Adventures in the World of Travel and Entertainment™ / Fans, Residents, Insiders
Fabulous Flashback: Actress Beth Grant—Going for the Gold in Hollywood (Originally published August, 2005)
Nicholas Snow's Perspective of "Sordid Lives" Through The Years
By Nicholas Snow
In a magical moment at the closing night of Outfest 2005, I had the occasion to meet the incomparable Beth Grant and her husband (and resident photographer) Michael Chieffo—the duo was introduced to me by my friend, actor Scotch Ellis Loring, seated with them, and all three can be seen in the stunning, original, absolutely-must-see film Hard Pill, but that’s a completely different story. THIS story is about Beth, who granted me my wish with this exclusive interview. Would you believe her early influences include both Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley?
While grant has starred in over 60 feature films, she is most known for her roles in Rich Kelly’s Donnie Darko and Del Shore’s Sordid Lives, both huge cult hits. Grant’s other big screen sensations, and major studio hits at that, include Jan DeBont’s Speed, Ridley Scott’s Matchstick Men, John Lee Hancock’s The Rookie, Barry Levinson’s Rain Man, Joel Schumacher’s A Time To Kill and Beeban Kidron’s To Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything, Julie Newmar.
I became familiar with Grant in Sordid Lives and have written about that film on numerous occasions, so it was a pleasure to meet Beth in person. Always looking for a scoop, I asked grant what she was up to, only to learn that she will soon be seen co-starring with Annette Bening in Ryan Murphy’s Running With Scissors; with Isabella Miko in Hayley Cloake’s The House of Usher; and with Steve Carell, Greg Kinear and Toni Collette in Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris’s Little Miss Sunshine.
So, how did Beth Grant’s spectacular journey begin?
“When I was six I began to pantomime Elvis Presley records and imitate Marilyn Monroe,” explained Grant. “I didn’t really know what an actress was but I got the idea that being a movie star was very exciting, that you would be rich, famous and fabulous, adored by everyone. I really just wanted people to like me. I found that learning to act was a necessary evil and then magically I began to love it. It really wasn’t until I was in my thirties and studying at the Beverly Hills Playhouse with Milton Katselas that I began to develop a technique and in so doing started to love the work, the rehearsals, the moments of inspiration, the research. I love my characters and feel a great responsibility to them.”
So, what transformed Beth’s fantasies Hollywood fantasies into Hollywood reality?
“I was a part-time actor, working at different jobs, fundraising, politics, event coordinating, writing and producing small films and theatre projects. I acted only occasionally,” Beth confided in me. “One day I was attending a luncheon at Fox about the Olympics that featured documentary film clips by Bud Greenspan. They also introduced Olympic athletes from as far back as the early 1900’s. The films were so moving. They followed some athletes from early training days into the Olympic stadium and many of the subjects did not even win a medal. But they had pursued their dreams and were truly victorious. I knew that I had not followed my dreams and I began to weep! I eventually went home and called my best friend and said, ‘I can’t not act anymore.’ That’s when I went back to class and my fulltime career began about two years later. I am actually living my dreams and beyond because I was living in a fantasy about acting. Now I am in reality and it is so much sweeter than all the silliness I thought would make people like me.”
When great actors meet great writer/directors, fabulous things can happen, as evidenced by Grant’s relationship with Del Shores.
“I met Del after I had gone back to class in 1983. I did a showcase for a casting director at which I did a scene from Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore. Del was doing the showcase as an actor but was also watching the scenes and saw me. Years later when our paths crossed he said he had been thinking about me all that time and eventually wrote two different roles for me, Sissy Hickey in Sordid Lives, and Willadean Winkler in The Trials and Tribulations of a Trailer Trash Housewife, for which I will be forever grateful. For …Trailer Trash Housewife, we won every theatre award you can win in Los Angeles. It was quite a ride. I love saying his words. I get him and he gets me. It’s wonderful.”
“When I was doing The Trials and Tribulations of a Trailer Trash Housewife I had the experience of actually bringing all of who I am to the stage,” Beth continued. “As my husband says, I felt I was revealing my soul!! It sounds corny but to inhabit a character to the degree that I eventually did with Willi is transcendent. I even developed bruises where she had been hit without receiving any injury to the spots. It took several months of painstaking, detailed work but eventually I was so comfortable on that stage enjoying her humor, her spirit, her sexuality and sensuousness, her desperation, her violence, getting battered, losing her children, finding hope and friendship with her neighbor Lasagna. I loved it. I could have played her forever.”
As a cult movie hit, did Sordid Lives significantly impact Grant’s career?
“Sordid Lives may not have directly gotten me a job but I do believe that Sordid Lives has created a following in the same way that another of my favorite films, Donnie Darko, has. Before those two films I had been in many feature films…but no characters that I have ever done have been as beloved as Sissy Hickey and Kitty Farmer,” explained Beth. “Sissy is extremely personal to me because I was basically doing a combination of Del Shores’s Aunt Sissy and my own grandmother who I adored. Kitty is very much one of my junior high school teachers. Both characters are bigger than life but I worked very hard to keep them grounded and real.”
On her friendship with another beloved actor who played Brother Boy in Sordid Lives, Grant expressed, “Leslie Jordan is a character. We don’t see each other very much but will always have a deep love for each other and I believe, a great respect for each other’s talent. No one does what he does but Leslie. He is the quintessential storyteller and I am so happy he is enjoying success. He deserves it!”
How did Grant meet her soul mate?
“My husband, Michael Chieffo and I met through friends and weren’t attracted to each other as anything more than casual acquaintances for three years,” Grant revealed. “Then one day a bunch of us were going for lunch and there weren’t enough parking spaces for everyone. I suggested we go to the Beachwood Cafe, which was nearby. It was the first time we were actually alone together. I started titillating and twenty-one years later I still am!”
Grant is much loved by the gay community, and she love’s us right back.
“I consider myself a part of the gay community even though I am a heterosexual,” declared Grant. “I have always been attracted to smart, funny, witty people and to people who are survivors. I love the creative passion that thrives in the gay community and that is a huge source of inspiration to me. I have always been attracted to projects about tolerance, family, individual freedom, and equality. I am political in only a few areas of my life and one is gay marriage. I just don’t understand why two people who love each other and want to spend their lives together can’t do so and be protected under the laws of this land. Two male friends of ours who are gay got married and we gave them wedding shower. It was fantastic. The wedding was fantastic and their marriage is solid. Two of my best friends in New York are gay men and have been together for 35 years. They have a better marriage than most.”
“In terms of my career,” Grant elaborated, “I’ve been in Sordid Lives; To Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything, Julie Newmar; and I was the gay waiter’s mom on Cybill. In …Housewife, my son is gay. I’m always looking for projects about freedom to be who we are. I also love stories that encourage us to enjoy the journey and mystery of life.”
Such a woman, such a human being, must have a spiritual foundation, don’t you think?
“I believe in a universal higher power that is positive and friendly,” Beth expressed. “I pray frequently and meditate occasionally. I believe in being of service, telling the truth, doing the right thing, rigorous honesty, Karma, peace, following your heart.”
About those formative years, Grant explained “My early role models were Marilyn Monroe, Loretta Young, Joan Crawford, Ann Southern and of course, my mother who I thought was the most beautiful woman in the world. Now my role models are Oprah in the way that she gives back, Whoopi, in the way that she stays so honest, Jimmy Carter who really puts his money where his mouth is, and Annette Bening with whom I recently worked and admire so much as an actress, a mother, a wife, and pure and simple…a woman.”
How did Grant end up costarring with Bening in Running With Scissors?
“I auditioned the old-fashioned way…” explained Grant, “because Ryan Murphy did not know me. I’m such an admirer of Ryan’s show, Nip/Tuck and am in awe of Augusten Burroughs so I was happy to audition. I play ‘Winnie’ in the film, the diner waitress who befriends Annette’s character. I can’t say much more without spoiling the plot!”
Did Warren Beatty (Bening’s husband) visit the set?
“Warren didn’t come to the set when I was there but was with Annette at the wrap party,” said Grant. “He’s a lovely man with whom I had worked briefly in the Jimmy Carter campaign in 1976. I admire them both and wish he would run for Governor of California. That’s one campaign I could support.” Wow, that’s a thought.
On her hopes and dreams, “Personally I would like to enjoy this beautiful life I have been given and stop worrying,” exclaimed Beth. “I’d like to exercise more, give up caffeine, be more loving to my husband who deserves to be treated like a king, and be patient with myself in every area. I think I am an excellent mother but I would like to stay open and willing to change as my daughter does. I would love to live long enough to be a grandmother! A wild grandma, I’ll be!”
“Professionally,” continued Grant, “I would like to have a small production company that makes wonderful small character-driven stories that would lift the human spirit, make people laugh and dance and cry. That doesn’t mean that the stories wouldn’t be dark or scary or violent as well, because all of that is part of life. I would like to work with all my favorite people all the time and make great art that will last forever.”
I wanted to know what this brilliant gracious woman would change in the world if she could.
“If I could wave a wand and change the world I would want everyone—myself included—to stop being so defensive, to live and let live, to love. As Jim Morrison said, ‘We’re all in this together.’ I interviewed a 106-year-old woman for an oral history project once who had been born a slave. We asked her advice for the future generations and she said, ‘Just love everybody, don’t hate anybody, just love everybody.’ I think that’s pretty good advice.”
Photos of the "Sordid Lives" Cast and Creator Reunion at the Camelot Theaters, Palm Springs, California, May 31, 2002, by Nicholas Snow
By Nicholas Snow
In a magical moment at the closing night of Outfest 2005, I had the occasion to meet the incomparable Beth Grant and her husband (and resident photographer) Michael Chieffo—the duo was introduced to me by my friend, actor Scotch Ellis Loring, seated with them, and all three can be seen in the stunning, original, absolutely-must-see film Hard Pill, but that’s a completely different story. THIS story is about Beth, who granted me my wish with this exclusive interview. Would you believe her early influences include both Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley?
While grant has starred in over 60 feature films, she is most known for her roles in Rich Kelly’s Donnie Darko and Del Shore’s Sordid Lives, both huge cult hits. Grant’s other big screen sensations, and major studio hits at that, include Jan DeBont’s Speed, Ridley Scott’s Matchstick Men, John Lee Hancock’s The Rookie, Barry Levinson’s Rain Man, Joel Schumacher’s A Time To Kill and Beeban Kidron’s To Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything, Julie Newmar.
I became familiar with Grant in Sordid Lives and have written about that film on numerous occasions, so it was a pleasure to meet Beth in person. Always looking for a scoop, I asked grant what she was up to, only to learn that she will soon be seen co-starring with Annette Bening in Ryan Murphy’s Running With Scissors; with Isabella Miko in Hayley Cloake’s The House of Usher; and with Steve Carell, Greg Kinear and Toni Collette in Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris’s Little Miss Sunshine.
So, how did Beth Grant’s spectacular journey begin?
“When I was six I began to pantomime Elvis Presley records and imitate Marilyn Monroe,” explained Grant. “I didn’t really know what an actress was but I got the idea that being a movie star was very exciting, that you would be rich, famous and fabulous, adored by everyone. I really just wanted people to like me. I found that learning to act was a necessary evil and then magically I began to love it. It really wasn’t until I was in my thirties and studying at the Beverly Hills Playhouse with Milton Katselas that I began to develop a technique and in so doing started to love the work, the rehearsals, the moments of inspiration, the research. I love my characters and feel a great responsibility to them.”
So, what transformed Beth’s fantasies Hollywood fantasies into Hollywood reality?
“I was a part-time actor, working at different jobs, fundraising, politics, event coordinating, writing and producing small films and theatre projects. I acted only occasionally,” Beth confided in me. “One day I was attending a luncheon at Fox about the Olympics that featured documentary film clips by Bud Greenspan. They also introduced Olympic athletes from as far back as the early 1900’s. The films were so moving. They followed some athletes from early training days into the Olympic stadium and many of the subjects did not even win a medal. But they had pursued their dreams and were truly victorious. I knew that I had not followed my dreams and I began to weep! I eventually went home and called my best friend and said, ‘I can’t not act anymore.’ That’s when I went back to class and my fulltime career began about two years later. I am actually living my dreams and beyond because I was living in a fantasy about acting. Now I am in reality and it is so much sweeter than all the silliness I thought would make people like me.”
When great actors meet great writer/directors, fabulous things can happen, as evidenced by Grant’s relationship with Del Shores.
“I met Del after I had gone back to class in 1983. I did a showcase for a casting director at which I did a scene from Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore. Del was doing the showcase as an actor but was also watching the scenes and saw me. Years later when our paths crossed he said he had been thinking about me all that time and eventually wrote two different roles for me, Sissy Hickey in Sordid Lives, and Willadean Winkler in The Trials and Tribulations of a Trailer Trash Housewife, for which I will be forever grateful. For …Trailer Trash Housewife, we won every theatre award you can win in Los Angeles. It was quite a ride. I love saying his words. I get him and he gets me. It’s wonderful.”
“When I was doing The Trials and Tribulations of a Trailer Trash Housewife I had the experience of actually bringing all of who I am to the stage,” Beth continued. “As my husband says, I felt I was revealing my soul!! It sounds corny but to inhabit a character to the degree that I eventually did with Willi is transcendent. I even developed bruises where she had been hit without receiving any injury to the spots. It took several months of painstaking, detailed work but eventually I was so comfortable on that stage enjoying her humor, her spirit, her sexuality and sensuousness, her desperation, her violence, getting battered, losing her children, finding hope and friendship with her neighbor Lasagna. I loved it. I could have played her forever.”
As a cult movie hit, did Sordid Lives significantly impact Grant’s career?
“Sordid Lives may not have directly gotten me a job but I do believe that Sordid Lives has created a following in the same way that another of my favorite films, Donnie Darko, has. Before those two films I had been in many feature films…but no characters that I have ever done have been as beloved as Sissy Hickey and Kitty Farmer,” explained Beth. “Sissy is extremely personal to me because I was basically doing a combination of Del Shores’s Aunt Sissy and my own grandmother who I adored. Kitty is very much one of my junior high school teachers. Both characters are bigger than life but I worked very hard to keep them grounded and real.”
On her friendship with another beloved actor who played Brother Boy in Sordid Lives, Grant expressed, “Leslie Jordan is a character. We don’t see each other very much but will always have a deep love for each other and I believe, a great respect for each other’s talent. No one does what he does but Leslie. He is the quintessential storyteller and I am so happy he is enjoying success. He deserves it!”
How did Grant meet her soul mate?
“My husband, Michael Chieffo and I met through friends and weren’t attracted to each other as anything more than casual acquaintances for three years,” Grant revealed. “Then one day a bunch of us were going for lunch and there weren’t enough parking spaces for everyone. I suggested we go to the Beachwood Cafe, which was nearby. It was the first time we were actually alone together. I started titillating and twenty-one years later I still am!”
Grant is much loved by the gay community, and she love’s us right back.
“I consider myself a part of the gay community even though I am a heterosexual,” declared Grant. “I have always been attracted to smart, funny, witty people and to people who are survivors. I love the creative passion that thrives in the gay community and that is a huge source of inspiration to me. I have always been attracted to projects about tolerance, family, individual freedom, and equality. I am political in only a few areas of my life and one is gay marriage. I just don’t understand why two people who love each other and want to spend their lives together can’t do so and be protected under the laws of this land. Two male friends of ours who are gay got married and we gave them wedding shower. It was fantastic. The wedding was fantastic and their marriage is solid. Two of my best friends in New York are gay men and have been together for 35 years. They have a better marriage than most.”
“In terms of my career,” Grant elaborated, “I’ve been in Sordid Lives; To Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything, Julie Newmar; and I was the gay waiter’s mom on Cybill. In …Housewife, my son is gay. I’m always looking for projects about freedom to be who we are. I also love stories that encourage us to enjoy the journey and mystery of life.”
Such a woman, such a human being, must have a spiritual foundation, don’t you think?
“I believe in a universal higher power that is positive and friendly,” Beth expressed. “I pray frequently and meditate occasionally. I believe in being of service, telling the truth, doing the right thing, rigorous honesty, Karma, peace, following your heart.”
About those formative years, Grant explained “My early role models were Marilyn Monroe, Loretta Young, Joan Crawford, Ann Southern and of course, my mother who I thought was the most beautiful woman in the world. Now my role models are Oprah in the way that she gives back, Whoopi, in the way that she stays so honest, Jimmy Carter who really puts his money where his mouth is, and Annette Bening with whom I recently worked and admire so much as an actress, a mother, a wife, and pure and simple…a woman.”
How did Grant end up costarring with Bening in Running With Scissors?
“I auditioned the old-fashioned way…” explained Grant, “because Ryan Murphy did not know me. I’m such an admirer of Ryan’s show, Nip/Tuck and am in awe of Augusten Burroughs so I was happy to audition. I play ‘Winnie’ in the film, the diner waitress who befriends Annette’s character. I can’t say much more without spoiling the plot!”
Did Warren Beatty (Bening’s husband) visit the set?
“Warren didn’t come to the set when I was there but was with Annette at the wrap party,” said Grant. “He’s a lovely man with whom I had worked briefly in the Jimmy Carter campaign in 1976. I admire them both and wish he would run for Governor of California. That’s one campaign I could support.” Wow, that’s a thought.
On her hopes and dreams, “Personally I would like to enjoy this beautiful life I have been given and stop worrying,” exclaimed Beth. “I’d like to exercise more, give up caffeine, be more loving to my husband who deserves to be treated like a king, and be patient with myself in every area. I think I am an excellent mother but I would like to stay open and willing to change as my daughter does. I would love to live long enough to be a grandmother! A wild grandma, I’ll be!”
“Professionally,” continued Grant, “I would like to have a small production company that makes wonderful small character-driven stories that would lift the human spirit, make people laugh and dance and cry. That doesn’t mean that the stories wouldn’t be dark or scary or violent as well, because all of that is part of life. I would like to work with all my favorite people all the time and make great art that will last forever.”
I wanted to know what this brilliant gracious woman would change in the world if she could.
“If I could wave a wand and change the world I would want everyone—myself included—to stop being so defensive, to live and let live, to love. As Jim Morrison said, ‘We’re all in this together.’ I interviewed a 106-year-old woman for an oral history project once who had been born a slave. We asked her advice for the future generations and she said, ‘Just love everybody, don’t hate anybody, just love everybody.’ I think that’s pretty good advice.”
Photos of the "Sordid Lives" Cast and Creator Reunion at the Camelot Theaters, Palm Springs, California, May 31, 2002, by Nicholas Snow
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