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Helen Mirren: from monarch to madam for the sake of her husband?

Yes, I know it’s a semi-tabloid headline, but I had to do something to make myself feel better about

Dame Helen Mirren’s latest project. Mirren has signed on to star in Love Ranch, directed by her husband Taylor Hackford. The film is the story of Joe and Sally Conforte, who opened Nevada’s first legal bordello in 1971. The state’s licensure of Mustang Ranch led to the state’s legalization of brothel prostitution in 17 counties. Joe Pesci is coming out of semi-retirement to costar. That’s right; Dame Helen and Joe are playing husband and wife. To which I say, WTF?

OK. Let me step back and try to look beyond the odd couple surface. The story of Mustang Ranch is the stuff of legend, to be sure. Joe Conforte and Sally Burgess both owned brothels in the 1950s. They eventually went into business together and then got married. Joe did time for extortion and tax evasion (separate incidents) before he and Sally took over Mustang Ranch in 1967. Here’s the happy couple. Sally looks particularly non-Mirrenish. During the ’70s, Joe was investigated for inappropriately influencing local officials but was not indicted. Then in 1976, boxer Oscar Bonavena, who was managed by Sally Conforte and rumored to be having an affair with her, was shot and killed outside of Mustang Ranch by one of Joe’s bodyguards. Oscar looks a little like Patrick Swayze. Sally looks a little like Ebby Halliday, a Dallas Realtor who also doesn’t call to mind Helen Mirren. In 1977, both Confortes were convicted of income-tax evasion. Sally received a suspended sentence, and Joe fled the country rather than spend more time in prison. Sally stayed and managed Mustang Ranch.

It’s a good story – and Pesci seems born to play the part of Joe Conforte. But Mirren as Sally? Sally Conforte became a madam when she was 17. New West described her as overweight and in poor health, with a heavy limp. She could be “mean as a snake,” “swear like a real lady and rattle windows with her laugh.”

I mean no disrespect to Dame Helen’s acting prowess, but seriously, why did she take this part? I know her husband is directing, but seriously. (I’m so flummoxed, I’m starting to sound like Shonda Rimes.) I won’t go into Mirren’s choice to make National Treasure: Book of Secrets, since Dorothy Snarker already addressed the issue much more delicately than my feelings would allow. But is this the next step in the “I won an Oscar and lost my mind” syndrome that afflicts so many Best Actress winners?

Perhaps now that her memoirs have been released, she wants to do only projects unworthy of a second volume. Or maybe Mirren is feeling pressure to compete with her friend Dame Judi Dench for best scandalous Dame Commander of the OBE. If so, I respectfully suggest she forget Sally Conforte and ask her husband to make a movie based on this Vanity Fair photo. Am I overreacting? Can you see Helen Mirren as Sally Conforte? Perhaps we can come up with a better option to pass along to Mr. Mirren Hackford.

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