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feliciakwAs if Devour wasn't evidence enough that Jensen Ackles has made my list of "actors for whom I will watch almost anything," I Netflixed Blonde this week. A made-for-TV fictitious bio-pic (how's that for an oxymoron?) about the life of Norma Jean Baker, better known as Marilyn Monroe. There were actually a lot of familiar faces, but overall, I found it to be a very unpleasant movie.
So this apparently ran as a 2-part miniseries. Jensen was the last actor listed in the regular credits at the front end of the show. Other actors you'd know were Poppy Montgomery (from Without a Trace, played adult Marilyn); Patricia (Mrs. Tim "The Tool Man" Taylor on Home Improvement)Richardson; Wallace ("Inconctheivable!") Shawn; Patrick (Dr. McDreamy) Dempsey; Ann-Margaret (who received a special credit after the regular front end credits); and Kirstie Alley (who also received a special credit at the front end). And the girl who plays child Norma is pretty amazing.
If any of the way Norma's formative years were depicted is true, the poor girl didn't stand a chance. There was more than an implication of abuse implied, and people rarely saw past her sex appeal.
Jensen's character, Eddie G, didn't show up until the second half of the two-parter.
Not really a villain per se, Eddie G is nonetheless a pretty smarmy character. He and Cass (Patrick Dempsey), with whom Marilyn is in love, pretty much use her to sustain their debauched, alcoholic, drug junkie lifestyles. Threesomes are heavily implied, and when Marilyn discovers she's pregnant, she's not sure who's it is--Eddie's or Cass's--so she breaks the news to them at the same time, and the three of them determine to have the baby together (with talk of life insurance policies). Eddie even does a quick smash-and-grab of a stuffed toy tiger that Marilyn admires in a store window.
Cass and Eddie disappear from her life about the time the studio insists she have an abortion. Then it's marriages to a baseball player (a thinly veiled allusion to Joe DiMaggio) and a playwright (a thinly veiled reference to Arthur Miller).
Later on, Eddie shows up at Marilyn's hotel to tell her that Cass is dead ("He died an alcie death, not a junkie death"). He gives her a box that Cass wanted her to have; inside it is the stuffed tiger and what amounts to a confession that Cass has been sending her fake letters from her unknown father. Marilyn has a fit and storms out, and Eddie, who's not looking overly well himself, seems sorry--perhaps genuinely sorry--for what's happened.
It's not necessarily Jensen's best work, but given the material he had to work with, I'd say he did his best with what he had. I'd still give it a nod of approval.
If you're interested in seeing some of Jensen's early work (post-DoOL/pre-Dark Angel), I'd suggest renting Disc 2. The rest of it would probably only be of interest to those who are interested in the fictitious bio-pic genre, or Marilyn Monroe.
So this apparently ran as a 2-part miniseries. Jensen was the last actor listed in the regular credits at the front end of the show. Other actors you'd know were Poppy Montgomery (from Without a Trace, played adult Marilyn); Patricia (Mrs. Tim "The Tool Man" Taylor on Home Improvement)Richardson; Wallace ("Inconctheivable!") Shawn; Patrick (Dr. McDreamy) Dempsey; Ann-Margaret (who received a special credit after the regular front end credits); and Kirstie Alley (who also received a special credit at the front end). And the girl who plays child Norma is pretty amazing.
If any of the way Norma's formative years were depicted is true, the poor girl didn't stand a chance. There was more than an implication of abuse implied, and people rarely saw past her sex appeal.
Jensen's character, Eddie G, didn't show up until the second half of the two-parter.
Not really a villain per se, Eddie G is nonetheless a pretty smarmy character. He and Cass (Patrick Dempsey), with whom Marilyn is in love, pretty much use her to sustain their debauched, alcoholic, drug junkie lifestyles. Threesomes are heavily implied, and when Marilyn discovers she's pregnant, she's not sure who's it is--Eddie's or Cass's--so she breaks the news to them at the same time, and the three of them determine to have the baby together (with talk of life insurance policies). Eddie even does a quick smash-and-grab of a stuffed toy tiger that Marilyn admires in a store window.
Cass and Eddie disappear from her life about the time the studio insists she have an abortion. Then it's marriages to a baseball player (a thinly veiled allusion to Joe DiMaggio) and a playwright (a thinly veiled reference to Arthur Miller).
Later on, Eddie shows up at Marilyn's hotel to tell her that Cass is dead ("He died an alcie death, not a junkie death"). He gives her a box that Cass wanted her to have; inside it is the stuffed tiger and what amounts to a confession that Cass has been sending her fake letters from her unknown father. Marilyn has a fit and storms out, and Eddie, who's not looking overly well himself, seems sorry--perhaps genuinely sorry--for what's happened.
It's not necessarily Jensen's best work, but given the material he had to work with, I'd say he did his best with what he had. I'd still give it a nod of approval.
If you're interested in seeing some of Jensen's early work (post-DoOL/pre-Dark Angel), I'd suggest renting Disc 2. The rest of it would probably only be of interest to those who are interested in the fictitious bio-pic genre, or Marilyn Monroe.
