Issue date: Aug 8, 1999

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"It" girls
First date with Burns lasted four days
Heather Graham Photo Gallery
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By Stephanie Mansfield

"I don't think looks are such an entree that it makes your career," says Heather Graham, 29, who has made 28 movies since she turned 16, including this week's Bowfinger. "There are millions of beautiful women who don't make their mark. Hey, Cindy Crawford wanted to be an actress." She sips her iced cappuccino. It's a balmy day, near the Hollywood Hills home she shares with Edward Burns, the director (The Brothers McMullen) and actor (Saving Private Ryan). "Some people with less talent can go farther than people with more," she continues. "They never apply themselves."

That was never the case with Graham. She was born to act. Her mother, an author of children's poetry, laughingly tells of finding her behind a chair, play-acting quietly with a doll. Her mother and father, now a retired FBI agent, recall driving her to auditions in Los Angeles from their home north of Malibu. As a teenager, she did commercials (Ivory shampoo, Mountain Dew) and landed an agent at 15. At 16, she made her first feature film, License to Drive.

Focused and fearless, she rejected a steady role in a TV soap because she thought it wasn't worth leaving school for, and at a moment when most teen actors would have run over their acting coaches for the chance, she turned down a three-picture deal with a major studio because she thought it would be too restrictive. High school drama coach John Kilpatrick remembers her as highly flexible, "not afraid to take risks."

From Rollergirl in Boogie Nights and Felicity Shagwell in Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me to the object of desire in Lenny Kravitz's latest video, American Woman, Graham has refined her risk-taking, ratcheting up her sly, schoolgirl sexuality to a sort of Marcia-Brady-gone-bad randiness. Newest challenge: playing Daisey, a sweetly clueless actress who sleeps her way to mediocrity in Bowfinger, a smart comedy penned by Steve Martin. "The more risks, the more rewards," says Graham. "That's what my therapist says."

Certainly, leaving the comforts of home was a risk: moving to Los Angeles, doing nudity, a famous near-NC-17-rated sex scene in Two Girls and a Guy. "To be an actress, saying I have something to offer is definitely a risk. Going for Eddie [Burns] was a risk. Somebody I really wanted to be with - that was scary."

Her past flames include actors Kyle MacLachlan and James Woods; she has said she got involved with men whom "I couldn't fall in love with. Men who had problems. I didn't want to put myself in situations where I could be hurt. Then you realize it's better to go with it. It's more rewarding."

She met Burns in a bar in L.A. They exchanged numbers and talked over the next few weeks. He flew back to New York. She waited a month, then called him. "I couldn't get him out of my mind." She flew east, and "our first date lasted four days."

"There is an element of bravery" to love, Graham says. "You could be scared of sharing yourself with that someone and get defensive and end up never really connecting. You have to believe you can be in love. Some people just say, 'I don't believe it's possible.' And they just settle. Maybe some people don't want true love."

They've discussed marriage, but she says, "We want to be together maybe a little longer. Everything's great now. By prolonging it, it makes it more special." She has met his big Irish Catholic family, but he hasn't met hers.

Graham is estranged from her parents. She says she rebelled against a strict Irish Catholic upbringing. Her parents counter that it wasn't especially rigid: They didn't even send her to Catholic schools. Of Catholicism, she says, "Isn't it bizarre that people have been embracing that religion and all the strict rules for, like, centuries? Everyone's got their struggles in life. That's mine."

Does Heather see any way to overcome the estrangement? "I don't see it, but maybe it's possible. Either they would have to recognize certain things or I would have to move beyond the stage of caring about it."

Although the Grahams had attended many of their daughter's earlier film premieres, she stopped communicating with them around the time she began shooting Boogie Nights, they say. The part of Rollergirl called for a waiflike, often topless innocent who finds a surrogate family among the misfits of the porn world. "We wish her the absolute best," her father says now, adding that he and his wife have seen all of their daughter's movies. "She does a great job. Our hearts and arms are open to her."

But that may be more of a risk than Graham is willing to take. "It's like saying if what they did didn't hurt me, I could have a relationship with them. But I have to respect my feelings."

"People are resilient," she concludes, preparing to drive into the hills. "Worst-case scenario: Say things didn't work with Eddie the way I wanted. I'd be devastated. A year or two later, hopefully, I'd get it together and go out and just be brave."

Contributing Editor Stephanie Mansfield last profiled singer Shania Twain.

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"It" girls

To be an "It" girl is to be the female star of the moment, new and trendy, says Entertainment Tonight film critic Leonard Maltin. "Sexy, appealing, talented women like Heather Graham will be perceived to have 'It' 70 years from now," says Maltin. His thoughts on previous "It" girls:

Clara Bow. The original "It" girl - after she starred in the 1927 movie It -"exuded sex appeal."

Veronica Lake, with her peekaboo bangs, was the "It" girl of the early '40s.
"No one thought she was a great actress, but she had a great look." Claims to fame: 1941's I Wanted Wings and 1942's This Gun for Hire.

Twiggy, the late '60s British supermodel, was famous for her waifish look and miniskirts. "Twiggy had a look that was instantly sensational. Everyone was talking about it." Now starring in the off-Broadway musical If Love Were All.

Bo Derek became an overnight "It" girl in the 1979 movie 10. "She was the idealized fantasy woman come to life, and that made her an overnight sensation. No one accused her of being much of an actress."

Cameron Diaz, the "It" girl of last summer's surprise hit There's Something About Mary, "has long since proved that she's a good actress and daring, willing to try different things."

--By Linda Lou

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