Hair. Cut and Style, Spring 1991

ALL DOLLED UP

by John Griffiths

Photography by Albert Sanchez / Visages

Sherilyn Fenn Sherilyn Fenn Sherilyn Fenn Sherilyn Fenn Sherilyn Fenn
(click to enlarge in new window)

Fake moonlight pours over the velvet folds, and Edith Piaf warbles mournfully in the background. As the photographer checks his camera, the beautiful young actress with soft brown eyes sips Cristal champagne and waxes wistful, as is her wont. "I love Old Hollywood. Lauren Bacall. The breathtaking makeup and hair. Gloves. You know, when women were women. Those glowing sepiatones. Looking up into beautiful lights. And dressing up."

Best-known until recently for her provocative role in the light-weight erotic film Two Moon Junction, Sherilyn is currently one of the great pretenders in David Lynch´s soap-of-a-different-lather, "Twin Peaks". "He embraces everything in his mind and heart," says the neo-starlet about maverick director Lynch. "He´s so unique, so brave."

In 'Twin Peaks,' 25-year-old Fenn plays "bratty and spoiled" Audrey Horne, a girl "possessed of a tantalizing sexuality beyond her adolescent years" (to quote ABC´s heavy-breathing press release) which she uses to manipulate men - including daddy (Richard Beymer). Fenn relate to a point. "Everybody uses what they have to get somewhere sometimes. Some people would say she´s bad for doing that, but she´s not bad - she´s real." But Fenn claims she´s miles away from Audrey and from the platinum-blonde Madonna ringer she played in Junction: "It´s sad but true - a lot of people in the biz can´t see beyond that role. You´d think they have more imagination," she says in her sleepy, childlike voice. Fenn doesn´t regret the film, though, or any of the other less-than-sublime epics she´s wrapped (among them: Zombie High with Virginia Madsen, The Wraith with Charlie Sheen and Crime Zone with David Carradine), "I´m glad I´ve made the films I´ve made," she says. "If I hadn´t done each project, I wouldn´t have been able to mature. I´ve got to respect the process." That process includes two upcoming films. First there´s Desire and Hell at Sunset Motel, a ´60s set farce with David Johansen, and then Back Street Strays with Brooke Shields. And David Lynch was so pleased with her work in "Twin Peaks" that he gave her a cameo in his upcoming feature, Wild at Heart. Gasps Fenn of the mini-role: "David told me, 'I envisioned this broken China doll, all bloody, and ranting and raving - and it was you.'"