearance) for today. As friends and family:
Living
Bea Arthur, of course, for my mother (she’s 11 years older than my mother, but then she’s also had facelifts)
Delta Burke ca. 1990 (but with blonde hair and a lot less cleavage) as my sister
John Goodman as her husband (the world’s unlikeliest former ladies apparel salesman)
Bill Clinton as my brother (very small role)
Billy Corgan as my ex-love/current best friend (the one who’s going to be a truckdriver)= he looks exactly like him
Angela Lansbury as my aunt (and of course she and Bea would have to sing Bosom Buddies)
Conrad Bain ca. 1985 and Haley Joel Osment as the last two guys I’ve dated (Sir Ian’s a bit too wrinkled and Haley’s a bit too young, but…it emphasizes self-conscious age difference)
(I’m drawing blanks on other friends, including Ogre, but maybe later)
**Flashbacks to childhood **
Cartman as me as a child.
Orson Welles’s corrupt sheriff from Touch of Evil in flashbacks as my father (the resemblance is nothing short of eerie- the hat, the rumpled suit, the cigar, the stubble… Daddy should have sued)
Eric Stoltz as my psychotic dead first-ex in flashbacks
Cher (ca. 1995) as my favorite cousin, Linda (the one who shocked the family by announcing her engagement to her third husband at her second husband’s funeral)
Robert Duvall in very old age makeup as my maternal grandfather, Papa Mustang (flashbacks)
Rue McLanahan (with old age make-up) as his wife, my maternal grandmother, Mee-Maw
Ruth Gordon (ca. 1970) as Meemaw’s sister, Aunt Reed (a former flapper and delightful human being but the gauge of human evil to my grandmother)
Sir Ian McKellan in bag-lady drag as my maternal grandmother, Grandmother
A digitally split Frances Reid as my twin aunts Kitty & Carrie (though her hair would be in a tight thin bun and she’d be wearing Little House on the Prairie style bonnets and calico)
Mary Grace Canfield (Ralph from Green Acres) as my lobotomized aunt Lucy (this picture looks eerily like her, except she’s a lot cleaner and clothed)
