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At one time, the career paths of these two Party of Fivers seemed almost ludicrously easy to dissect, like a rudimentary cause-and-effect experiment in a grade ten physics class. First, Campbell -- one of the perky, aesthetically pleasing orphans of Party of Five -- was plucked from the show's ensemble for the lead in Scream, the clever, self-referential teen slasher film that in large part sparked the current conflagration of teen-oriented entertainment. Next, Hewitt -- the perky, aesthetically pleasing girlfriend of one of the orphans from Party of Five -- was plucked to play the lead in Kevin Williamson's follow-up to Scream, namely the less-clever, less-self-referential, rescued-from-Kevin-Williamson's-desk drawer teen slasher film, I Know What You Did Last Summer.
Hewitt seemed to land the role by virtue of the "One Degree of Separation" theory of casting: Neve Campbell in horror film = success. Hewitt in TV show with Campbell. Ergo, Hewitt in horror film = success. (This same theory led to the casting of, among others, Danny "One Degree of Separation from Mel Gibson" Glover as the lead in Predator 2.) And so, circa 1997, Hewitt seemed destined to trail in Campbell's wake, picking up her discards like a flower girl dispatched to gather the rose petals dropped on the red carpet by the Maid of Honour.
But then a funny thing happened: Campbell and Hewitt switched places. Or, more specifically, Hewitt managed to leap-frog over Campbell and smack dab onto every magazine cover in existence -- a development which, in hindsight, seems attributable to two accidents of nature: (a) Hewitt's cover-friendly middle name ("Love Conquers All!" "What's Love Got to Do With It?!" "For Love and Money!") and (b) her cover-friendly ample bosom. Soon, bolstered by the middling success of Can't Hardly Wait, Hewitt became one of a stable of poster girls for the teensploitation explosion. Also: Campbell, as it turned out (and bless her Canadian soul), can't act worth a lick.
Now, however, these celestial bodies are paired once again, this time in synchronous orbit around Planet Flopola. Campbell's attempt at reinventing herself as (a) bad girl (Wild Things), (b) indie auteur (Hair Shirt), (c) ingenue (54), and (d) screwball comedienne (Three to Tango) have all fizzled, and now, with the release of Scream 3, she finds herself as a fin de siècle Jamie Lee Curtis. Meanwhile, Hewitt's Party of Five spin-off, Time of Your Life, has inspired grammarians everywhere to explore new conjugations for the verb "to tank." And call us crazy, but we're guessing that Hewitt will come out the loser in the inevitable comparisons spurred by the upcoming TV movie The Audrey Hepburn Story, in which Ms. Hewitt plays the title role, and about which, the less said, the better.
One of the unavoidable by-products of this teen entertainment boom is that, when the bubble bursts and the demographers' affections shift to another slice of the population pie, we'll be left with an enormous glut of teen stars. And, lo, there will be a great reckoning. Of course, we all knew that the Rebecca Gayhearts and Charisma Carpenters and Brad Renfros were not long for this fame-world. And we all figured that, in all likelihood, only one of Party of Five's pouty urchins could go on to long-term fame and success. What we didn't foresee was that, circa 2000, the frontrunner would be Lacey Chabert.
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