Happy Birthday Suitless: Andie MacDowell

You don't hear much about Andie MacDowell these days.  I doubt that most people in the younger generations even know who she is and, if they do, it's only because of nominal roles in youth-geared features Monte Carlo and the Footloose remakes.  Her film debut was infamously dubbed by Glenn Close in post because MacDowell's Southern accent as Jane in Greystoke (the main Tarzan film of the 1980s) was deemed inappropriate for the Mid-Atlantic character.  It probably didn't hurt her to be attached to a film which received multiple AMPAS nominations.  Her next movie St. Elmos' Fire would become part of the zeitgeist, though perhaps because her role was only supporting, she wasn't officially considered part of the Hollywood's ill-behaving "Brat Pack."  Or, maybe she just has more class?  She'd take a long break before her career really took off with one of the most successful independent productions of all time: Sex, Lies, and Videotape.  She received a great deal of critical recognition for the leading role as the uptight housewife who can't stop dreaming about where to put all the trash.  That part led to Gérard Depardieu pairing Green Card, which was a box-office rom-com hit.  More roles would follow including the miscalculated decision to embark on Hudson Hawk with Bruce Willis.  I was looking SO forward to seeing that movie from Die Hard's renegade hero (it was also Michael Lehmann's followup to Heathers), only to steer clear of it after the reviews came out.  As if.  In Libby Gelman-Waxner's monthly Premiere column (who has recently risen like a phoenix from the ashes to write for EW, though I can't say if Paul Rudnick is behind her this time), I remember her relaying that some trucker-type got up at the end of the movie and said, "I can't believe I sat through da whole fuckin' thing."

Better times would manage to find MacDowell, as she got the opportunity to work with Robert Altman in the 1990s, when he was in premium shape (Short Cuts).  She had even bigger hits playing the romantic interest role in American comedy classic Groundhog Day and British blockbuster Four Weddings and a Funeral with Hugh Grant, who would fall just as quickly as he rose off of that film's success, thanks to predilections with prostitute Divine Brown.

From there, she wasn't able to stand out beyond her simple charming self and carry a film on her own.  While she remained a presence at the box-office, the receipts began to wither in size.  She used her cache to take on more daring roles with edgier directors.  She is currently working on the TV show Jane By Design.  Today, the South Carolinian beauty turns 54.

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