Karen took me to a preview screening of On The Basis of Sex and I was lucky to have a review of it published on Weekend Notes. The film starring Felicity Jones covers the period of Ruth Bader Ginsburg that was particularly formative for her later achievements. The film has not received universal strong reviews but Karen and I enjoyed it quite a bit. As formulaic as the structure may have been I found something admirable in the slow burn nature of the performances and the balance between the domestic and the professional. You can read my review here https://www.weekendnotes.com/on-the-basis-of-sex-film-review/167825/
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Extras are meant to fade into the background, never to be recognised and surely not remembered. Yet some prove the exception to the rule and when you’re in a scene as good as this one in Fried Green Tomatoes all you have to do is your job and you’ll probably end up being remembered for a long time. Few will recognise the names of Kathy Lawson or Missy Wolff. Fewer still would know they played Beetle Girl 1 and Beetle Girl 2 in the movie. Yet ask people what their favourite scene is from Fried Green Tomatoes and there’s a huge possibility they’ll say “When she rams the car of those two bitches in the car park.”
The genius of the scene is how relatable it is, how this happens to everybody and how we usually turn the other cheek too. We don’t really need people losing their temper and ramming into cars every time something likes this happens. Everybody knows if you rear end somebody most likely you’ll pay the excess. The point of the sequence though allows us to indulge in the fantasy. We’ve seen lead character Kathy Bates’s Evelyn Couch take a lot of shit from a lot of people throughout the film and this proves the turning point for her character. With a cry of Towanda she ploughs into their red Volkswagen Beetle Convertible (it’s no accident it’s red and a convertible) four times. Her punchline seals the deal and off she goes into the sunset. Towanda indeed. The writing and set up of this moment was always destined to be a classic if the two actresses hired in these small parts could make the Beetle girls believable but also instantly dislikable. To their credit they did and it remains their most globally recognised performances.
Kathy Larson was credited as Catherine Lawson for Fried Green Tomatoes. On IMDB she has 10 acting credits from Little Darlings in 1980 as Girl through to 1995 with the TV series in The Heat of the Night as Tracey Cole. Fried Green Tomatoes (Beetle Girl 1)and Kalifornia (Teenage Girl) are the roles she is best known for. The actress also had reoccurring roles on TV shows during 1989 to 1993 including Ryan’s Bar. See if you can spot her in the cast photo below.Maybe she works now teaching drama somewhere, acting in theatre, maybe she’s left Hollywood and the arts far away in her rear vision mirror. She’d now be older than Kathy Bates was when they had a stand off over the virtues of being a particular age.
Missy Wolff according to IMDB has been a stand in for Jeanne Tripplehorn and was offered the right of first refusal for the Ashley Judd role in A Time to Kill. She has four acting credits on the website for two roles in 1991 and one in 2010 and one in 2011. In 2011 she was also credited for Props for a short film Small World. This suggests she’s remained in the arts if not always in a way that gets her recognised by the Internet Movie Database. That’s okay, I worked on two short films and one feature film listed on IMDB but I’m not listed in any of their credit lists on the website. It’s a bit of process. After a quick google search it is proven true that she is still very much active in the arts. In 2015 she performed in Charleston South Carolina Who’s Afraid of Virignia Woolf? for the Footlight Players. A quick bio showed that she had been in other productions in Charleston and off Broadway productions in New York City throughout the years.
I imagine both Larson and Wolff were pretty excited in 1991 to get these small roles on screen. I like to imagine their families came to see them in with pride at a local theatre. Maybe for a while they dreamed of this being the first step of them becoming the next Julia Roberts or Mary Stuart Masterson. Maybe they thought they’d always get small parts and were already working towards having a different type of career. I wonder where Kathy Larson is now and hope they’re both doing well. I doubt they were anything like their characters. That’s working actors for you and Kathy and Missy remain two fine examples of working actors.
Back to the Drawing Board Productions 