Working hard, playing hard

Money, fame, success. Hollywood superstar Lindsay Lohan has them. She doesn’t want to be called "teenage queen." She is 20 years old. Lindsay is neither a teen nor a lady yet. Lately, a studio executive scolded her for being late during shootings. She is currently working on the movie Georgia Rules where she co-stars with ’60s icon Jane Fonda and Felicity Huffman. The studio executive who chided Lindsay on her behavior wrote in his letter, "We are well aware what you’re going through all night. Heavy partying is the real reason for your so-called exhaustion." Reminds me of local stars who inhabit Embassy at the Fort from dusk ’til dawn!

Lindsay is a regular item in gossip columns. How many times has she been written about because of her late-night partying, her car accidents, tumultuous love affairs, rumors of bulimia, supposed breast enhancement, her smoking (a habit she wanted to lick)? Is she Hollywood’s newest wild child?

Jane Fonda, who could not keep her silence on Lindsay’s chaotic state says, "I just want to take her in my arms and hold her until she becomes grown-up."

"She’s so young and so alone out there in the world in terms of structure and people to nurture her. And she’s so talented."

Fonda also agreed when the studio executive complained about Lindsay, "She’s in the magazines, so you always know what she’s doing because you can just read about it in the tabloids," she says. "She parties all the time... She’s young and she can get away with it. But it’s hard after a while to party very hard and work very hard. She will realize that, I hope."

Lindsay, unlike some of our local movie stars, does not have to work for her family. Her divorced parents have the money to feed her or send her to the best private school. Lindsay chose to go to a public school. Her father, who used to have a pasta business (which he later sold) was once president of New York Futures Traders. Her mother, who now acts as her manager, was a Wall Street analyst before becoming Lindsay’s manager.

But Lindsay is really meant for the klieg lights. She was already working on cam at age three as a commercial model for magazines and TV commercials. She was with the Ford Models, has appeared in more than 100 print ads for Toys "R" Us and has modeled for Calvin Klein Kids and Abercrombie Kids.

She started acting for a soap opera at age 10. And at 11, she was cast in Disney’s Parent Trap starring Dennis Quaid and Natasha Richardson. Lindsay was 11 when filming began in England and California.

"I left school for eight months," she said. "When I came back, my friends asked ‘Where’d you go?’ I said, ‘My family and I went on a long vacation.’ Then the movie came out, and my friends said, ‘Lindsay? That’s you in Parent Trap,’ and I said, ‘Oh, yeah. I also did this movie while we were gone.’"

Parent Trap was well-received and it earned $92-M worldwide. Next came Freaky Friday where she co-starred with Jamie Lee Curtis. Lindsay’s acting was highly praised by critics. It also earned $200-M worldwide at the box office. Lindsay sealed her box-office bankability with Mean Girls, which was both a box-office and critical success.

Then at 19, Lindsay accepted the role in Herbie Fully Loaded, explaining "In most of my other films, I was in high school," she said. "In Herbie Fully Loaded, my character is just out of college." She was also in A Prairie Home Companion by director Robert Altman which had an ensemble cast.

Apart from Georgia Rules, Lindsay will be working on a film project Speechless with Oscar winning Adrien Brody of The Pianist fame, with Annette Bening (another Oscar winner for Best Actress) and Sean Bean in the film adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s A Woman of No Importance. She is also cast in the Emilio Estevez film Bobby, opposite Elijah Wood, which debuted at the Venice Film Festival this month and will be released before Christmas.

Lindsay has albums to her name: Speak, which was made while filming Herbie Fully Loaded and A Little More Personal (Raw) released last year.

The von Trapp Children Concert

The von Trapp children, descendants of the famous von Trapp singing family whose story was immortalized in the hit Broadway musical and 1965 movie The Sound of Music, will come to Manila to stage a series of concerts on Oct. 6 at the Plenary Hall of the Philippine International Convention Center and on Oct. 7 at the Premiere Theater of the SM Mall of Asia. Billed The von Trapp Children Concert, it will showcase the magnificent range of traditional and contemporary songs performed by the four great grandchildren of the Captain George Ritter von Trapp, Sofia, Melanie, Amanda and Justin. For concert tickets, call Ticketnet at 911-5555 and Ticketworkd, 891-9999.