THIS LIFE CLAIRE FORDHAM

had two choices when my the film of my book, a sort of children grew up and left mockumentary. Does that I home: go mad with empty mean two cheques for me? nest syndrome or move to Let’s hope so, because I Los Angeles to live with my need a bigger apartment. My sister for some excitement 28-year-old son Max is moving and adventure in Part Two of to LA to live with me and my my life. And I had a much new husband Colin. Max says better chance of meeting he can’t face another bleak George Clooney if I lived in winter in Blighty and wants to the same country as him. write a book. Of course he But never in my wildest does. I’ve written a couple dreams did I imagine I’d end of scripts as well and if I had up having lunch with a proper a pound for every producer Hollywood film director in the who has promised me a job famous Chateau Marmont on on their show if one of them Sunset Boulevard trying to gets picked up, I’d have…let think of actresses who could me see…nearly 20 quid. play me and my sister (and I did get to meet George various other friends and Clooney. Unfortunately, he family members) in a movie. prefers his women half my My sister, Julia Fordham, is age and four sizes smaller, a successful singer/songwriter but I can confirm that he is and gets invited to many gorgeous and charming in openings, parties and ‘real life’ and all men should Hollywood events. Her invites look like him. always allow a ‘plus one’, Having been to many which was me, experiencing Hollywood parties and events, life in the shadow of her I’m lucky enough to have seen celebrity. Since ‘write what all the big movie stars up close you know’ is the well-worn and personal. Cate Blanchett axiom, I wrote a book, Plus has flawless skin and is One: A Year in the Life of a Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine jaw-droppingly beautiful in Hollywood Nobody, about the flesh – but if she wants being a stranger in a very, I’d end up having lunch with a proper to play me in the movie, she’s very strange land. Hollywood film director trying to think of going to have to eat a lot more Trouble is, the world cake. Movies are notoriously and her sister want to be actresses who could play me in a movie slow to get off the ground, so a writer in this town. Every by the time mine gets made, table in Starbucks has at least Meryl Streep could be playing one poor (often deluded) soul staring at a laptop until their foreheads me. There is an upside to an American playing a Brit (unless you’re ache, trying to think of an original story line. Didn’t Joe Eszterhas get Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins): an almost guaranteed Oscar nomination. $5 million for writing Basic Instinct? That could be me. My dream team would be Emma Thompson playing me and Kate When people ask what I do for a living, I’ve started saying I work in Winslet playing Julia (think Sense and Sensibility with songs, sex and non-profit – then follow up with the punch line: ‘I’m a writer.’ The sad, shopping). And I’m thinking Brenda Blethyn to be our mum. Dad fancies sorry truth is that very few people actually make a living at writing and Michael Caine to play him. Try this at home: who would you choose to most need other sources of income. A trust fund or a rich spouse is play you in a movie about your life? the ideal but, at some point, we usually have to roll up our sleeves and I’ve learnt enough about Tinseltown insanity to realise that the director (gulp) get a proper job. will want more conflict and drama in the film than there is in the book, Each year, around 30,000 scripts are registered with the Writers Guild so I won’t be surprised to see Emma and Kate mud-wrestling over of America, of which 30 may get made into films, and most of those will George Clooney and then for him to ride off into the sunset with our bomb at the box office. Encouraging, isn’t it? mother. Maybe if Meryl Streep plays Mum… Yet Mary McGuckian of Pembridge Pictures is planning to make two Claire Fordham’s memoir Plus One: A Year in the Life of a Hollywood

MIMI HADDON. HAIR AND MAKE-UP: JAMIE GREENBERG movies – one based on my book Plus One, and one about the making of Nobody (Kensington Publishing Corporation) is available from amazon.co.uk

YOU 24 FEBRUARY 2008 9

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