Tara dissed on E!NewsLive | Page 8 | Golden Skate

Tara dissed on E!NewsLive

euterpe

Medalist
Joined
Sep 4, 2003
There are DEGREES of talent. Maybe Kate Hudson isn't a worldshaking actress, but she IS talented. She's also very young, and she definitely has potential.

It's the Tori Spellings who really owe their acting careers to nepotism. Tori has appeared on Daddy's shows and has been in countless B- and C- made-for-TV melodramas, but she is not a "Hollywood star" because she is a very mediocre actress.
 
Joined
Jul 11, 2003
Lipinskifan - Tara's father got Tara a plug during a newscast on ABC when she skated juniors and did a couple of triples. If this wasn't a paid hype then the man has to be quite influential, oil and all.

Joe:rolleye:
 

rtureck

Final Flight
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
HYPE

Tara was hyped since she was a novice, IMHO there is nothing wrong with that. She is really that good . Olympic champion nuff said.

There is nothing she can do about it, if others are hyping. As far as I know Tara does not buy into the hype herself. She goes about her business like a mature responsible young lady/ woman.

There is of course a risk with HYPING , the backfire if a skater is hyped by self or by press/fans/ PR team, and fails to materialize it.
 
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Joined
Jul 11, 2003
The Tara hype interrupted a news broadcast. No other newscast was interrupted to say a skater executed two triples in the history of figure skating. I believe she came in second in that competition. This was several years before the Olympics. It would seem money or influence could only get that sort of hype. No other skater has ever done that.

Joe
 

mmandel

On the Ice
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
:sheesh: Could someone please lock this thread already? Wow...10 pages over a comment on E! - too much. Just MHO. Thank for the consideration.
 

Mistyeyed

Rinkside
Joined
Sep 4, 2003
:rolleye: I for one definately think some lips need to be locked! Some of these comments are horrible.

I never was a big fan of Taras. I hated when she won the gold from Michelle BUT

She is a very pretty girl and I see nothing wrong with how she presents herself. I hope acting pans out for her. She is so talented it will be ashame is she just does not continue to excell at something, I too think she has natural acting abilities. Thats all I have to say on that.

Best of luck to Tara. I did not understand just what she has gone thru with her hip but thanks to one very informative post(thankyou) I have learned alot. Anyone that can rise above all this is a very special person. If your not a Tara fan thats okay but its just not right to be downright mean just because you can. What goes around comes around.
 

chuckm

Record Breaker
Joined
Aug 31, 2003
Country
United-States
I have read most of these posts, mistyeyed, and I see very little mean-spirited stuff. Criticism isn't necessarily bashing, you know. Some folks liked Tara's costumes and pictures, some did not, and that is to be expected, as peoples' tastes vary. Some expressed concern about Tara's thinness.

As for Tara's acting aspirations, let's face it: Tara's major talent was figure skating. It is VERY hard to make a living as an actor unless there is major talent, and that is just not the case for Tara. But whether or not people thought Tara could make it as an actor, just about everyone wished her well in her future endeavors.
 
I

Ileana

Guest
Rgirl said:
Tara got dissed for missing SOI shows and dissed for skating in them. She can't win.

ITA, no matter what Tara does she will always be crticized. I don't care if she dresses well or not (but personally I think most of her outfits are great). Besides being a skater or actress I think Tara as a person is great! I've never known anyone who dedicates so much time to her fans and she is extremely grateful. In 2000 she gave everyone working for one of her fanclubs, Triumph On Ice (not official), Stars On Ice tickets. And recently she spent 45 minutes signing things for TaraFans.com at the rink in South Carolina when it was only suppposed to be 15 minutes. I've been lucky to see her twice (at SOI and the Blue Crush premiere) and both times she was so happy and didn't refuse to pictures or autographs. Plus I have recieved many handwritten cards and letters from her saying thank you for gifts I've sent.

Anyway, that's just my opinion...
 
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
Hi, Ileana. Thanks for posting on this Tara thread and welcome to Golden Skate. One thing for sure, look how many people are still interested in Tara and her career on and off the ice -- this thread went on for 10 pages!

Bottom line, we all wish this splendid world, Olympic and professional champion good health and a happy future.

Mathman
 
Joined
Jul 11, 2003
Other than dissing Tara on whether or not she had it easy to get roles on soaps, my questions is: Has there ever been a top tier figure skater who became a top tier actor?

Could any of them play Blanche duBois? or Cool Hand Luke?

I'm willing to give them a try but I'm not in the movie business to make money.

Joe
 

euterpe

Medalist
Joined
Sep 4, 2003
Katarina Witt was in a Robert Di Niro movie where she played (naturally) a figure skater who eventually gets shot while performing. But you saw her only from a distance, and she didn't have any lines. So I don't think it can be said that she was doing any acting.

Carol Heiss was in a 3 Stooges movie. I haven't seen it, but you can picture her playing the straightwoman to those 3 idiots.

Oksana Baiul was in a TV show where she played (naturally) a figure skater with health problems. She was fascinatingly awful.

Then there was a Tara TV show, where Tara played, of all things, a figure skater. Nancy Kerrigan was in it too (also as a figure skater), and they were both at the same ABC level of acting.

So far, the only 'real' figure skating actors were Sonja Henie and Vera Hruba Ralston. Sonja was Academy-award material compared to VHR, whose non-talent helped drive Republic Pictures to bankruptcy.
 

IDLERACER

Medalist
Joined
Jul 28, 2003
According to the I.M.D.B, she actually is managing to get some work. She's currently playing the voice of a cartoon character on some kid's show called "Generation Jets" and also just finished a light-weight family oriented made for TV movie called "The Metro Chase." Not exactly Shakespear, but hey, whatever pays the bills.
 
Joined
Jul 11, 2003
And don't forget Ilia Kulic in Centre Stage who played an aspiring ballet dancer (not a figure skater). He did the most credible job of acting I have ever seen among those mentioned by euterpe.

But he did not become in demand.

Joe
 

giseledepkat

Rinkside
Joined
Oct 7, 2003
Joesitz said:
And don't forget Ilia Kulic in Centre Stage who played an aspiring ballet dancer (not a figure skater). He did the most credible job of acting I have ever seen among those mentioned by euterpe.

But he did not become in demand.

Joe
Thanks for reminding me! I agree, Ilia delivered a surprisingly naturalistic acting turn (in a surprisingly guilty-pleasure movie!) But I was really surprised at how weak a dancer he appeared to be -- even though he was mostly just posing. (Rgirl, if you saw this, I'd be interested in your reaction!)
 

guinevere

Final Flight
Joined
Jul 28, 2003
giseledepkat said:
Thanks for reminding me! I agree, Ilia delivered a surprisingly naturalistic acting turn (in a surprisingly guilty-pleasure movie!) But I was really surprised at how weak a dancer he appeared to be -- even though he was mostly just posing. (Rgirl, if you saw this, I'd be interested in your reaction!)
I thought the problem really was the pathetic editing between Ilia's face shots onstage and the cuts to his dance double. Hilarious! During his 'big dance number', once the cameras pulled back to see the dance, the lighting was really dark and the dancer never ever turned his face toward the audience - AS IF! But Ilia was the only lead who wasn't a real ballet dancer, so I thought he did a good job!

To be fair, though (and go a tad off-topic), the level of dancing exhibited by the lead in Save the Last Dance was hysterical. The character gives up dancing for maybe a month or two, then gets back into class, and they show her doing a back arabesque (sort of) that was ridiculous! Ha!

guinevere

guinevere
 

Jaana

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 27, 2003
Country
Finland
Joesitz said:
And don't forget Ilia Kulic in Centre Stage who played an aspiring ballet dancer (not a figure skater). He did the most credible job of acting I have ever seen among those mentioned by euterpe.

But he did not become in demand.

Joe

I´m glad that Ilia got the experience of acting in a movie and of being present in its premiere. Those can be remembered as one of the special experiences on one´s path... I would though feel sure that winning the Olympic gold medal in Nagano is in a different class of experiences, so to speak.

I would say that Ilia´s main talent is in skating and because of that I´m feeling very glad that he is pursuing that career only.

Marjaana
 
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Joined
Aug 3, 2003
giseledepkat said:
Thanks for reminding me! I agree, Ilia delivered a surprisingly naturalistic acting turn (in a surprisingly guilty-pleasure movie!) But I was really surprised at how weak a dancer he appeared to be -- even though he was mostly just posing. (Rgirl, if you saw this, I'd be interested in your reaction!)
Gisel,
(Rgirl comes leaping onstage a la Nijinsky:p) Here I come to give my great dance opinion on Ilia Kulik as a ballet dancer in "Center Stage." Here's the deal, IMO: Dancers and figure skaters train their bodies in completely different ways. I once said in a post that I had seen video of Gordeeva & Grinkov as well as Oksana Baiul (when she was 16) doing a ballet barre and that relative to elite level ballet dancers, that is, dancers who would be in just the corps de ballet of American Ballet Theatre, the real company on which the American Ballet Company of "Center Stage" was based, at best they would have been in the beginning levels of a professional school or moderate to advanced levels of a local ballet studio.

It's not that G&G or Oksana were that bad at ballet, it's just that figure skaters use ballet only to enhance their main training. They don't spend up to eight hours a day taking class and rehearsing in a style that develops the body in a very specific way. I've seen dancers who danced for 20 years after they haven't danced for 20 years and they still look like dancers. Some of it is genetic, too, especially for female ballet dancers.

For one thing, elite male ballet dancers are more muscular in the upper body than male figure skaters. Male figure skaters can't afford to be too muscular in the chest and shoulders. It inhibits their jumping. What male skaters really need is power in the muscles that bring the arms in (adduct the humerus) for getting multiple rotations in jumps and also for spinning. This is mainly where I think Ilia looked "undancerly" compared to the other male dancers in the cast--at least of what they showed. The director wisely cut away from Kulik's lower body, since he would not have looked anything like a ballet dancer, nor should he. A lot of the greatness of Ilia's jump technique as a skater comes from the fact that his body is rail thin, with just enough width in the shoulders to biomechanically stabilize his jumps.

Now in the scene where the dancers went out to the bar to "boogie," Ilia definitely held his own. But that's bar dancing, not the highly technically demanding style of ballet. If you've ever seen the "Rocky" movies, you'll see another example of how movies and reality don't match. Sylvester Stallone, especially for "Rocky II" really built his body to look amazing on screen. But he looked nothing like a real boxer. Look at any heavyweight boxer and you you'll never see the bulging muscles and "cut," "shredded," or "freaky" look of the body builder, which is closer to what Stallone's body was. But Stallone knew moviegoers didn't want to see Muhammad Ali's body; they wanted to see something closer to Arnold Schwarznegger's body, and that people wouldn't care if it was like a boxer's or not.

In the case of "Center Stage" apparently the director felt Ilia was the best actor for the job, which called for a Russian who spoke English well. If they hired him because he was the OGM, they sure didn't use it in the advertising. Anyway, it's not like "Center Stage" was going to be vying for any Academy Awards--and that's not to diss it. The movie had a specific audience in mind and was made for that audience. The final ballet sequence could never happen in real life the way it happened on film either. Although there were some realistic things in the film, most of it called for some serious suspension of disbelief.

Anyway, I agree with Jaana. Kulik's main talent by far is figure skating. To be a successful actor, you've got to put as much time and work into "making it" as a skater does training. I think Ilia happened to be in the right place at the right time for that role and his acting was good enough to land the part. But my guess is that he probably immediately saw how much dedication it takes to become a successful actor and after he collected his paycheck and went to the premiere, refocused on skating. After all, you could say "nothing came of it" for Ethan Steifel or any of the other dancers in the cast. Even Mikhail Barishnykov, who had a relatively successful career for a ballet dancer, only did about five movies. The days of the dancer/movies star such as Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, Ann Miller, Cyd Charisse, Ginger Rogers, Eleanor Powell, and others sadly went the way of the movie musical.

I just wish SOI would rehire Ilia. They've had more than one US male singles star, why not two Russian singles stars? Even my "bowling and brewskies" male cousin thought Ilia "stole the show" when he saw SOI live in '99.
Rgirl
 

giseledepkat

Rinkside
Joined
Oct 7, 2003
guinevere -- good point about the editing in Center Stage, and this:
guinevere said:
To be fair, though (and go a tad off-topic), the level of dancing exhibited by the lead in Save the Last Dance was hysterical. The character gives up dancing for maybe a month or two, then gets back into class, and they show her doing a back arabesque (sort of) that was ridiculous! Ha! [/B]
Ok, I'd have to agree, Julia Stiles is not much of a dancer, but I looooved this movie! It's true that the final triumphant "audition" scene was fairly ridiculous (they accept her on the spot!?!) but where the dancing was lacking, the acting and emotions were so spot on that a "willing suspension of disbelief" was easy to achieve, in my case at least. The difference being that Julia is an extremely talented and capable young actor who could more or less "fake it" as a dancer, while Ilia is neither an actor nor a dancer. That's why I have to give him major props for not embarassing himself in Center Stage, and actually adding value to the film.

Rgirl, thanks so much for the fascinating analysis of the differing demands of ballet and on ice (and boxing!) training, and how each shapes the body to it's own ends. I'm learning so much from reading your posts! :love: You rock!
 
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