THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, April 6, 1996 TAG: 9604050043
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, ENTERTAINMENT WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 99 lines
MARE WINNINGHAM, youthful-looking mother of five and Oscar nominee this year, is having the last laugh on the rest of the 1980s Brat Pack - at least most of them.
The laugh might well be called ``Georgia,'' the film that arrives today in Hampton Roads. Winningham plays Georgia, a serene and well-adjusted folk-country singing star. Jennifer Jason Leigh inhabits a typically downtrodden character as Sadie, the booze- and drug-addicted younger sister who yearns for Georgia's fame.
Speculation was that the sister vs. sister hints of competition in ``Georgia'' were for real. Winningham nixes that idea.
``It is only acting,'' Winningham said. ``Jennifer and I are like sisters in real life. I first met Jennifer when I was her counselor at summer camp. I was 17 and she was 13. Each cabin had a chaperone. I would sing the kids to sleep each night. That was the first time I wrote some of my own songs.''
Winningham remembers that ``Jennifer was the kid who would remember all the lyrics and could sing them the next day. Now, 20 years later, she still remembers most of those lyrics. She was my first supporter. We'd sit around and talk, and it was me who explained to Jennifer that she couldn't really get pregnant from kissing.''
Surprisingly, Winningham's low-key role was the one that netted the Oscar nomination in the best supporting actress category. Leigh failed to get a nod in the best actress category although Sadie is surely one of the showiest roles of the movie year.
Although Winningham showed up on Oscar night in a flamboyant yellow dress, she is notable for being noncompetitive and completely un-movie-starrish. Both the Brat Packers and Leigh are unlikely to air any jealousy about her newfound, and overdue, breakthrough.
Winningham was the most interesting actress of the Brat Pack - fresh faces who starred in movies like ``St. Elmo's Fire'' and ``Pretty in Pink'' in the 1980s. The group took over Hollywood for a while - a shorter while than anyone would have predicted.
Where is Molly Ringwald today? And Rob Lowe? And Ally Sheedy, Andrew McCarthy and Emilio Estevez? Of the group, only Demi Moore has gone on to big stardom.
Winningham, as young as she looked, became something of the den mother of the group. She got the reviews, but the others got the media attention. It was she who got married almost immediately and didn't mind turning down scripts to have five children through the years. (``Demi is very interested in the children,'' Winningham says today. ``We visit.'')
She became a major TV-movie star, but her reviews suggested that she was a better actress than the small screen should be able to hold.
It seems that Winningham was always either acting or preparing to act. Born in Seattle, she grew up in Southern California's San Fernando Valley, taking acting classes while still in her teens.
Her first money, a $500 prize, came from the ``Gong Show.''
``I used the phony name Sharon Shamus, and I dressed up in this baggy shift as super nerd,'' she said. ``I looked about 12 years old - like this folk nightmare. And there were Rex Reed and J.P. Morgan and all the rest of the panel. I really was trying to get gonged. I did the whole bit just to prove that I could get on network TV. J.P. picked up the gong, but the other panelists stopped her. I didn't get gonged.''
She did, though, get a proposition from Chuck Barris, the host of the show. ``He asked me out to dinner. Well, as I say, I looked about 12. I was too young for Chuck Barris. I strongly suspected he was a dirty old man. I didn't go out to dinner with him.''
Her youthful looks lingered.
``I looked 12 for about 15 years there,'' she said. ``I didn't mind. I didn't mind at all when, for years, I got stuck playing teenagers. Teenagers are, I think, the best characters. That's the most important time of life. I figured there would be plenty of years afterward that I could play older roles.''
In her senior year of high school, she was in the TV movie ``Special Olympics.'' She won an Emmy for ``Amber Waves'' and an Emmy nomination for ``Love Is Never Silent.''
In 1979, she was in Norfolk briefly, for a few scenes of the TV movie ``The Death of Ocean View Park,'' which fictionalized the downfall of the famous roller coaster at Ocean View Park.
She specialized in roles as rebellious youths that required a determined-looking young woman.
``Then I met my husband and had children,'' she said. She has daughters 7 and 8 and sons 10, 12 and 14. ``That's all,'' she said. ``That's my complete family. No more. I wanted to have the fifth child because I wanted the youngest to be a son, but she is a daughter, so I'm not trying again. It's a wonderful family.''
Does the now-complete family, coupled with the Oscar recognition, mean that she's going to be more centered in cementing her big-screen career? In 1994, she co-starred with Kevin Costner twice - as his mistress in ``Wyatt Earp'' and as his long-suffering wife in ``The War.'' She'll next appear in ``Fresh Paint.''
``No regrets,'' Winningham said. ``None.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by Miramax Films
Mare Winningham
KEYWORDS: PROFILE by CNB