Caffeinated Clint
The showbiz world is mourning the loss of actress, Brittany Murphy. She was 32-years-old.
Reports say Murphy, married to Simon Monjack, suffered a heart-attack (whilst in the shower). She was transported to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center but was pronounced dead on arrival.
Like most of you, the first time I saw Brittany Murphy was in ‘’Clueless”. And I remember the day I saw it fondly. It was the second last week of September, 2005. I’d had dinner with friends at the Pancake Parlour at Forrest Hill Shopping Centre (here in Melbourne) and we then decided to go and check out “that new teen comedy starring the girl from all the MTV videos (that being Alicia Silverstone, of course)”. I loved the film – especially loved Silverstone. I remember rushing to buy the soundtrack the next morning. But it wasn’t just a film that worked because of pop tunes and pretty “Barney’s” and “Betty’s”, Amy Heckerling’s exceedingly chic teen comedy was a success because it spoke to its audience like a lot of the other nineties films wanting to lasso the demographic hadn’t… couldn’t. And I attribute a lot of its success to – well, the writing mainly – but the casting. Silverstone was stellar, Paul Rudd was great fun, Dan Hedaya couldn’t be better, Stacey Dash and Donald Faison made for one hilariously mismatched couple, and Murphy – a then newcomer – was both adorable and skittishly wacky (you know what I mean) as ‘make over girl’ Tai (When Tai dejectedly sings back ‘Rollin with the Hommies’… your heart melted).
And we’d be seeing a heck of a lot more of Murphy over the next few years – she was in the Geoffrey Wright-directed (dreadfully inept horror film) “Cherry Falls”, co-starred opposite Drew Barrymore in the highly underrated “Riding in Cars with Boys”, had a small role in Greg Spence’s sequel to “The Prophecy”, was one of the many mascara-clad faces in the oft-broadcast “Drop Dead Gorgeous”, and – again – stole our hearts as the not-quite-all-there Lisa Swenson in “Girl Interrupted”.
Murphy kept busy in the noughties, starring in quite a number of films, and also lending her lungs to the Fox sitcom “King of the Hill” (in which she provided the voice of Luanne), but only really did a couple of ‘decent’ films – “Don’t Say a Word” (in which she gave on the best performances of her career; I remember having to park almost a suburb away that day to attend the media screening, ultimately having to catch a taxi to the Village City Centre), “Sin City”, and “8 Mile” making up the bulk of the consumable. By and large, Murphy spent most of the decade in schmaltzy comedies like “Just Married” with (then boyfriend) Ashton Kutcher, “Uptown Girls” with Dakota Fanning, and snooze-worthy rom-com “Little Black Book”. In recent years, Hollywood seemed more interested in her voice – utilizing it for such films as “Happy Feet”, “Good Boy!” and “Futurama : The Beast with a Billion Backs” – than her face…… and I guess, if we put two and two together, we can figure out why that was.
Apparently Murphy had been suffering from Anorexia for quite some time (my wife said she’d seen her on TMZ a couple of times looking very, very gaunt) so I’m guessing it was her health and not a scheduling difficulty that cost her the lead in the recent horror flick “The Caller” (Rachele Lefevre replaced her), and got her exercised from Sylvester Stallone’s “The Expendables” (yeah, her scenes apparently didn’t make it).
There are rumours circulating that Murphy also had diabetes. As someone who suffers from the disease, I can tell you – even with medication, insulation shots, regular check-ups – it’s still a fairly incapacitating sickness. Once you’ve got it, you’ve got it – and it can, sometimes despite how well you keep yourself, lead to worse things. If Murphy did indeed suffer from Anorexia, and also had Diabetes, that’s a lethal combination – – with food being a very, very important part of (well, everyone’s daily regime but especially) a diabetic’s day. If she was skipping meals, and sticking to the bare minimum, it would’ve really hurt her system. I know how I feel when I skip a meal (usually because I’ve worked right through; simply forgetting) or don’t eat enough – I feel like I’m about to keel over. And have. Can only imagine how hard it would be for to the body to keep running when it’s eaten the equivalent of one full meal for the week.
And is usually the case with someone that might be seen as an insurance problem , or with someone whose health mightn’t be up to scratch (like Corey Haim, Tom Sizemore), Murphy’s on-screen appearances over the last couple of years have been relegated to small-time Dean Cain vehicles (the upcoming “Abandoned”) and DTV thrillers (“Deadline”).
In some respects, all one needed to do was to go to Murphy’s IMDB page and check out her recent credits to see that all was not well. Things had really slipped for the girl. Sadly so, because she was very talented (Again, I bring up “Don’t Say a Word” – one of the best performances of that year).
But none of that really matters now, what matters is one of today’s finest young actresses has gone. Gone forever.
Our condolences to Murphy’s family, friends and many, many fans.
