Saturdays with the Stars: Julia Roberts

If you've met me in real life, you will know that one of my defining traits is that I love lists.  Like, adamantly, completely, totally, love lists-they run my life (potentially to an unhealthy degree) and whether it's in the form of an actual list, a checklist app, or an email inbox, I live & die off of lists.  I also don't like lists that don't get completed, which is why we're here today.

Last year, when I decided to end my blog, I decided to do so in part because it was too much of a time commitment, as I wanted to move onto other projects and writing 7-12 articles a week was just not feasible if I wanted to do other writing work.  I also ended it in part because I was going through a really dark time, some of which is things that I have moved past, and some of which is stuff that is just going to be something I deal with for the rest of my life, and I have found more time to make room for (note, not get used to or adjust to as I don't think some things you can do that for (and I think that's okay-needing to always be at equilibrium when you just aren't is not a healthy way to force yourself to live), and at the time I was the lowest I had ever been, and in a panic I wrote that I was ending the blog when a healthier attitude would've been what we're doing now-occasional (maybe 1-2 articles a week) pop-ins, while still making time for other projects).  I am aware I'm probably saying this to no one but my mirror, but I did truly intend that the pomp & circumstance of last year would result in me just ending the blog (and it was not intended to be hyperbole...if you knew the hell I was going through late last year you'd understand that acting rashly was truly understandable), but with permission from my brother (the only person I can count on to read every article on here), I waded back in, and I'm glad I did.  This feels like a good pace, and I am glad this is still something I do.

But this isn't about me being sad or wallowing...it's about lists.  And more so, it's about unfinished projects.  When I left last year, we were 10 months into our season of Saturdays with the Stars (linked if you're unfamiliar), our longtime weekly series about a themed collection of a dozen movie actors, where we each Saturday would chronicle a specific star.  This was a big commitment for me, given that a number of the "projects" I wanted to make room for were things like the OVP & My Ballot, projects that require an extremely large amount of movie-watching.  But in the 10 months that I have spent since ending that series, it has bugged me to no avail that we finished two months shy of the completion of our sixth season, two stars whom I had already picked out to complete our series on "Crowning America's Sweethearts" never profiled.  Saturdays with the Stars was arguably my favorite thing to write on this blog (it shaped the way I look at movies), and I don't like uncompleted projects.  So for the next two months, while I don't know if I'll ever fully bring back the series (if you want it, share in the comments), we're going to get the final two entries in Season 6 done.  The first ten months (to get you up to speed) we talked about Mary Pickford, Shirley Temple, June Allyson, Audrey Hepburn, Doris Day, Debbie Reynolds, Annette Funicello, Sandra Dee, Mary Tyler Moore, & Sally Field.  For the first of our final two months, we'll be talking about the Queen of 1990's romantic comedies, and still one of the most radiant screen presences on the planet.  This month's star is Julia Roberts.

Born in Smyrna, Georgia, Roberts forever sunny smile hid a tough childhood.  Her father died of cancer when she was just ten-years-old, and her mother married an oftentimes abusive second husband, and she fled Georgia for New York City after graduating from high school, getting work as a model.  Her initial years as an actress were spent being "Eric Roberts' little sister" as her Oscar-nominated big brother was the star in the family, but that all changed in the late 1980's, when she had a string of hits including Mystic Pizza, Steel Magnolias, & Pretty Woman.  By the end of this run, she'd dwarfed not only big brother Eric in the Hollywood pantheon, but pretty much every actress in the city.

Roberts is a fascinating situation for younger audiences, who understand that she (along with figures like Tom Cruise, Harrison Ford & Denzel Washington) was a big deal and is still a major name, but whose level of celebrity was at one point what you'd think of for a Kim Kardashian in recent years (i.e. she was on the cover of every tabloid in America pretty much every week for years).  We're going to talk about Roberts' rise, the many really rough years for her both in terms of her box office performance & how her romantic troubles led to one of her best performances, and how she graduated into her current role as a "forever movie star" (though not one that is nearly as consistently in present-day hits as Cruise or Washington).  Roberts is unique in this series, primarily because I've seen so many of her films (of her 55 feature-length films, I've seen 26 of them, and we'll tackle 5 more this month), so we'll learn about her career while also getting into a number of deep cuts from her career...though thankfully I have saved one signature film of hers to kick off with, which we will do so (once again) on Saturday.