Issue date:
May 16-18, 1997

Rene Russo

Other people can't make you happy, says the beautiful actress. So "nurture yourself. Like yourself."

Sometimes, when she looks at her 3-year-old daughter, Rose, actress Rene Russo's eyes well up and her heart aches. "I know where Rose is, emotionally, at 3. She's so vulnerable, so in love with her daddy."

	In her new movie, Buddy, based on a true story, Russo portrays a 1920s socialite who opened her home to apes.

Russo, who is married to screenwriter Dan Gilroy, can't help but see herself in her only child. When she was Rose's age, her father left home forever. "I was madly in love with him, and he deserted us."

Russo, 43, is the former supermodel who now stars in blockbusters like Ransom, Tin Cup and Get Shorty. Later this month she has her first solo starring role, in Buddy, a family movie. But behind all that glamour and success is a woman still recovering from a painful childhood.

She saw her dad, who died last year, "maybe twice" after he left home. A few times he'd call, promise to take her to Disneyland, and not show up. Diagnosed with scoliosis at age 10, she wore a body cast 48 weeks a year until she was 14. "Every six months, I got a two-week break." Feeling alone and alienated, Russo dropped out of high school and floundered through her teen years.

Leading men: Mel Gibson (Ransom, Lethal Weapon 3), Kevin Costner (Tin Cup), Dustin Hoffman (Outbreak), Clint Eastwood (In the Line of Fire). Most boyish co-star: John Travolta (Get Shorty). "He's a total little boy. There's an innocence, a playfulness, a hopefulness." High school pal: Director Ron Howard. While other kids teased her for wearing a body cast, "he was always lovely to me."

In therapy, Russo learned that our view of ourselves can be a reflection of how our parents defined us or related to us. Partly as a result of being abandoned, she says, until a year or so ago "I didn't have low self-esteem -- I had no self-esteem."

In Hollywood she's admired for her lack of vanity, given her beauty. Well, there's a reason, Russo says. "I'm fighting to like myself, not fighting to keep my ego in check."

In a photo of herself at 17, "I have this tough look on my face, like I thought I was the coolest chick. You know what? It was a cover." Now when she sees that picture,
"I want to give myself a big hug."

If you have pain from your past, find ways to embrace the child you were, Russo says. "Nurture yourself. Like yourself." The message of her life: "It's about hope. I want readers to say, 'You can have a hard time as a kid and still make it.' I am an example. I came through."

Russo's rules