Kim Cattrall is Actually More of a Carrie
Kim Cattrall is Actually More of a Carrie
The Apotheosis of the Rizzler
There was a time, ‘round about 1993 or so, when the high concept of injecting actress Kim Cattrall into a snow globe required more than an iPhone running Tik Tok. No, that kind of thing required vast resources; entire rooms full of dedicated hardware running overnight were put to the task of combining two photos. Adobe Photoshop wasn’t yet a gleam in some Silicon Valley bro’s eye yet. Our tool was to be Sci-Tex. Sci-Tex wasn’t software, and we didn’t really have computers yet, either. I recall it was an Israeli company, but I also feel like we sent the film to Ohio to achieve the sought-after lady-in-snow-globe effect, so who’s to say. After shooting the photos, the original chromes would be sent to Sci-Tex, where talented and handsome technicians would scan and combine them to yield the final art, which they would produce as camera-ready color separations, which would then go right to the (literally bigger-than-a-football-field) printer. I guess it was digital imaging, but since nobody else had computers, they would print it back into the analog world for printing in a magazine.
Then, after all that expensive mishegas, the damn thing looks so cheesy it not only doesn’t make the cover, but barely gets printed at all. Luckily, the editors have the sense to snap out of it and run the fab shot of the utterly fab Ms. Cattrall as a full page, damn the high-concept. Wild Palms was a TV miniseries produced by Oliver Stone, starring a multitude of not-quite-A-list actors. Angie Dickinson, Dana Delany, James Belushi, Robert Loggia, Ernie Hudson, Ben Savage— I worked with each of them, over six or seven days of shooting in New York and Los Angeles. Internet tells me Bebe Neuwirth was in it, too. I definitely would have remembered, she must not have been available. Maybe she was embarrassed, as I think Wild Palms ended up being kind of terrible. It was a cyberific dystopian thing, the sort of thing you’d think putting Kim Cattrall in a snow globe would be appropriate for.
The misfire with the Sci-Tex wasn’t the only dropped connection at the Kim Cattrall shoot. I’ve rocked skibiddi rizz since before it was invented. But Kim Cattrall is stunning. And so delightful, charming and personable. And will cut a dude as soon as look at you when you ask for her phone number. She met me with a look that was the visual equivalent of “Bless your heart.” You know those scenes in Yellowstone where Beth Dutton gets hit on by some hapless dude and she turns and guts him like a fish? Yeah, pretty much exactly that. So intense I just had to laugh. And she laughed. And we were laughing together, totally sympatico, and yet, no digits.
I did recover from this experience enough to meet my wife on set, at a shoot in Chicago, detailed in another episode.
Dr. Pepper was fond of telling me to leave the house. I followed his advice about ten years ago. I accepted an invitation to the Highline Ballroom from a former bandmate and record executive. We were there to see this Italian/German artist, Sabina Sciubba. She was amazing, working the stage like a whirlwind. Yet my attention was drawn to a woman sitting at our table, evidently a companion of one of the appropriately scuzzy industry types evaluating the talent.
While Sabina was taking a break, before we all traipsed backstage to meet her, I turned to chat with this stunningly gorgeous woman on my right. She looked super familiar, but I just couldn’t place her. I introduced myself, and she replied, “I’m Kim.” You see where this is going, no doubt.
“Oh! Uh,” pause, “Kim What?”
I received pretty much exactly that look that I’d engendered ‘lo some thirty years ago when asking for a phone number. Of course, the act of saying that jogged my memory, and I flashed on her name right as she said it: Cattrall.
“I am SUCH an asshole, I’m sorry,” I blurted, and she laughed. She was a star when I’d shot her decades ago. In the meantime, of course, she’d gone on to play Sex and the City’s Samantha. She clearly wasn’t used to people not knowing who she was. My wife says I only remember people if they’re attractive or I have taken their picture. Ms. Cattrall qualifies on both counts, and I still was initially clueless as to her identity. By way of apology, I reminded her of the first time we’d met. She gamely played along and claimed to remember (the red dress and palm fronds might have jogged her memory) when I pulled some of the shots up on my phone. She is SUCH a Samantha I can’t even believe it. If you ever run into her, get her name right, would you, please?
