A Southern Marvel
This is a fun story so listen up. I work ahead of due dates for these Rathbone blogs because I don’t want to miss any deadlines. In April, I decided to write a piece about Nashville simply because that city fascinates me and I wanted to learn more about it. About a half-hour after I completely finished the piece, I checked the mail and found a copy of one of my all-time favorite magazines: Vanity Fair.
I have roughly 20 magazine subscriptions for research purposes (in addition to other sources) and always do the same thing when I receive one: a quick perusal to see if there’s anything of interest. Well, I struck gold with the April 2020 issue – there was a 10-page piece on Reese Witherspoon that I thought looked very interesting. Then I stopped dead in my tracks when I spotted a sentence that read, “Reese had come home to Nashville for Christmas.”
WHAT! I kept reading and realized that a good 40% of the interview took place in, or was about, the city of Nashville. It was a coincident that was almost spooky.
SOUTHERN SPUNK
The basic premise behind Witherspoon’s life and career is this: start early and keep going full tilt. She started as a teenager, moved on over the years to full-blown stardom at 25 in “Legally Blonde” and then won an Oscar at 29 for playing June Carter Cash in “Walk the Line” (released in November 2005). Oh yes, during this time she also married and had a baby at the ripe old age of 23. (I’ve seen recent shots of Witherspoon and her lovely daughter Ava, who is now 20, walking down the street together – they look like sisters.) Or as the writer of this interview, Ann Patchett, who also grew up in Nashville, describes the actress, “In jeans and sneakers she doesn’t look old enough to rent a car.” She’s absolutely right.
HITTING A SPEED BUMP
The following years yielded no memorable films for this award-winning actress. Or as Patchett writes, “In 2012 ‘The New Yorker’ flung her on the ash heap of has-beens, in a list of stars who were now persona non grata. She was washed up at the age of 36. At this point, her second husband, Jim Toth, a talent agent who, like Witherspoon, stays ahead of the curve, told her that if the roles weren’t there she should develop them herself. He also pointed out that, ‘You read more than anyone I’ve ever known,’ to inspire her.”
SHE SPENT THE MONEY
Sometimes a strong beginning is all it takes. Witherspoon used her own money to start a production company. She optioned the rights to two novels that had not been published: one was “Gone Girl” and the second was “Wild” that she produced and starred in – and was ultimately nominated for Academy Awards – both for herself and Laura Dern.
Laura Dern and her Oscar – All photos courtesy of Vanity Fair, April 2020
THAT’S NOT THE WHOLE STORY
Witherspoon is now a smart actress who has optioned books and produced movies with roles that she could play. But that’s not the whole story. She has worked to open up more jobs in movies for female directors and screenwriters. Or, as she says, “I can remember being in pictures where I was the only woman on the set and there would be 150 men.” (I can relate to this: as a senior copywriter on Madison Avenue I noticed that there were very few females with my job.)
This bundle of energy is now doing what she set out to do and is making money – lots of money.
THE FULL CIRCLE: NASHVILLE
And she’s spending it in her hometown. At the end of several interviews Patchett is given a tour of Witherspoon’s home in Nashville (she lives in LA but visits often) and says, “It’s a beautiful house with flooding light in the foyer, and the biggest surprise of all, a tiny powder room under the front staircase that’s right out of Alice in Wonderland.” That’s a fairy tale ending if there ever was one.
Shaun Nelson-Henrick