Apparently actress Tatum O’Neal got busted for allegedly buying
drugs on a New York street corner. Her excuse: She was researching a
role.
Like Tatum O’Neal needs any more real-life education about
drug use. But let’s pretend we believe her. I think performers
should take it a step further. What if actresses who played sex
workers actually tried their hand at sex work in real life?
Jane Fonda played a call girl in Klute. She was certainly hot
enough, but Jane’s challenge as a real-life call girl would have been
not talking politics, because the client demographic leans
conservative. Maintaining the mood is crucial, so the odds of Jane
being terribly successful in this business would be iffy. Good thing
she met Ted Turner.
Rebecca De Mornay played a ruthlessly opportunistic call girl in
Risky Business. Her slightly bitchy look and manner would
have charmed a certain breed of submissive man—the sort of guy
who could eroticize having a beautiful woman steal everything he owns
and then sell it back to him. Once she ditched Guido the Killer
Pimp, Rebecca would have done great in the sex business.
Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman is the poster girl for Captain
Save-a-Ho guys everywhere. In real life, she’d have been a popular
streetwalker, but the tattoos, the pregnancies, and the scars from
bitch fights would eventually take their toll, and she’d wind up
looking like Charlize Theron in Monster. Julia’s real-world
career would have been nasty, brutish, and short.
Elizabeth Berkley played (sort of) a stripper in Showgirls.
Her lack of dance talent would be a nonissue, as many strippers are
terrible dancers. But in the real world, the other girls would give
her hell about licking the pole—”Ew, gross, germs! I have to
touch that pole, too, you know!” (As if that was the dirtiest
thing they ever wrapped their fingers around.)
Elisabeth Shue did an amazing turn as a streetwalker in Leaving
Las Vegas. However, I haven’t seen Elisabeth Shue doing much
lately, so for all I know, she actually is a Las Vegas hooker
now. Falling in love with a client who’s hell-bent on suicide would be
a major career detour, though.
Demi Moore played a stripper in Striptease—the one sex
worker in recent cinema history who was neither a victim nor a
perpetrator of violence. She also seemed intelligent and emotionally
stable, but unfortunately those traits tend to leave one as the odd
girl out at strip clubs. Demi would have done very well as a
private dancer, though, so her odds for real-world sex-worker success
would be good. Hell, I’d do duos with her.
Lindsay Lohan played a stripper in I Know Who Killed Me. (I know who killed you too, Lindsay, and it’s whoever told you to
take this role.) But the insane plot—”I have a twin sister,
we were separated at birth, but I can feel everything she
feels”— seems like a story a stripper would cook up to intrigue
(read: get money from) a customer. One could certainly spin him a sexy
story about threesomes.
And then there’s Zombie Strippers, starring Jenna… oh,
wait. Never mind.