People used to talk about Heather Graham. Really, truly, they did. They talked about how beautiful she was up on the screen and in the pages of Vanity Fair. They talked about how funny and personable she seemed on all the talk shows. They talked about her chest. They talked about her pending marriage to Ed Burns. They talked about what Heather and Ed's their children would look like and if they'd live in Boston or Los Angeles. They talked about whether or not she could pull off a British accent (of course she could, we agreed. She's Heather Graham, after all). These were all things we talked about, back in the day.
Now, nobody talks about Heather Graham. There's nothing sadder than seeing somebody who used to be loved become irrelevant, but that's exactly what's happened to Heather. She's gone from a star to an afterthought in just over five years. She didn't even get the luxury of fading away: she just burned out. The final nail was driven in this week, when ABC, not exactly a network rich with star power or intriguing programming, announced it was canceling her poorly-reviewed sitcom "Emily's Reasons Why Not." It aired just one time.
Maybe, back in the '90s, when we were all talking about her, we should have been talking about something else, besides her hair, boyfriend and boobs. Maybe we should have been talking about that air of sadness that always seemed to be around her, no matter what role she played.
We were so blinded by the funny, bubbly woman we saw in funny, bubbly movies like "Swingers," "Bowfinger," "The Spy Who Shagged Me" and the first half of "Boogie Nights." Maybe we just choose to filter out the neediness she brought to her roles. Maybe we decided to look past the longing in those big brown eyes, always so eager to please, choosing instead to find reassurance in her comfort with nudity and physical comedy. Maybe we should have been looking at the pained look on her face during her infamous nude scene in "Boogie Nights."
We spent the 90's buying into whatever the media told us about — here she was, the girl-next-door, the funky, cool girl with the great collection of albums and a killer crossover dribble. This is what we saw, because this is the image we could deal with. We couldn't deal with the desperation we saw in the final scenes of "Boogie Nights" — surely the "real" Heather Graham was the perky, Midwestern girl who loved her roller-skates, not the borderline insane girl who came out in the film's most wrenching scene when she beats a man within an inch of his life for calling her by her real name.
The thing was, she was never as young as we thought — that was part of the problem. Heather Graham was well into her twenties when she achieved fame as Lorraine, the smoking hot chick who danced with Jon Favreau. She might as well have been 18 years old, fresh off the bus from fantasy-approved Anytown, U.S.A. That's what we told ourselves. We chose not to see her sadness, the kind unique to pretty, lonely girls. We didn't need to see it.
We didn't ask why Lorraine was alone at the Dresden. We also didn't ask why she knew how to swing dance so well (to say nothing of how Jon Favreau knew how to swing dance). She was at a level in "Swingers" where we didn't ask those things — of course she knew how to swing dance. Girls like Heather Graham all know how to swing dance. They also know how to drain three-pointers, pick football games and discuss quantum physics, if that's your thing. She was a fantasy, pure and simple — all glisten and sheen without an inch of depth. And we liked it that way.
But now, the façade is finished. She isn't fooling anybody anymore. Her sadness comes through loud and clear and it in turn makes us sad. We're not just sad for her because she's not a big-time star anymore. We've seen that happen before. We're sad for ourselves. We're sad that this woman we built up as a kind of girl-next-door goddess has gone by the wayside. It's like seeing your dream girl from high school, the one who was always so perfect, looking exhausted and tired. The dream has turned into a nightmare. And we're forced to consider how it happened. How could we have been so wrong? How could we have put all our hopes on this one? Why was she "It," as Entertainment Weekly so boldly proclaimed back in 1999? Was it just shrewd marketing? Luck? Or was there really something to her success, something that's been missing in her newer roles? She had charm. I mean, that's why we liked her. And she was beautiful. But, more than anything, her greatness was that she reminded us of a part of ourselves. She was "that girl we knew." And the thing about that girl is that she exists in a bubble — we never get to see her fall on hard times. Until we saw Heather Graham, that is.
She'll be 36 years old next week. Thirty-six isn't kind to actresses. You aren't young enough to still be the babe, but you aren't old enough to be the district attorney. You have to have something special, and it looks like she doesn't have that. Maybe she never did have anything. Maybe we were just seeing things that weren't there. Maybe we were just projecting our own things onto her.
We don't project anything onto Heather Graham anymore. The only time we look at her now is when we have to — when she takes over the airwaves for some face-time to try and sell us on her great new project. We hear rumors in the press about how she's having flings, but they aren't with up-and-coming stars like Ed Burns — recently, she was linked to John Stamos, the very definition of The Creepy Greasy Guy Who Always Gets The Girl. Her new roles have sense of desperation to them. "Emily's Reasons Why Not" tried to reintroduce us to the bubbly Heather Graham, but it didn't work — that girl is dead to us, and nobody wants to watch a specter. What we see now disappoints us — the angel, the kid with the perpetual smiley face, is gone. It's been replaced by a ghastly caricature. She looks used, tired and needy. And we turn away. Nobody wants to talk about that.
Ray Gustini is a freshman who will dearly miss the freshly fallen Graham. He can be reached at [email protected] with questions or comments.
