Somehow it’s fitting that, at the time that a particularly
ugly campus rape (and its prosecution) is making news across America, media
sources are announcing the death of actress Theresa Saldana. Saldana, who died
of an unnamed illness at age 61, was a working actress celebrated for her role
in Martin Scorsese’s Raging Bull and
for a number of TV appearances. But the public best knew her for surviving an
attack by a deranged fan, who traveled from his home in Scotland to track her
to her West Hollywood apartment. On the morning of March 15, 1982 he approached
her on the sidewalk and stabbed her ten times, only stopping when accosted by a
passing bottled-water delivery man. Thankfully she recovered from her wounds,
founded an advocacy group to push for stricter anti-stalking laws, and had the
fortitude to play herself in a 1984 TV movie titled “Victims for Victims: The Theresa Saldana Story.” Re-enacting
the scene of her attack for the cameras must have taken real courage. (Sadly,
the story was repeated—with a much more tragic outcome—last week when a
finalist on The Voice, singer
Christina Grimmie, was killed after a concert in Orlando, apparently by yet
another male “fan.”)
It’s not only women who suffer at the hands of stalkers:
look at what happened to John Lennon. But women, whether famous or not, are
particularly vulnerable. Which reminds me of another death that occurred this
past year, that of British actress Adrienne Corri. She may not be well known,
particularly in this country, but personally I’ll never forget her. For it was
Corri who played a ghastly scene in Stanley Kubrick’s brutal dystopian drama, A Clockwork Orange (released in the U.S.
in 1971). In the film, Corri is an affluent housewife, lounging with her
husband in an isolated suburban house filled with arty bric-à-brac. Suddenly,
the sanctity of their home is violated by protagonist Alex (Malcolm McDowell) and
his band of marauding delinquents, known in the parlance of Anthony Burgess’s
source-novel as Droogs. As her husband, bound and gagged, is forced to watch,
Corri’s character is attacked by the young punks. Her red jumpsuit is sliced
away, leaving her naked and vulnerable. Alex then assaults her viciously to the
cheery tune of “Singin’ in the Rain,” before ramming her with a phallic-looking
piece of object d’art. The scene is staged by Kubrick to be darkly funny. Most
of the first-run audience surrounding me at the Grauman’s Chinese Theatre howled
with laughter. Personally, in all my days of moviegoing, I have never felt so
female, nor so vulnerable.
Why would a woman want to play such a role? The legend is
that Corri took the part when another actress refused to go through with it. For
her, a role was a role. In the course of her long stage and screen career, she
acted in the works of Samuel Beckett, and was directed by legends like Jean
Renoir (The River) and David Lean (Doctor Zhivago). Her New York Times obituary describes her as
“fearless,” and she was even able to approach a harrowing rape scene with a
sense of humor.
But rape, as we keep needing to be reminded, isn’t funny.
Jonathan Demme drove home that point in
a 1988 film, The Accused. The role of
the victim of a brutal gang rape in a pool hall won Jodie Foster her first
Oscar. The film forcefully argues against the “blame-the-victim” mentality that
still shows up in too many courtrooms. Still, it’s sad that Hollywood actresses
are so often rewarded for parts that trade on their characters’ victimization.
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