The Many Sides of Isabella Rossellini

Show: FRESH AIR
Date: JUNE 12, 1997
Time: 12:00
Tran: 061203NP.217
Type: FEATURE
Head: Isabella Rossellini
Sect: News; Domestic and International
Time: 12:06

TERRY GROSS, HOST: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.

Isabella Rossellini knows she means different things to different people. She says to people 60 and over, she's the daughter of movie star Ingrid Bergman. To film scholars, she's the daughter of Italian director Roberto Rossellini. People in their 30s know her as the star of "Blue Velvet." Women of different generations know her as the former model for Lancome Cosmetics.

Isabella Rossellini writes about those different facets of her life in her new memoir "Some of Me." When she was growing up, her mother was virtually exiled from Hollywood. Ingrid Bergman had fallen in love with Roberto Rossellini while she was married to another man.

She'd filed for divorce, and while she was waiting for it to come through, she became pregnant with a son conceived with Rossellini. This caused a great scandal.

I asked Isabella Rossellini if she understood why this turned her mother into an outcast in Hollywood.

ISABELLA ROSSELLINI, ACTRESS, MODEL, AUTHOR OF "SOME OF ME": Well, you still doing it in America. It's pretty scandalous to me that people are persecuted -- politician, military people -- are persecuted on the basis that my mother was persecuted 50 years ago.

And often in interviews, people say it's inconceivable nowadays to think what has happened to my mother, it's happening every day. People's life are ruined because they fell in love with someone else when they were married, or they had an affair years before -- you know, all human mistakes that everybody could make.

GROSS: This is a very good point. How did your mother describe to you the morals charges against her, you know, in Hollywood? You know, what people held against her. Did she explain that to you when you were young?

ROSSELLINI: You know, she never said "I gotta tell you something." We sat at the table and she announced it to me. She wrote an autobiography and at the time that she was writing it, she went back to looking at some of the letters she had received and some of the articles that came out, and I think that came back fresh in her memory. So in that time, we talked more about it.

I think she was very hurt by it, and I think she remained hurt throughout her life, and a great fear of witch-hunt.

GROSS: One of the things that I learned about from your new book Some of Me is that when you were young, you had scoliosis, a curvature of the spine, and yours was pretty severe.

ROSSELLINI: Yes.

GROSS: So you had surgery in which, what, 13 vertebrae were fused? Do I have that right?

ROSSELLINI: Exactly.

GROSS: And you were in a body cast for, what, about six months?

ROSSELLINI: For about two years.

GROSS: Two years? My goodness.

ROSSELLINI: Yes.

GROSS: How did you spend your time when you were in the body cast?

ROSSELLINI: Well, most of the time, you're very sick, so most of the time you're just trying to -- you can't do much, if you are in pain. You know, just sit there and wait 'tail the pain subsides. And then occasionally, I felt better and then I tried as much as I could to go to school, take walks, have a regular life. But obviously, it was incredibly disruptive.

But I think the hardest part of it was the pain. The pain -- everything else you could deal with, you know. I was a teenager and I was embarrassed to have a body cast. I was embarrassed to be labeled deformed, because that's what a scoliosis is.

But those all seemed to be not major problems. Really, the great problem is great physical pain. That is really hard, and I don't have any solution for it. I'm just -- I'm glad that I'm over it.

GROSS: How long did the pain last?

ROSSELLINI: The pain last for periods, depending on the operation. Now, they don't do that procedures anymore. If you have a scoliosis now, then you are either in a brace until you are completely grown or they operate.

But now they've found a metal leak (ph) that they can use, and the body doesn't reject. But at the time I did my operation, they used bone from my leg to fuse my vertebrae, so that there will be no problem of rejection.

But in order for the bone to fuse together, I had to be immobilized for six months, and then also I had cast. The operation was very painful. The stretching and the correction of the spine, which is now done while you're asleep and with this rod, metal rods -- were done instead when you're awake on a -- and they thoroughly stretched you, like the medieval torture.

And that was very painful, and that pain stayed for a long time because the cast was much bigger than I, so it would pressure -- I had a machine in my mouth because the pressure was so strong beneath -- underneath my chin and on my hips that my teeth could go back in my jaws, so I had a machine to keep my jaw separated, but still the pressure on the jaw was great. So it took days before my body gave in to that length.

GROSS: I think what's so interesting about what you went through when you were young is that, you know, you -- as an adult, you've been an internationally acclaimed beauty. And it must have been so odd for you to go from thinking of yourself as deformed to thinking of yourself as beautiful or...

ROSSELLINI: Yes...

GROSS: ... or to realize at least that other people thought of you as beautiful.

ROSSELLINI: Yeah, that was kind of -- it was wonderful. You know, I remember people sending postcards to my doctor saying: can you imagine? It was -- yeah, it was pretty wonderful to have overcome all the odds.

GROSS: Was it important to you to be beautiful? Your mother was beautiful. You probably had a pretty insecure self-image when you were young because of the scoliosis and the surgery.

ROSSELLINI: But not so much. You know, I think one thing is to do -- I don't know. I can't really -- I don't remember being young and wondering if I was beautiful or not beautiful and terribly concerned about that. I don't remember even in my old age being very concerned about it.

I don't know if it is wisdom or if I'm spoiled. Maybe people did tell me: you look so pretty. So I thought, oh well, then I don't have to worry about that. So I don't know -- I don't remember it as being an obsession.

When I had scoliosis, I didn't think of myself as ugly. I thought of myself as deformed, as having a deformed spine, which is different, you know, in trying to be well and trying to walk. I couldn't walk for -- because I'd lost the ability to walk. The stake was so much higher than just look pretty.

GROSS: Right. Right. How did you start modeling?

ROSSELLINI: I start modeling by chance. I was 28 and I used to work for the Italian television -- I'm Italian originally, but I lived in New York and I -- and socially I've met a wonderful photographer called Bruce Webber (ph) who wanted to photograph me and I thought: oh, that'd be fun, so I can maybe buy the issue of that magazine, all done up, and save it -- show it to my grandchildren. I'll be an old bag and say: "look -- I looked pretty when I was photographed once."

But then from Bruce's photo, I really literally had an overnight success, and within a month, I was in Richard Avedon's studio working basically every day, having covers -- and my life completely changed, and I became a model and learned to love it.

GROSS: You've been photographed by many great photographers. What are some of the different ways they get you to respond to the camera? Do you feel like you respond to the camera differently, depending on who the photographer is?

ROSSELLINI: Oh, definitely. There is a definitely style of posing. I have seen very, very beautiful girl who didn't have a great career, and somebody else who maybe was a little bit -- they're always beautiful, the common denominator among models is they are beautiful -- but some of them are odd looking, or there is something strange and not classical beauty. And yet they have bigger careers just because there is an art in modeling; there is a know-how.

And the style of posing also slightly changes with a different photographer. It can be more emphatic and artificial, or it can be real real and real acting. And you learn that as you go along and do it.

GROSS: So, are there things that photographers would actually tell you to do or tell you to think about that would help?

ROSSELLINI: Well, in my book I give the example with Richard Avedon. He was the first -- see, I was terribly spoiled. My first experience was with Bruce Webber followed by Richard Avedon, and they taught me -- the thing -- I couldn't bear to -- I couldn't have had a better school.

I remember when I was posing, I thought I just had to be obedient and wear the clothes and make sure I wasn't going to wrinkle them up and mess them up. And I sat there and just obediently just wait for every instruction -- turn a little bit left; turn a little bit right; look up; look down. And I just obeyed.

And Avedon would just look at me and say: can you think of something? And then when I thought of something, he'd say: no, change your thought. I don't like what you're thinking.

LAUGHTER

I said, what does he saying? What he -- he doesn't know what I'm thinking. So I went back to a thought I had, and he caught me immediately. He said: no, no -- I told you. I don't like what you're thinking. Change your thought.

And I think he could -- by -- if you concentrate, there is something that emanates through you, and that's what the great photographer photographs. The fact that you're -- you know, Diana Vreeland, I quote in my book saying: "there is no beauty without emotion." And I think that that's what -- what is the responsibility of a model.

It isn't so much to look beautiful. That mostly is genetic. You know, you're born like that. But you have to show your emotions, that's what makes a great photo.

GROSS: Now, is this something you think about when you're making movies, too?

ROSSELLINI: Yes it is. That's why I always say that it isn't, you know, people always differentiate between the two jobs as being so categorically different -- modeling and acting -- and they are, instead, there is a lot of it in common.

What you don't have in common is that you don't have a dialogue when you are a model. You don't have to react to another actor. Sometimes you react to the photographer in the same way an actor would respond to the partner in front.

So -- but, you know there are a lot of similarities in terms of the inter -- the feeling that rises from within and changes your expression in your face -- in your eyes. That is exactly the same for modeling and acting.

But acting probably is a little bit more complex because a storytelling -- there is an evolution of emotion that you have to have and you have to do them in a certain order that people realize that from upset you get happy, and how do you get from this to that.

In modeling, you don't have to do the range, the arc. You just have to show the emotion, right then and there. So it's probably simpler, but it is very similar.

GROSS: My guest is actress and model Isabella Rossellini. We'll talk more after a break.

This is FRESH AIR.

My guest is actress and model Isabella Rossellini, and she's written a new memoir called Some of Me, as opposed to All of Me.

LAUGHTER

ROSSELLINI: Exactly. It's not all of me -- just a little bit of me.

GROSS: Now, I found it interesting before you started modeling professionally, you say you wore very little makeup.

ROSSELLINI: Yes, I still do.

GROSS: Why?

ROSSELLINI: I guess I grew up like that. You know, nobody in my family used much makeup, and then you use so much makeup when you work, you know, that partially it's maybe that. You know, you have made up with such great makeup artists that you can never mimic the result of makeup done by these great professionals.

I enjoy makeup. I mean, it's definitely a great tool for my work, not only as a model, but also as an actress. I often used makeup and clothes to create characters, whether it was Dorothy Valence (ph) in Blue Velvet or maybe the most, how you say, extreme -- it was Perdita Durango (ph) in "Wild at Heart," where I just had one scene, and I've used completely my ability of model and body appearance and body language to convey character.

And I think I did, because in one scene, I think people did have a precise idea who Perdita Durango was.

GROSS: Once you started modeling for Lancome, you had a contract that stipulated you had to wear makeup for public appearances.

ROSSELLINI: Yes. Well, obviously, obviously. I think they're right. You know, you have to celebrate and support what you represent.

GROSS: What else did the contract say?

ROSSELLINI: Well, the contract -- I think the oddest part of the contract is the moral stipulation. You know, that if I was involved in any scandal, they could get rid of me, which reminded me of the contract in the '40s, that actors and actresses had with the studios. And they were similar that way. There were many, many similarities.

The idea that a studio then or a company now works as a Pygmalion -- they create you, so you have to obey to that image, to that persona that they have created. Even in modeling now, they -- there is a greater liberalization. But when I signed the contract, which was almost, oh now it's almost 17 years ago, still the moral stipulation was still in.

GROSS: You know, another stipulation that was in -- I don't know if it's still in today in contracts -- is that you weren't allowed to gain weight.

ROSSELLINI: Oh, well, that's obvious. Yes.

GROSS: Right.

ROSSELLINI: That's obvious because you have to, you know, they have to use your image and you become like a label. So you can't change too much. It also stipulated that I couldn't change hair color or hairdo, or that I at least to have their approval. And it's understandable. You know, you are represent -- you have to create a certain continuity.

GROSS: Well, did food become a big issue for you during those years?

ROSSELLINI: No, it didn't because I never was an anorexic model. I was always -- I always said I was the fattest, shortest, oldest of the models.

LAUGHTER

So I was pretty much -- my weight, I just watched not to become too fat, and that was it.

GROSS: And with the morals clause -- when you made Blue Velvet and especially when you were nude in a scene in Blue Velvet, did Lancome object to that? Blue Velvet's a very kinky, weird film.

ROSSELLINI: You know, Lancome is a big entity. You know, it's many, many people, and some people were shocked by the film, as the general audience was, and some people loved the film, as some member of the general audience would too. So there was the same debate that there was in the magazines and in the paper -- it was within Lancome.

But I guess that the film was successful and the film was recognized as an artistic film. And then Lancome became quite pleased that I wasn't just -- I think in a way for me, to having been an actress and having done other things than just Lancome -- helped me maintain my contract for 14 years.

Generally, the models that have the big contract -- you get a big salary, so you don't have to work if you don't want to work. Then the company gets tired of you. They look, and they say: well, there's another girl that seems more appealing. And generally, you -- they don't stay more than three, four, five years.

But I loved my work and I wanted to continue it. And I think -- and I just did it. And I think it helped Lancome -- they -- kept Lancome -- kept them being interested on me -- seeing many facets and other aspect of me.

GROSS: What about having a child without being married? How did they react to that?

ROSSELLINI: Well, they didn't like that so much, but then they had to live with it, 'cause I'm tough, you know.

LAUGHTER

I assert my freedom very strongly, so they understood that at the beginning.

GROSS: You were how old when you lost the contract with Lancome?

ROSSELLINI: Forty-two.

GROSS: And it was because of your age?

ROSSELLINI: Yes it was because of my age. I mean, I have -- you know, it was a very long debate. You know, it isn't -- it didn't happen all of a sudden. There is -- you know, and I feel bad that Lancome is nowadays the one that has been accused of having not kept me, even if we had an enormously successful campaign.

But the truth of the matter is that any fashion magazine or any film, any woman that is represented as beautiful, appealing -- it's between 16 and 32. So Lancome actually did keep me until I was 42, and there was an enormous debate within the company whether to keep me or not, until they just succumbed to the tradition and they -- in spite of my protesting -- but it's their freedom, and I guess freedom is more to be respected.

So I do respect their choices. I do still think that we lost an opportunity to break a prejudice, because I do believe that it is a prejudice not to use older women to represent elegance.

GROSS: On a real practical level, older women buy their share of cosmetics and they want to see them displayed on somebody who is a mature woman, not someone in their 20s, 'cause there's no way you're going to look like that.

ROSSELLINI: Well, that's -- well, that is their point. The point is that when you do a campaign, you represent the dream in people. You do not represent a reality in people. They believe that the dream of women is to stay young, so they take the symbol of youth -- they take someone who's not terribly young because then you would feel terribly alienated.

It's very interesting -- you see, the people that do the cosmetic campaign, the big cosmetic campaign, are generally in their late 20s or early 30s. They're generally brunettes instead of blondes, because brunettes are more accessible and people can identify.

But still, they have to be young enough to represent a sort of a dream of what you wish to be. I -- my point with Lancome is that the new generation of women, the biggest dream isn't to stay young -- is to be independent; to be free; to be powerful; to do what you like to do; to assert yourself.

But they considered that too avant garde. It's not that they didn't recognize it. They said: yes, but we still think it's a minority of women that has those value, and that the biggest group of women dream to stay young. That's why plastic surgeons are so successful, I guess.

GROSS: Right.

ROSSELLINI: So they had a valid point, and they're there to sell cream, not to do a social battle.

GROSS: What was your mother, Ingrid Bergman's, attitude toward getting older? Toward having wrinkles on her face? Did that bother her?

ROSSELLINI: I don't remember ever discussing that with my mother, and I don't think she was very affected by it. But then one day I spoke to my stepfather, who said: oh, mama -- you know, she was kind of worried about that. And it surprised me, you know, then I said: well, obviously she must have been to a certain extent. She was an actress. She must have worked less, but I don't know that it was a great obsession.

In my book, I imagine a conversation with my parents. Unfortunately, I lost both of them in my 20s. And if you want, I can read you some. I said, I asked my mother -- I'm asking my mother, you know, the...

Isabella: "mama, you were told you were beautiful."

Mother: "oh, yes. Many times. I felt a bit embarrassed about it. I never knew what to say and what to do. Then I found the answer: when they said 'Miss Bergman, you look so beautiful,' I say: isn't it lucky? And felt that with that response, I had killed the subject and we could move on.

And then -- and then it's me again...

"And when they stopped saying it, and you were just told you looked old, and then how beautiful you had been..."

Mother: "I wasn't told that to my face, but behind my back."

Isabella: "but whatever -- but did it hurt you? Did you feel bad about getting older?"

And mother said: "what can I tell you? I didn't particularly like it, but the alternative -- dying young -- seemed a much worse destiny."

That's what I make my mother answer.

GROSS: So this is an imaginary conversation.

ROSSELLINI: It's an imaginary conversation, but I think she would answer that.

GROSS: Isabella Rossellini has written a new memoir called All of Me. She'll be back in the second half of our show.

I'm Terry Gross and this is FRESH AIR.

BREAK

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross, back with actress and model Isabella Rossellini. She's written a new memoir called Some of Me. Rossellini grew up in Rome and Paris and moved to New York at the age of 19. She didn't become a model until she was 28, and it was only after that that she established herself in her acting career.

How much of an emphasis on acting have you wanted to have in your career?

ROSSELLINI: I guess when I was a teenager, I wanted to do something different than acting, because not only my mother was such a great, established actress and adored, but everybody else in my family was very successful, including my father, who was a great film maker.

And then when I became a model, I thought there were some -- there must have been some similarities with acting, and I became curious about acting. I kind of loved modeling, unexpectedly, because I thought, like everybody else, that it was a stupid job. I had this stereotype in my head.

So then, I tentatively started to take classes and then I got some parts and had the courage to do them, which isn't easy when you come from a family that has been so glorified in films. I like acting, but I think I like it somewhat less than my mother. My mother just adored it, lived for it.

And I don't. I like it -- I like it a lot, but I don't have the same -- I think my mother liked acting most and above all, you know.

GROSS: Well, you grew up around people who were obsessed with work -- I mean your father; your mother. You've been married to people who have been obsessed with work. Do you wish you had that obsession? Or are you glad to not have it?

ROSSELLINI: Now, I'm glad not to have it. For many years, I felt diminished by not having that same passion, because I thought that passion corresponded to the amount of talent you had.

And still today, I have to say, when I see the ability, then a passion for film or passion for writing or passion for something -- that you can completely be absorbed by it. There is something incredibly enviable.

And yet I have my children, and I'm really glad now not to have that obsession. And if I have to pay it by having less talent, well then I'd rather have less talent, but be with my children.

GROSS: I want to ask you about Blue Velvet. You were so wonderful in that film.

ROSSELLINI: Thank you.

GROSS: You played a nightclub singer who's exotic and mesmerizing, but is in a weird and abusive relationship with a psycho played by Dennis Hopper.

ROSSELLINI: Yes.

GROSS: How did you get the part? And what interested you in this part?

ROSSELLINI: To me, it was the only time that I could portrayed a battered woman and a Stockholm Syndrome, where it was -- it's very hard for a victim to recognize that they are victim. Generally, a victim feels guilty.

And it was -- and it's -- and feels -- and does anything to please the person who's torturing them, and it's an absolute strange twist that our mind gives us, and, you know, it is a recognized syndrome of kidnapped people or rape victims.

And I thought it was quite interesting to play that part. And that what appealed me for the role, it was a wonderful way to portray sexuality and the darkness of it. And I played a femme fatale that was -- was femme fatale just because she was kind of beautiful and she was singing and she had the features of somebody beautiful, but yet she was completely destroyed inside.

And that was a pretty good role, you know. Most of the time, the femme fatale's are portrayed as women who know exactly what they want and completely -- and sex is portrayed as something that you don't -- that you go out there and choose for yourself, when we know that the reality is often we, you know, we just have to -- it just happens to us, and then we don't know what to do with it; what to make of it.

GROSS: I'd like to play an excerpt of a scene that you had with a young man played by Kyle MacLachlan (ph), and in this scene, you know, he's trying to solve the mystery of who you are and who Frank, the Dennis Hopper character, is.

In this scene, you're being very seductive -- you're trying to seduce him.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP, SCENE FROM MOVIE "BLUE VELVET")

ROSSELLINI: Do you like the way I feel?

KYLE MACLACHLAN, ACTOR: Yes.

ROSSELLINI: Feel me. Hit me.

SOUND OF POUNDING

MACLACHLAN: Dorothy, no. Stop it.

ROSSELLINI: Hit me. Hit me. Hit me.

GROSS: Isabella Rossellini, did you understand why this character asks to be hit?

ROSSELLINI: Yes, I do, because I once was beaten and when -- and I remembered when I played that part, and I had to say that line "beat me, beat me" -- I say: why would this woman want to be beaten?

And then I remembered that the time that it happened to me, that I was beaten, the first blow to my head, and you just see little stars, exactly like Donald Duck. And there was a sense of bewilderment, and you don't know where you are. But I wasn't panicked -- I wasn't anything -- I just was bewildered. I mean, strange feeling.

And I thought that this woman, who had so many torment in her mind, became the victim of the abuse that she -- because they -- she was raped and beaten by the character of Dennis Hopper, so that when she did get the first blow, the first punch, she would see star, and her tormented thoughts could stop. And that's why she asked to be beaten.

GROSS: What an interesting way of looking at it. Who beat you?

ROSSELLINI: I don't want to give the details of all that. I don't want to start looking like, oh, poor me, poor me. It happened, but I'm fine now.

GROSS: Fine. OK. OK.

LAUGHTER

Now, an interesting you say about making this movie in your memoir is that when you were rehearsing, you didn't have to wear the makeup; you didn't have to wear the clothes -- but you had to have the red fingernail polish on, otherwise you just couldn't do the part.

ROSSELLINI: Yes.

GROSS: Why is that?

ROSSELLINI: Well, I think that because a lot of the scenes were nude and a lot of the scenes were rape and a lot of it was very vulnerable, it was easier for me to play Dorothy -- to be someone else.

And so even when we rehearsed, since Dorothy used a lot of makeup -- because I think Dorothy was covering herself up -- she used makeup like a mask -- to mask her troubled insides; to make the lips perfectly red and the eye shadows perfectly blue. Everything was to mask the fact that she was completely destroyed.

So I needed my red nail polish as my hands flew in front of me to give me that sense of coverup that she was so desperately trying to give. And if I would see my hand not made up, it would be Isabella's hand, and I couldn't be Dorothy.

GROSS: Right. And what do you do when you're shooting, like, the scenes with Dennis Hopper -- say the scenes where he's raping you and inhaling this weird...

ROSSELLINI: Yeah.

GROSS: ... this weird gas that he inhales that turns him on. What do you do in a scene like that to break the tension?

ROSSELLINI: Well, Dennis was wonderful. You know that that was the first scene I have done in the film. I just came. The film had started, I think, a week or two, and we came in and David said, you know, we're going to start with that scene, because that scene otherwise we'll be -- we'll always be thinking about it. We'll always be worrying about it.

So we'll do it in the first day so we get it over with. And I couldn't believe that I had to be in front of Dennis Hopper, naked and say all these weird things. It was agonizing, and I asked -- I left a little message to Dennis' room saying: can I have breakfast with you? I've never met the man -- just to get to know him a little bit.

And he came very annoyed that, you know: what do you want? To become friends to do that? And he was right. You know, you are acting. You don't have to be friends. But then Dennis and David were so wonderfully protective of me and so wonderfully comical to -- that they really released the tension and it was wonderful to work with them.

GROSS: There's a scene in the movie where you're wandering around the street naked. Tell me about that scene, and what you wanted your body to look at. It's not a vanity scene.

ROSSELLINI: No, not at all. I mean it's a -- not at all. I -- David Lynch told me that when he was a child, coming back from school, he saw a naked woman walking the street. And instead of getting aroused or excited at that sight, he started to cry.

It terrified him. And he wanted to convey the same terror. He wanted Dorothy to walk in the street of the -- of Wilmington where we shot the film, naked and convey the same sense of terror, instead of the sense of sex appeal.

And when he was talking to me, there was a photo of Nick Art (ph) that I remembered, and it was a photo of a young girl in a -- in Vietnam. She has been a victim of napalm attack and her clothes have been completely torn off her body and she has skin hanging, and she's completely naked, and she walks in the street with the arms outstretched, and it's such a helpless gesture. And I couldn't think of anything else but this absolute helpless gesture and walking like that.

If I would have walked covering my breast or covering myself, it meant that Dorothy still had some sense of pride -- still had something in her to protect her. That woman had to have lost everything, and so she had to walk completely exposed -- just saying: help me.

And that photo is the photo -- I took the gesture from that photo, and used it. And I hope that I conveyed the same sense of despair. I didn't -- I wanted to be like raw meat. You know, my nudity -- it was like raw meat, like a butcher -- like walking in a butcher and see a cow hanging, you know, a quarter of a cow hanging. That was the thing that I wanted to convey.

GROSS: It seems to me you really have a very analytical approach to acting.

ROSSELLINI: Ah...

LAUGHTER

GROSS: No, really, I mean, that you really kind of think it through on many levels.

ROSSELLINI: Well, I do. You know, I don't know. I can't tell, but this is the way I do it. (Unintelligible) it is more or less analytical than others.

GROSS: Isabella Rossellini is my guest, and she has a new memoir called Some of Me. Let's take a short break and then we'll talk some more.

This is FRESH AIR.

Back with actress and model Isabella Rossellini. She has a new memoir called Some of Me.

When you were growing up with your parents Ingrid Bergman and the film director Roberto Rossellini, did you love movies? Were movies a big part of your life?

ROSSELLINI: Not very -- no not very much, strangely enough -- no they weren't. I've always -- my father and mother were very, very interested in other things -- in films, as well, but a lot of other things, especially my father. And I've always assumed that any director will be interested in politics, in religion, in any science -- in any other subject where they would get inspiration to do their films.

It was only later in life that I discovered that often directors are just film buffs. They don't know anything else but films. That was very surprising to me.

GROSS: When did you realize how much you looked like your mother? And I don't know if you agree with everybody who says that you do, but I sure do...

ROSSELLINI: Oh, yes -- they...

GROSS: ... think there's a really strong...

ROSSELLINI: ... they say it a lot. Yes, I write about -- I write it in my book about it, because I always thought oh, people exaggerate. It's not true. They -- you know, and then my mother noticed it

My mother saw me once on television when I was working as a journalist, and she said: you know, I see it on television. I don't see it in life, but see it when you appeared on television. We move the same. It isn't only that we have similar features, but there is something in the voice and way we moved.

And I said: no, mother, you're wrong. I don't think so. I don't -- I think you're wrong. So I was the last one to be convinced. And then one day I walked into an antique shop, and there were beautiful things -- tables and chairs and old mirrors.

And I was walking, and a middle-aged woman came in, quite elegant, but she looked very reserved, so I -- every time I walked toward her, you know, I discreetly walked the opposite way so I wouldn't disturb her, until I bumped into her.

And as I was walking, though, I kept on saying: she reminds me of my mother. She reminds me of my mother. And then when I bumped into her, I looked up and it was myself. I had not recognized -- it was a reflection of me in the mirror. I had not recognized myself because I didn't realize I'd grown so old.

And then I said -- but I did say to myself: she reminds me of my mother. And there was me. So that's when I thought, well, people are right. I do look like her.

GROSS: You write in your memoir that your mother came out of Hollywood, and she had a Hollywood sense of entertainment. She liked entertainment. Whereas your father, the famous neo-realist director, had a much more kind of serious artistic approach to movies.

Do you feel that you grew up -- and that he didn't care much about "light" entertainment -- do you feel that you grew up with an integrated sense of both, you know, film as higher art and as an entertainment?

ROSSELLINI: I think so. I think I'm more indulgent to, you know -- if I see a film that it's silly, but I have enjoyed looking at it, I praise it, as I praised film that made me think or make me cry. And yet I still am convinced that when you are -- see, my father was really a film maker that innovated cinema. He had to be completely -- I think he needed energy or faith and absolute belief in your ideas.

If you are like me -- too democratic and too open -- I don't think you can assert yourself where you can break grounds. You know, often -- often I found out that the great artists are the people that really are breaking grounds. They are pretty obsessive -- not all of them, but some of them.

GROSS: Right, right. Well, you know, I should say -- you lived with at least one very obsessive director. You were married to Martin Scorcese for what...

ROSSELLINI: Yes.

GROSS: ... two or three years. And I'm wondering if you ever wanted to be in his movies while you were together?

ROSSELLINI: Mm-hmm. When I was together -- when we were married, I wasn't an actress, so I'm -- we weren't thinking.

GROSS: Oh, it was before you started acting?

ROSSELLINI: Yes, it was before I started acting. And then we've talked about it -- I mean, I would love to work with Marty. It would be fantastic, but we never really had an opportunity. We never had the right role that I could play.

GROSS: Do you think that having an accent which sounds European but also vaguely Swedish -- do you think having an accent has affected your film career in America?

ROSSELLINI: I think it does, to a certain -- it does, because it limits the role that you can play. If they want a very American character or if the writer or the director always conceived of that person to be American, it's hard for them, then, to have a foreigner.

They always think that if a foreigner live in a country, how do you -- do you have to justify it? Or would she change? Would she be lost? What happened to her family?

You know, there are consequences to a character. You can't be a -- you know, a housewife from -- very adjusted to the life in the neighborhood. If you are a foreigner, you bring in a certain amount of exotism. So in a way, it limits your career.

On the other hand, it helped me because I do Dutch film; I do French film; I do Italian film -- and I love the variety. And accent, you know, I've tried very much to camouflage my accent with other accent. I was unable to erase my accent and speak with English perfectly well. So I, in films, I had a German accent, Hungarian, Russian, Italian, French. So with that device, I was able to at least play different nationality.

GROSS: We're going to end this interview with you singing Blue Velvet.

LAUGHTER

ROSSELLINI: How about right now? Taped?

GROSS: Taped. Taped. Have you sung much outside of this film?

ROSSELLINI: No, I haven't. I loved it. I loved singing for Blue Velvet.

GROSS: Yeah. You sang really well -- very nice.

ROSSELLINI: Thank you, but no, I wish I could. I did do a record lately. A group called "Tender Sticks" (ph) asked me -- they -- I did a song with them. They wanted -- it's a love story of a singer who falls in love with an actress, and so the -- I play the actress.

And I have to sing badly, like an actress would sing -- more with voice and mood than a real ability of singing. And that was fun to do. I wish I could do more. I wish I had a better voice, so I could do more singing.

GROSS: Oh, I like your voice. And I want to thank you so much for talking with us.

ROSSELLINI: Thank you so much for having me.

GROSS: Isabella Rossellini's new memoir is called Some of Me.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP, ISABELLA ROSSELLINI SINGING "BLUE VELVET")

ROSSELLINI SINGING: She wore blue velvet
Bluer than velvet was the night
Softer than satin was the light from the stars
She wore blue velvet
Bluer than velvet were her eyes...

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR.

Dateline: Terry Gross, Philadelphia
Guest: Isabella Rossellini
High: Actress and model Isabella Rossellini talks about her famous parents, actress Ingrid Bergman and filmmaker Roberto Rossellini, and her own career. She has acted in numerous films including "Blue Velvet," and she was the spokesmodel for Lancome cosmetics company. Her new book about her life is entitled "Some of Me."
Spec: Movie Industry; Fashion; History; People; Isabella Rossellini
Please note, this is not the final feed of record
Copy: Content and programming copyright (c) 1997 National Public Radio, Inc. All rights reserved. Transcribed by Federal Document Clearing House, Inc. under license from National Public Radio, Inc. Formatting copyright (c) 1997 Federal Document Clearing House, Inc. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to National Public Radio, Inc. This transcript may not be reproduced in whole or in part without prior written permission. For further information please contact NPR's Business Affairs at (202) 414-2954
End-Story: Isabella Rossellini
Show: FRESH AIR
Date: JUNE 12, 1997
Time: 12:00
Tran: 061202NP.217
Type: FEATURE
Head: Spinning Song
Sect: Entertainment
Time: 12:53

TERRY GROSS, HOST: Pianist Herbie Nichols was a brilliant jazz composer whose tunes are slowly coming back into the jazz repertoire, 40 years after he recorded them.

Duck Baker is a finger-picking acoustic guitarist whose recordings include free improvisations with fellow guitarist Henry Kaiser (ph) and solo versions of jazz compositions by Duke Ellington and the South African pianist Abdullah Ibrahim (ph). Now, Baker has a CD playing Herbie Nichols pieces.

Jazz critic Kevin Whitehead has a review.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP, DUCK BAKER PLAYING SONG "HOUSE PARTY," COMPOSED BY COMPOSER/PIANIST HERBIE NICHOLS ON CD "SPINNING SONG")

KEVIN WHITEHEAD, FRESH AIR COMMENTATOR: That's "House Party" starting, by pianist Herbie Nichols, from Duck Baker's CD "Spinning Song."

There is a small tradition of playing piano rags on guitar, and the rhythms of 1920s stride pianists like Fats Waller have left their mark on blues and jazz guitar finger-picking patterns.

Not that it's easy to translate keyboard music to the fret board. Melodies, chords, and baselines spread out all over the ivories have to be compressed into the space of two octaves, and often those chords have to be simplified.

Baker is as good at adapting piano music to guitar as anybody, but Nichols' puzzling chords and little sprays of notes for atmospheric effect become, well, impossible. Any guitarist would know better. But when record producer and non-guitarist John Zorin (ph) suggested the idea, Baker figured: why not?

Here's Herbie Nichols and then Duck Baker playing "The Third World."

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP, HERBIE NICHOLS PLAYING "THE THIRD WORLD")

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP, DUCK BAKER PLAYING "THE THIRD WORLD")

The first thing you notice about the guitar version is that the tempo is much slower and not so steady. Duck Baker sounds like he's struggling, but he doesn't give up easily. He gets better marks on the comparison test for "2300 Skiddoo."

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP, HERBIE NICHOLS PLAYING "2300 SKIDDOO")

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP, DUCK BAKER PLAYING "2300 SKIDDOO")

It's a little unfair to make these comparisons. Like a movie adapted from a book, these guitar arrangements should be judged on their own terms. One nice thing about them is: Duck Baker makes connections and allusions that have little to do with Herbie Nichols, but a lot to do with guitar traditions.

He bends strings like a blues man and gives a few notes heavy vibrato like gypsy guitarist Jengo Reinhart (ph). This is "Lady Sings the Blues," a tune already adapted 40 years ago when Billie Holliday rewrote the bridge and put lyrics to it.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP, DUCK BAKER PLAYING "LADY SINGS THE BLUES")

WHITEHEAD: Duck Baker's liner notes to his CD Spinning Song make some astute points about the harmonic logic of Herbie Nichols' compositions, hoping to get jazz musicians to check them out. That's good advice for sure, and more and more musicians are discovering these pieces -- three decades after Nichols' death.

For that, give credit to industrious advocates like trombonist Roswell Rudd (ph), pianist Mischa Mengelber (ph), bassist Jule Neidlinger (ph), and Duck Baker.

GROSS: Kevin Whitehead is currently in Amsterdam. He reviewed Spinning Song, a collection of Herbie Nichols' compositions recorded by guitarist Duck Baker.

Dateline: Kevin Whitehead, Amsterdam; Terry Gross, Philadelphia
Guest:
High: Jazz critic Kevin Whitehead reviews "Spinning Song" featuring guitarist Duck Baker playing the music of Herbie Nichols.
Spec: Music Industry; People; Duck Baker; Jazz; Herbie Nichols
Please note, this is not the final feed of record
Copy: Content and programming copyright (c) 1997 National Public Radio, Inc. All rights reserved. Transcribed by Federal Document Clearing House, Inc. under license from National Public Radio, Inc. Formatting copyright (c) 1997 Federal Document Clearing House, Inc. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to National Public Radio, Inc. This transcript may not be reproduced in whole or in part without prior written permission. For further information please contact NPR's Business Affairs at (202) 414-2954
End-Story: Spinning Song
Transcripts are created on a rush deadline, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of Fresh Air interviews and reviews are the audio recordings of each segment.