' ' Cinema Romantico: Where Did You Go, Kerri Green? (No! Never Mind! I Don't Want To Know!)

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Where Did You Go, Kerri Green? (No! Never Mind! I Don't Want To Know!)

Rock musician Jeff Buckley tragically drowned at the age of 30 in the Mississippi River and, thus, in the words of Chuck Klosterman, "his album 'Grace' instantly evolved from 'slightly better than good' to 'totally classic.'"

Marilyn Monroe tragically passed at away at age 36 and, thus, guaranteed she would always be age 36, the blonde pop icon standing over the subway grate in the white dress forever and ever.


Kerri Green, the teen actress those of us who grew up in the eighties, particularly those of us who were idiot adolescent males, remember so fondly, did not pass away, but once the Me Decade concluded, she entirely of her own choosing vanished from the pop culture landscape, never to return.

And I realized re-watching her as the uber-lovable Andy, Josh Brolin's hopeful squeeze, in "The Goonies," that to the majority of us she will always be that same teenage girl. She will never grow up, never get old. She will always be Andy, innocently incandescent. She will always be John Candy's daughter in "Summer Rental," not the obligatory "I-hate-my-dad-he's-so-stupid" daughter, but kind, loving, and hopeful her father can maybe just do a little bit better. She will always be Maggie in "Lucas," where, you might be remember, she shared scenes with the quarterback of the high school football team played by, ahem, Charlie Sheen who hell be damn sure no one will ever remember as "Cappie from 'Lucas.'"

You can, of course, in this day and age find pictures of the latter day Kerri Green on the interweb and while I suppose it looks like her, it also doesn't, specifically because she hasn't been omnipresent in the entertainment world for a couple decades and she was free to mature on her own and out of the eye of the feeding frenzy of the Access Hollywoods of the world.


Isn't there something refreshing about a child star who chose to dictate the terms of her life and be remembered the way she saw fit? She somehow pulled the trick of both burning out and fading away, and yet not really doing either of those things. She's something far more rare.

Kerri Green: a cinematic non period comet.

4 comments:

Wretched Genius said...

I'm glad she excused herself before she had time to slowly fade away, like Catherine Mary Stewart*. My own favorite in this category is Michelle Meyrink, who did a few quirky 80's comedies (the best-known being "Revenge of the Nerds" and "Real Genius") and then just quit.

*=I really want to include Shawnee Smith, but she actually has had a pretty good career post-80's. But her 80's persona is so much different than the one she has today, so it feels like the old Shawnee disappeared forever.

Nick Prigge said...

Oh, Shawnee Smith. She'll always be the intrepid Nikki Downing to me, making like Steve McQueen at the wheel of the stair car.

Unknown said...

Kerri green was a really good actress wish she would made more movies later on

Unknown said...

Kerri green was a really good actress wish she would made more movies later on