LITTLE WOMEN: IS SHAILENE WOODLEY TOO YOUNG FOR STARDOM?

At 21, Shailene Woodley was carrying a potential tentpole blockbuster. In November 2012, she was deep into production on Divergent (pictured, below) and still hot off her Oscar-nominated performance in The Descendants. Superstardom comes a lot sooner nowadays; Kristen Stewart (Twilight; Snow White & The Huntsman) and Jennifer Lawrence (The Hunger Games; Silver Linings Playbook) were both A-list stars before they turned 21. But what of the screen goddesses of days gone by? Some, like Shirley Temple or Jodie Foster, were well into (or well past) their movie careers. But were the career paths of other great actresses mapped out for them by that tender age of 21…?

JULIA ROBERTS:
Happy 21^st! October 28, 1988
Her debut, the girl band drama Satisfaction, had just bombed, yet everyone was talking about the young actress who had stolen the limelight in the arthouse ensemble hit, Mystic Pizza. Insider word was that her performance in Herbert Ross’ adaptation of Robert Harling’s play, Steel Magnolias (pictured, right; with co-star Sally Field), was going to be her breakout performance. By early 1989, Roberts was preparing to star in her first romantic comedy…Disney’s reworking of the old ‘hooker with a heart of gold’ plotline.  

MERYL STREEP:
Happy 21^st! June 22, 1970
One year before graduating from the all-female Vassar College, the young woman that would become the greatest actress of her generation was taking on any role she could in school productions. Most notably, she played the title role in August Strindberg’s play Miss Julie (pictured, left), Frosine in the original production of The Miser and was preparing for her graduating performance as Sarah Millwood in The London Merchant. Her first film role, opposite Jane Fonda in Julia, was seven years away.

CATHERINE DENEUVE:
Happy 21^st! October 22, 1964
Deneuve had been working steadily since her teens; she was 13 when cast in Andre Hunebelle’s 1957 film Les Collegiennes. Her exquisite beauty and flawless talent was not lost on the French producers, who would cast her in seven movies over three years. In late 1963, the 20 year-old began production on The Umbrellas’ of Cherbourg, director Jacques Demy’s groundbreaking romantic-musical that would become an international sensation. At 21, Deneuve was European cinema’s hottest starlet.

JULIETTE BINOCHE:
Happy 21^st! March 9, 1985
The miracle of filming with Jean-Luc Godard was tempered by the controversy surrounding what would be Juliette Binoche’s second feature film. The actress turned 21 a few weeks after Hail Mary (pictured, right), the great director’s modern spin on immaculate conception, premiered across Europe to howls of religious protest. The ingénue buried herself in work, completing seven movies in three years; the workload lead to her acclaimed US movie debut, opposite Daniel Day Lewis in Philip Kaufman’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being in 1988.

AISHWARYA RAI:
Happy 21^st! November 1, 1994
Despite a modelling career that saw her represent key brands such as Pepsi and Ford in one of the world’s biggest markets, it would not be until 1997 that Indian cinema’s most successful actress debuted onscreen in a series of films that included Iruvar, The Duo and …Aur Pyaar Ho Gaya (for which she would win the Screen Award for Best Newcomer). In 1994, the 21 year-old Rai was coping with the adulation of a nation after having been crowned Miss World (pictured, left).

HELEN MIRREN:
Happy 21^st! July 26, 1966
The future Dame was barely dipping her toes in Britain’s cinematic waters at the age of 21. It would be the year she first stepped in front of a camera, with an uncredited bit part in the Norman Wisdom comedy vehicle, Press for Time. But her reputation as one of England’s great theatrical hopes was well established. By the time she started work in late 1966 on her second film, Australian expat director Don Levy’s Herostratus (featured, below), she had conquered the role of Cleopatra for the National Youth Theatre and was invited to join the Royal Shakespeare Company. The 21 year-old Mirren made such an impact, she became the subject of John Goldschmidt’s documentary, Doing Her Own Thing (1970).

BETTE DAVIS:
Happy 21^st! April 5, 1929
The actress that many refer to as ‘The First Lady of The American Screen’ had not stood before a camera when she turned 21 in April of 1929. That would be the year that she would introduce herself to New York audiences in her Broadway debut, Broken Dishes. It would not be until 1931 that Davis would make her first screen appearance in the Universal melodrama The Bad Sister (pictured, right), opposite a charismatic leading man named Humphrey Bogart.

LOUISE BROOKS:
Happy 21^st! November 14, 1927
Arguably the most iconic actress of the first quarter-century of cinema, Brooks had survived a miserable childhood in Kansas to be an acclaimed dancer; in 1925 at the age of 19, she landed a featured role with the famous Ziegfeld Follies on Broadway. Her beguiling beauty and offscreen reputation (at age 20, she had a well-publicised liaison with Charlie Chaplin) ensured film work was steady; by 21, she had eleven film credits and was being noticed by some of Europe’s leading filmmakers. Highest amongst those was GW Pabst, the German who would cast Brooks, nearing her 22^nd birthday, in her iconic role of Lulu in 1929’s Pandora’s Box. 

Comments

[Kathryn Fleming]

I do recall an agent colleague of mine back in 2003 saying, "you almost have to find them as they come out the womb darling, otherwise someone else will!"