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Not often, but on occasion, the right people manage to achieve fame in their fields. The bestseller list momentarily shoves aside Michael Crichton to admit Michael Chabon. The same corrupt and wrongheaded music industry that won't stop shoving Beyoncé Knowles down our throats also allows Aimee Mann to hold on to a sizable following. And the film world, accustomed though it is to elevating the likes of Julia Roberts well above her rightful place in the world, still has room for Holly Hunter.
In a world where Demi Moore can play Hester Prynne, Mira Sorvino can play Daisy Buchanan, and Heather Graham hasn't been rolled up in a carpet and thrown off a bridge for her many crimes against art and humanity, someone like Holly Hunter shouldn't be famous at all. She's an unconventional, un-statuesque beauty. She has a thick Southern accent. She's crazy talented. And yet, somehow, she has risen to the top of her field anyway, and even won a Best Actress Oscar. It's like a miracle.
We're not sure how Holly Hunter managed to beat the odds and establish not just a living but an impressive body of excellent work. Coming up in the '80s -- a time when not every bankable movie star was also required to double as a supermodel -- probably helped. As did joining the Coen brothers repertory company (which also did wonders for the career of Hunter's ex-roommate Frances McDormand. Surely, it can't just be that extremely talented people will, inevitably, get their due if they just work and try hard enough; if that's all it took, Jeffrey Wright and Cherry Jones would be household names.
It finally doesn't really matter how Hunter became famous; what's important is that she is -- and is very famous, given the many very cool yet not especially commercial movies she's made -- and that we need her to stay that way. We need a sassy, scrappy underdog with a weary smile and an unbroken spirit. We need her to keep embodying each pivotal stage of a woman's life: the start of her career, when she's trying to establish herself professionally while also nurturing a relationship (Broadcast News); young motherhood, when she surprises herself with what she's willing to do for her kids (The Positively True Adventures of the Alleged Texas Cheerleader-Murdering Mom); the first divorce (Living Out Loud); the point when a formerly cool mom runs up against her child's burgeoning badness, and is flummoxed (Thirteen).
As for Hunter's fame outside the realm of the professional...well, like so many of our favourite famous people, we know very little about Hunter's personal life. When she married someone who, like her, was in show business, it wasn't a Ben Affleck or a P.Diddy -- it was Oscar-winning cinematographer Janusz Kaminski. She may have kids, or do charity work in her spare time, or entertain fantasies about directing, but she keeps those things to herself.
Holly Hunter is just...good. She's the total package. Even in bad movies (recent misfires Moonlight Mile and Levity come to mind), she a reliable pro, and her presence in good movies makes them even better. That she continues to be famous for starring in movies like Thirteen and unlike The Banger Sisters is the sort of thing that keeps the American film industry only 99% travesty, rather than the full hundred.
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