interviews

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Forever My Girl

Anna Chlumsky, Teen Angel

by Veronica Chambers

photographs by Chris Carroll

from Premiere March 1994

It's that Lolita thing. The way girl starts change into a woman, both

quickly and softly, like a piece of pottery being thrown at top spin. Anna

Chlumsky was just ten years old when her first movie, "My Girl" was shot.

Now she is thirteen - an age that might be less awkward for her than it's

been for the makers of "My Girl 2", who at the outset of filming hadn't seen

Anna in two (hormonically significant) years. As producer Brian Grazer

delicately puts it, "She's starting to have breasts and stuff you know what

I mean?"

Director Howard Zieff, who back in 1990 chose an unknown Anna over hundreds

of other little girls, is positively wistful on the subject. "She's much

more womanly now", he says "And she behaves like a woman: much more adult,

much more intelligent. In some ways I hated to see the child dissappear,

'cause she had a great appeal as a child. It's so startling to see this

woman's figure up on this little girl."

Today she strolls through the Art Institute of Chicago with her mother, Anna

Chlumsky looks like any other suburban girl. Dressed in an extra large

blue-and-coral sweater and jeans, she does seem substantially changed from

the little girl she played in "My Girl" - taller, less pixieish. She's

pretty but in that odd way that differentiates actresses from models, an

adolescent Juliette Lewis opposed to the junior high school Cindy Crawford.

At the age when psychologists say most girls start to cave in to societal

definitions of feminity and are less likely to voice their own opinions, she

seems confident and comfortable expressing her point of view.

"This is my favorite painting", she says pointing to "In the Circus

Fernando: The Ringmaster". Why? "I just like Toulouse-Lautrec. I've seen

this one since I was in second grade and have liked it ever since." She

passes by a Monet and suggest her guest visit Giverny in France: "You have

to go in the summer. June is the best." Then she stares at the museum's

prize piece, Seurat's "A Sunday on la Grande Jatte - 1884". She seems

puzzled. "Don't you remember this painting being much bigger?" she asks her

mom.

Her mother laughs sweetly, like the mom in any feel-good movie. "But of

course, Anna," she says. "You were much smaller then.

Nancy Chlumsky remembers that when she brought her ten-year-old Anna to

Orlando, Florida, for the filming of the first "My Girl", she purchased two

season passes to nearby Sea World. "I thought, This is great - we can see

whales anytime we want to." They went just twice. I had no idea how busy

(she) would be," says Nancy.

Anna became the darling of the set, and while stage mothers are often movie

pariahs, both Zieff and Grazer speak highly of Nancy. "Ron (Howard) is the

most unique case of a person who grew up onstage and is still a normanl,

cool person," says Grazer. "It's so rare; I've been involved in some really

sad situations. It won't happen to Anna 'cause her mom doesn't live the same

way. her mom's kind of spiritual, a little hippie, you know? She's cool."

Cool, perhaps, but Nancy says she spent much of "My Girl worrying whether

she had done the right to her daughter. At night, she says, "I just prayed

and prayed that we did the right thing. I didn't want her to be unhappy. I

just wanted her to be happy. She doesn't have to be a movie star."

In fact Anna might have been playing the lead but she wasn't really the

movie's star. That honor belonged to Macaulay Culkin, who had hit

megastardom the year before with "Home Alone". Culkin was actually casted

two weeks before "Home Alone" opened, hired by Grazer for a supporting role

in "My Girl" and paid what at the time seemed an astronomical sum: $1

million. "Everybody in the whole town critisized me," he recalls. "'What a

stupid thing, Grazer.'" When "Home Alone went through the roof and "My Girl"

did $60 million, Grazer says with satisfaction, "It all worked out."

What didn't work out was that the script for "My Girl" killed of the movie's

golden child. It took the filmmakers a year to come up with a plausible

sequel to the life and times of young Vada Sultenfuss (Chlumsky). The new

story line sends Vada off to California to stay with her Uncle Phil (Richard

Masur) in order to learn more about her mother, who died in childbirth.

Hoping to recapture the chemistry Anna had with Mac, the script also has a

love interest for young Vada and, yes, another kiss. Anna was hoping that

her pal Matt Doherty ("The Mighty Ducks") would get the role but Columbia

Pictures had another idea: "Last Action Hero"'s Austin O'Brien.

"The studio felt... the studio suggested Austin to me,because they felt

"Last Action Hero" was gonna be a big hit.," says Zieff. "They thought he

would be a major star coming out of there." But Zieff insists, "When I met

him, I liked him very much."

All the same, the success of "My Girl 2" now rests squarely on the appeal of

Anna, who has passed on nearly all projects since the first movie and is

starting to comprehend the new ways people are thinking of her. On the first

movie, she says, "since Mac and I were younger, a lot of people thought,

Well, they're kids. I'm not really good with kids, and just left us alone.

On the second one, since I was older, more people would talk to me."

But at a time when concern is rising over the potentially exploitative

relationships between child actors and their parents, Anna and Nancy

Chlumsky offer a salubrious example of what such a relationship would be

like. For a while she enjoys performing, Anna thrives her life in Chicago

and expresses particular contempt for any sort of special treatment, like

the prospect of attending a performing arts school or a professional

children's school. "That's a bunch of stupid stuff," she says dismissively.

"That's for people who think they're big hotshot professional people. I just

want to be a regular kid - and movies are for money."

"What kind of music do you like?" Anna asks her guest as they drive the

Chlumsky Mitsubishi. Hiphop, she is told. Anna, sitting in the front seat

reaches the radio dial and deftly finds the local rap station. Her mother

smiles, then grimaces. "I think I can stand about five minutes of this

before I go crazy." The guest concours, and Anna moves the knob to her

favorite oldies station.

Anna has show biz in her genes: Her father was a saxophone player who now

owns a restaurant in Wisconsin; he and Nancy Chlumsky were divorced when

Anna was two, but she still plays his clarinet in the school band. Her

great-grandfather owned a trained bear that appeared in Three Stooges

movies. Her grandmother's prom dress was a costume for "Frankenstein". Now

41, Nancy has worked as a Chicago stage actress, "but I'm not in the same

cathegory as Anna . I'm more a day player."

Despite Nancy's acting background, it was one of her day jobs that began

Anna's career. A coworker at Eastern Airlines had children who did local

modeling and suggested that Nancy list Anna with agency when she was three

months old. Anna modeled periodically for the next six or seven years,

appearing in department store ads and the zenith of Chicago modeling jobs,

the Sears catalog.

Then at age eight, Anna decided it was time for career change. "I quit

(modeling) because I didn't like it anymore. I was getting so tired of it."

Having accompanied her mother on the auditions, Anna begged for a chance to

act. They tried a local production of "Annie" and they both got in. One play

later the audition for "My Girl" came up, and Anna won the role after Zieff

flew to Chicago to meet her.

Once cast, Nancy told the filmmakers that "she wasn't a prima donna and they

shouldn't spoil her." They didn't but it wasn't for lack of trying: "It was

weird to have everyone waiting on you," says Anna. "It's, like, 'Anna wants

milk!' 'Anna wants milk!' 'Anna wants milk!'"

By all accounts, Anna's gut instict is as good as it gets. Zieff tells the

story of how, on the first "My Girl", Anna had to cry all day for the

consecutive days: "She hadto come running to her schoolteacher's house and

tell him she loves him. She'd just come from a funeral and she had run out

of tears. And she said, 'Okay, give me a minute, Howard.' This was the last

shooting day of the movie, and she walked around and looked at all the crew

members' face. Then she started to cry."

"It's really hard to end a movie", says Anna. I made really, really good

friends with the soundmen on the first one. It was really hard to leave."

"We went to the wrap party and Anna cried hr eyes out," Nancy recalls. "She

was just devastated. But she kept in touch with people and little by little,

she was able to deal with it."

While the toughest scene for Anna in the first "My Girl" was Mac's funeral,

the second movie also has it's teary moments. "Vada sees movies of her

mother before she dies," says Nancy. "And of course she's supposed to be sad

and happy - a mix of feelings. Before that scene my dad had come to visit us

and he'd brought movies of my mother, Anna's grandmother. My mother has had

Alzheimer's ever since Anna can remember - but (in) these black-and-white

movies that my dad shot some 30 or 40 years ago, my mom was really

beautiful. We didn't have sound, but there she was, having fun with my dad

at a masquerade party. We were all so moved watching it - Anna, my dad and

I. Anna was able to use that for the sequel of the movie.

Although they received "lots and lots of scripts" after "My Girl", Nancy

Chlumsky keeps a form in rule: "One project a year and maybe a summer

project, if there is such a thing." She says they passed "Beethoven" and the

upcoming "Lassie"; one producer was so interested in developing a sitcom

around Anna that he offered to shoot it in Chicago. Nancy said no to that

too, because it would have kept Anna out of the school.

"We took baths most of the last year," Nancy says "because the shower was

broken." Why didn't she simply get it fixed? "Couldn't afford it," she says.

Anna may be a child star but she lives within her mother's means. The

Chlumskys live in a sweet, modest house in a lower-middle-class suburb of

Chicago, and Anna attends a small private school in a small Illinois town.

"When 'My Girl' come out, I wanted to talk to her about a private screening

we were having at the school," says her principal. "She came in looking very

ominous: 'Did I do something wrong?' I said no, and we talked. But as she

left, she put her hands over her face and burst into tears, saying, 'Oh! He

hit me!' Then she gave me this big smirk. That's Anna.

Anna's made only one movie besides the two "My Girl" projects, a feature

with Sissy Spacek called "Trading Mom". But she has some very definite ideas

of whom she'd like to work with next: "Robert Sean Leonard," she says

blushing. "Elijah Wood. He's good in everything."

On the subject of romance, Anna says, "I have a boyfriend but I'm not dating

yet. It's like the preteen thing of 'Do you wanna be my girlfrien' 'Yeah'"

Nancy still seems uneasy about the choises she's making regarding her

daughter's career. Is it right for children to be pressed into making such

high-profile movies? "Kit Culkin (Macaulay's father) put it real well to me

a long time ago: 'Everybody says this isn't normal for a child.

But somebody put that baseball bat in that child's hand.' He was talking

about these little boys in Little League, playing five days a week and

Saturdays too."

All the same Nancy refuses to move to L.A., and Anna agrees. "I really don't

like L.A. at all, "Anna says. "It's, like, you can have it. I just want to

stay home and be a regular kid."

This article were submitted by Roberto St. Orm

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My Girl Crazy

There are few stars like Anna Chlumsky, who within what are really very few

years have done four films, each of such very high callabre. I think her

success has largely been due to her highly personable nature both on and off

screen which has produced a fan base that has grown up along side her. Also,

unlike most other child actors she has managed to keep her feet on the

ground and maintain a sense of reality. I have followed her film career from

the start with My Girl, and what follows is a compilation of some of my

favorite interviews with her... One of her first London interviews before

the London launch of My Girl was with Big Magazine. Interviewed by Randi

Reisfeld in a "swanky London Hotel" it gave me the first glimpse of her

bubbly personality...

"Oh look!" she squeals, pointing at a gossip page, "there's Mack!" She

holds up a picture of Macaulay Culkin for her mum Nancy to see.

It's obvious that 11-year-old Anna is still mates with, and a fan of,

her superstar co-star. "He's just great!" she beams, "He's a very easy

person to get along with."

But Chicago-born Anna gets quite upset at the suggestion that they

played loads of naughty pranks on the My Girl film crew.

"I wasn't naughty," she says, widening her eyes. "Mack played pranks on

me!" Her favorite was when he stuck her bum to the toilet.

"He stuck double-sided sticky tape to the loo and I sat on it! It

wasn't like Superglue or anything, but it hurt! He was in the other

room and when he heard the bathroom door close, he thought he'd got our

tutor. He was going "Ye-e-e-s!" Then Our tutor came in and he said

"Aren't you in the bathroom?"; she said, "No Mack, I'm right here!"

He also tried to scare their tutor into beleiving Anna had been eaten

by an Alligator!

"Mack had this big plastic alligator. He made me lie on the floor of

our school trailer and pretend to be dead. Then he put the jaws around

the neck and looked around for some ketchup to put over me. When our

tutor came in Mack shook it to make it look alive. She didn't believe I

was dead though. She just laughed."

As you can imagine, what with all the prank playing, Anna wasn't too

keen on kissing her co-star. "I just wanted to get it over with," she

says. "I wasn't thinking about kissing the Macaulay Culkin. It wasn't a

good or bad experience - it was just acting. We had to do it 15 times

before we got it right. Thankfully it was a short kiss!"

Other articles at the time detailed the young actors exploits further...

The young stars of the family drama My Girl - Macaulay Culkin and Anna

Chlumsky - found a lucrative way of picking up extra pocket money

during filming.

The tiny terrors fined their adult co-stars and directors very time

they swore. And, according to director Howard Zeiff, poor Jamie Lee

Curtis was the biggest loser. "Jamie paid them $200 apiece. They were

hanging out the whole time waiting for us to swear," he says...

Over the next year or two Anna went on to film The Mommy Market and then My

Girl 2. The Mommy Market was a big flop (in my opinion due to a poor plot

and bad direction), but it did give her a chance to break away from the

character of Vada. My Girl 2 followed in the wake of its predecessor making

a very enjoable and successful family film. Around this time I read the

following interview with Anna (aged 14), That's My Girl in Time Out

Magazine. She was interviewed by Anwar Brett.

Meeting different film stars it's easy to see why, in that rarefied,

pampered world that is Hollywood, they come across like spoiled

children. Often it's because they are, throwing little tantrums when

they can't get their own way. Conversely child actors these days seem

to be much more level headed. There are exceptions, but tabloid

headlines aside, the kids who suceed on the screen are often protected

by parents careful not to let their offspring get too caried away with

their success.

After My Girl proved a suprise hit a couple of years ago, that could

easily have happened to the film's eponymous heroine Anna Chlumsky, as

she was inundated with a variety of scripts and even screen tested for

a role in Jurassic Park. But two years on and with a sequel - My Girl

2, of course - now under her belt, Anna has the acting game put into

sensible perspective.

It's fun making movies," she states, "what would be the point of doing

something you don't like? I live in Chicago, and I've only made three

movies in three years because school is the most important thing to me

right now. If I went to Hollywood and did back-to-back movies then when

I'm grown up I won't be able to identify with the everyday things my

kids are going through while they're growing up.

"I'll probably give up acting at some point though. It's weird being a

kid and having a job, and even weirder continuing in the same job when

you're an adult. You can start life as a waiter but you don't

necessarily want that for the rest of your life. I want to be a

palaeontologist."

If that happened, Anna would be a real loss, as her maturity comes

across on screen just as much as off. Reprising her old role as Vada

Sultenfuss, she begins a school writing project about someone she

admired but never met. Vada chooses her mother, who died soon after she

was born, a nd dragging the reluctant Nick (Austin O'Brien) along with

her she makes some important discoveries. Off screen she found a new

friend in the young Last Action Hero star.

"I didn't know Austin before," Anna continues. "We only met on this

film. He was great, and he was the only other kid on the set so that

was good news for me. He was someone to hang out with."

But, and here's the true test of maturity, who about that kiss at the

end of the movie?

"Oh I didn't mind having to kiss him," she adds thoughtfully, "it's

just one of those things that you sometimes have to do."

Big Magazine picked up on Anna's return to the screen with this interview

titles "Just Great Friends"...

What was it like working with Austin O'Brien?

"It was great. Austin's really cute and I have a new friend now. He's a

really nice kid, really polite and everything. We still keep in touch,

although it's difficult because I live in Chicago and he's in Los

Angeles."

How did Austin compare to Macaulay Culkin?

"Austin's a lot quieter. He doesn't play pranks like Mack did. He's

also more laid back whereas Mack was always up and running around in

this wild way."

Which one do you prefer?

"I don't prefer either. I like them both." (Very diplomatic).

What did you think of the clothes in the movie?

"Oh I loved them. I really liked wearing the clothes. It was like

dressing up on Halloween."

How was the kissing scene with Austin in My Girl 2?

"It's weird when you're friends with someone and then you have to kiss

them. But we tried not to make a big deal out of it because then

everyone else would have made a big deal out of it."

Was he a good kisser?

"I don't know. I don't really have anything to compare it with. I've

never really kissed anybody for real."

What do you worry about?

"I don't worry about boys; in fact my best friend is a boy, so I can

talk to them. I worry mostly about school and whether I am doing well -

and that I won't fall down during my graduation ceremony!"

Do you worry about your appearance?

"Na, I don't care aboout it. When I get up in the morning, I'll just

put on my jeans and some shirt I see lying round and then I'll go to

school."

Do you have a boyfriend?

"No. I think I'm still a little young. But I'm going to High School

next year so it will probably be different then."

Another interview with the My Girl star was titled "My Girl Crazy". This too

was published at about the same time as My Girl 2 came out. (I'm afraid I

can't remember what publication it was in.)

What was it like acting with Austin O'Brien instead of Macaulay Culkin?

"It's a lot different! Austin is very laid-back and calm and Mac's just

very wild and plays pranks on everyone!"

Which other actors would you like to work with?

"Winona Ryder would be awesome! And Elijah Wood - he's a friend of

mine, so that'd be fun!"

How did you meet him?

"Last July 4 (that's the USA's big party day!), I couldn't get back to

a family reunion. So, I was invited to a party in Hollywood where there

were all these stars, like Tom Cruise, and Elijah was there and we made

friends!"

What are your favorite sweets?

"You can only get them on the UK - it's Cadbury's Flakes! Oooh, I love

those so much and you can't get them in America."

So just remember it was in my compilation that you heard

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ANNA CHLUMSKY DODGES CELEBRITY-KID SYNDROME

WITH GOOD GRADES, CHURCH AND DETERMINATION.

CHICAGO -- The conversation drifts to staying centered, and Anna

Chlumsky, not quite 15, smiles shyly, then makes a fine point. "I

go to church every Sunday when I can, but that's not really what

centers me," she says. "There's really two kinds of praying. When

you go to church and you pray and there's the music and

everything, you're celebrating.

October 28, 1995

By Susan Stark, News Film Critic.

The conversation drifts to staying centered, and Anna Chlumsky,

not quite 15, smiles shyly, then makes a fine point.

"I go to church every Sunday when I can, but that's not really what centers

me," she says. "There's really two kinds of praying. When you go to church

and you pray and there's the music and everything, you're celebrating.

"Then there's another kind of praying. Praying-praying."

She shrugs.

Praying-praying?

"I pray every night," Anna explains. "I just talk to God and I can go to

sleep. I don't worry anymore."

Chlumsky -- say KLUM-skee -- came to movie fame five years ago as Vada

Sultenfuss, the offbeat charmer with the strikingly lively blue eyes in My

Girl. My Girl 2 followed in 1994, as well as a little-seen film with Sissy

Spacek, The Mommy Market. Anna's new film, Gold Diggers, in which she and

Christina Ricci share high adventure, opens Friday.

Before Anna ever reached movie starlet status, she had nearly a decade of

professional experience as a model and stage performer under her belt.

Indeed, she made her modeling bow at the age of 10 months. From the start,

her mother, Nancy, a sometimes actress, has been her manager and her coach.

If that's not an uh-oh resume, what is?

Stories of emotionally and psychologically damaged showbiz tykes are a dime

a dozen. Judy Garland and Gypsy Rose Lee may be prototypical cases in

point, but the case of Macaulay Culkin, whose meddlesome, autocratic father

has made him the most dreaded little celebrity in modern moviedom, provides

terrifying continuity.

Now comes Anna Chlumsky, in startling and immensely encouraging contrast to

the longstanding rule. By both looks and personal style, she's the

pleasant, mannerly kid down the street; the one who gets good grades in

school, adores her parents, considers the price before ordering from a

menu.

When she walks into the lobby dining room of Chicago's swanky Ritz-Carlton

Hotel, she turns not one single head. She wears a striped cotton sweater,

jeans and high-tops, precisely the look favored by millions of noncelebrity

teens for a weekend afternoon in early autumn.

Her jewels? Little silver bits at the ears, wrists and fingers, the kind

that kids her age like to exchange as friendship tokens.

On her face, hardly a trace of makeup. She pulls a few strands of dirty

blond hair from the sides of her head to a topknot and lets the rest fall

as it will. There are spaces between her teeth. She has the kind of nose

that seems to want to become part of her cheeks.

No wonder heads don't turn.

Years ago, you can't help thinking, Chlumsky would have been dressed,

coiffed, painted and worse into some studio executive's artificial ideal of

youthful perfection. Years ago, even her name would have been polished up.

Frances Gumm to Judy Garland. Anna Chlumsky to ... what? Anna Turner?

Anna laughs knowingly.

"Well, when I got My Girl, my mom and I were trying to think what we should

do with our name," she allows. "It's just so hard to spell, so hard to

pronounce. But Howard Zieff, the director, he said: 'No! We already put

your name in the paper.' So that was it."

Stress tests

Anna's experience in Hollywood hasn't been totally devoid of the old-style

pressures, though.

With more amusement that bitterness or animosity, she recalls being put on

a low-calorie diet and being ordered to work out during lunch breaks when

she was making My Girl 2.

"They thought I was getting fat, but I was just growing up," she says

airily. "Just getting bigger. Anyway, the workouts helped me sharpen my

basketball skills."

Nancy Chlumsky put a stop to those workouts, though:

"I told our agent, 'We can't do this. She comes back to the set after lunch

and she's pooped.'"

There's more to it than that, though, in Nancy Chlumsky's view: "I can't

stress it enough. Whenever parents run into this kind of situation, we have

to say, 'We don't want anorexic kids, kids who think that skinny is right

and growing is wrong.'

"Anna may be an actor, but she has a family, friends, school. We're not

rich people, but we're people who are interested in books, music, history,

culture. She's been in movies, but she's also had the experience of bussing

a table and running a cash register at her father's restaurant.

"Anna has a life. She has a soul. She has a mind. And none of these things

are wasted."

For her part, Anna recognizes the value system at work in the movie world,

but seems able to just steer her own steady course.

"Sure, there's a lot of pressure when it comes to appearance," she says.

"For teens, it's even harder: 'Oh, gee. I'm not getting roles. I wonder if

it's because I'm not pretty.

"But my concentration is on a totally different level. It's just the way I

was brought up: Who cares about what's on the outside? It's what's on the

inside that counts. If I'm disciplined in my acting, hopefully people won't

care about the way I look.

"So for me, all that stuff is not as important. What happens, happens. If I

get overweight, I'll just cut down on the chocolate. I won't go crazy."

At the moment, Anna is 5-foot-2 and weighs 112 pounds. She does hesitate a

moment before going for the creme brulee at dessert time, but takes the

plunge and savors every spoonful. It's a sight that testifies to her sanity

as much as anything she says.

So much for weight. Now what about moviedom's program for the spaces

between Anna's top teeth, particularly noticeable when she laughs. Surely

there was some little flap about that. After all, veteran

model-turned-actress Lauren Hutton had to wear a bite plate to plug up the

gap between her two front teeth for decades.

"No one ever said anything about my teeth except my orthodontist," Anna

deadpans.

"But keep in mind that there are computers, that they do touch things up.

Like when I got a hold of the poster for Gold Diggers, I said: 'Hey, wait a

minute! Those aren't my teeth!'"

The money thing

On this damp, windy day, Anna's outer jacket is the pricey, prebattered

leather job with the Planet Hollywood logo -- a gift for an appearance at

one of the restaurants, no doubt. Everything else about her getup testifies

to life on a tight budget.

Does she get an allowance?

"Not really," she says. "I pretty much still have some of the money from

last Christmas. Easter. Confirmation. And if I don't have any, I ask my

mom. Like for homecoming at school.

"I think I might want to get an afterschool job, though, so I can have some

money in my wallet on a regular basis."

And what of the money she has been earning from modeling and acting all

these years?

"College," Anna says without a second's hesitation. "It's a lot and I don't

want to throw it away, either."

She has no idea of the size of the savings account in her name and, at this

point, she doesn't want to know.

"That's my mom's job," she chirps. "I'll find out when I'm 18. If you can't

trust your mom, who can you trust?"

The case of Culkin, who was Chlumsky's co-star in My Girl 2, comes to the

fore.

"I know, I know," Anna says, as if to brush away the sadness she feels

about her onetime pal's troubles. "I keep meaning to write to him, but I

just haven't. Procrastination, I guess."

When Anna speaks of the parent who's guiding her career, she quite

naturally slips from "I" and "my" to "we" and "our." Anna on the

partnership:

"From the very begining, my mom has read the scripts first, and if she

likes something, she lets me read it. And she tells our agent what kinds of

parts we want. They know who we are, what we like, what we're against.

"Then once we get a movie, she helps me with the acting. I wouldn't be able

to do it by myself at this age. I'd just want to go say the lines and slack

off. But she makes me knuckle down."

Star parenting

Nancy Chlumsky, divorced from but still friendly with Anna's father, brings

conviction and energy to her role as Anna's principal advocate. She is

parent, protector, professional guide. It's a job that regularly makes her

put aside her own career as a stage actress so she can travel when Anna's

work requires it.

"I work whenever I can," Nancy Chlumsky says. "I just finished a six-month

run in Fiddler on the Roof. But the way things have turned out, Anna's

talent is so much more noticeable than mine that we want to share it and

take advantage of it.

"Isn't that what it's all about? The reason you become an actor is to give,

to make people happy. And God gave her so many gifts. And God gave me so

many gifts."

Nancy Chlumsky's easy, broad smile becomes a laugh at that point: "And I'm

trying."

When Anna was 7, her mother reports, she had had it with modeling -- it was

a 'Please, Mom, enough!' kind of thing. The modeling career ended right

then, on a dime. Anna's getting the title role in My Girl out of a field of

some 1,000 hopefuls was a defining moment for both mother and daughter, a

moment Nancy Chlumsky still refers to as "a miracle."

Yet it was a miracle that took a toll in anxiety for the mother.

"There were plenty of sleepless nights before we started that movie," she

recalls.

"I kept asking myself, 'What am I doing to my child? Is this going to

change her life for the better or is this going to change her life for the

worse?'

"I tried to put myself in her footprints and to understand how overwhelming

it might be: 13-hour days, including three hours of school.

"While we were making the movie, I tried to keep things as normal as

possible for her. I cooked dinner as much as I could so she didn't have to

go out after work. I decided that she deserved some sort of compensation

every week, and I let her choose it herself. First it was a bridal

magazine. After she got a stack of those, she started choosing books about

names -- what they mean.

"She loved doing the movie, but after we got back home to Chicago, she felt

she had no control over her life. It was, like, 'I want to be able to walk

around the block.'

"That kind of recognition, especially from children your own age, takes

away your confidence in being able to walk around the block or go to the

shopping mall. But it gives you a lot of confidence in your talent, your

intelligence, maybe even your purpose in being on this earth."

The mother's remarks bring to mind the daughter's comment on private

prayer. ... "I can go to sleep and I don't have to worry."

Nancy Chlumsky listens intently as Anna's statement is read to her.

"I never heard her say that," the mother says with a characteristically

generous smile. "I really never heard that before."

Then, overtaken with emotion, she lifts a fist to her chin to steady it.

Tears flood her eyes. It's a moment that somehow both explains and

validates Anna Chlumsky's status as a happy exception to the deeply

discouraging rule for celebrity children.

Copyright 1995, The Detroit News

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Anna Chlumsky Interview (about Gold Diggers)

By Emily Forster:

Most 14-year-olds do not get a thrill out of watching black and white

movies, but actress Anna Chlumsky is an exception.

"I love...anything in black and white. Just put it on the TV, I´ll watch

it," she said."I love old movies, I love old musicals and I love Eddie

Cantor and his gold digger films. It´s kind of ironic."

The irony Chlumsky mentions comes from the fact that she starts as the

misunderstood tomboy, Jody, in the soon to be ralated coming-of-age film

"Gold Diggers."

Best known as Vada Sultenfuss from "My Girl" and "my girl2", Chlumsky met

with The Bruin at the Four Seasons to discuss her character in "Gold

diggers" and her career.

She wanted the part of Judy for many reasons, but two stuck out in her mind.

"Jody was the kind of person I never played before. Plus all the stunts

really appealed to me, so I wanted to get on this project!"

The film loosely based on Mark Twain´s classic novel "The adventures of

Huckleberry Finn" required stunts that would have scared some actors and

actresses, but Anna Chlumsky found them fun, not frightening.

She particuarly enjoyed the stunt in which she and co-star Christina Ricci

were directed to swing over a gorge on a rope in a Tarzan-like fashion!

"It was better than SIX FLAGS. You kind of felt like you were flying because

all that you were connected to was the rope. It was very neat and safe, too,

so you felt fine", said Chlumsky.

Although she enjoyed swinging on ropes as much as her character, Chlumsky

made it clear taht she and Jody do not share important character traits. "We

both love the outdoors and we both are very adventuros. But I don´t steal

and I don´t beat people up. I´m not exactly like her." Despie the difference

between Chlumsky and her character, she was the first choice for the role.

But Chlumsky was as eager to play as the film´s producers were because she

is not usually considered for roles that she likes.

"Everyone thinks of me as Vada. They all still think, I´m really little, so

they keep offering me...kid´s stuff", said Chlumsky. But Anna is not

fretting over the recent absence of interesting projects. "It´s just kind of

a hobby for me, just like if I were on the softball team" Most hobbies,

however, do not give a teenager national attention. Anna Chlumsky is still

learning how to deal with the publicity.

Finding her face on posters and book covers, for instance, is just beginning

to feel comfortable to Chlumsky. "It´s kind of weird because in the pictures

and stuff they fill in some stuff that they don´t like, like your teeth.

It´s funny when you first see the poster and you want to pick out the stuff

that´s different, but you get used to it after a while. It´s just, oh,

that´s me! It´s kind of cool after a while"

Seeing reviews of her acting also took Chlumsky awhile to accept, but now

she has her own philisophy to help her deal with the publicity. "I don´t let

it bother me too much if someone doesn´t like me. I just figure there´s no

accounting for taste. It´s not me, it´my acting. It´s like if someone

doesn´t like someone´s food, they just don´t like my acting".

And acting is not a big priority in Anna´s life at the moment. "Right now

I´m just thinking about school and trying to get those grades and keep them

up!" Chlumsky is currently pondering a career in biology since she doesn´t

want to rely on the eye of the public. She has learned from the black and

white movies she loves, like "Sunset Boulevard", a film in which the main

character´s life turns pathetic after loosing a prestigious film carrer. As

Chlumsky said "In case I become a Norma Desmond when I grow up, I can have

something to fall back on!"

This article were submitted by Torsten Rudek

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'Golden Girl'

Interview in 'Teen' / November 1995

We met up with Anna Chlumsky who stars as Christina Ricci's unlikely pal in

Universal Pictures' 'Gold Diggers': The Secret of Bear Mountain. She 'fessed

up about (what else!) friends - on camera, off the set and at school.

Do you have a best friend?

Actually, I have a couple of best friends. One friend I've known since we

were two years old, another since the sixth grade and another I met at high

school. I also have a friend who is an adult. I met him while I was doing a

play in Chicago, and he's 23 years old. He just moved to Los Angeles, so we

only talk every few weeks.

How do you maintain your friendships, especially when you're away?

Luckily, I love to write and talk on the phone. I also invite friends to

visit me when I'm on location. It's fun because I get to show them around

and they get to meet celebrities.

What is your favorite way to spend a day off with a friend?

I like to go to a Cubs or a White Sox game - I like to watch, not play! - or

do something all day long like go to an amusement park.

Do you ever feel left out or like you've missed something when you call your

friends from a movie location? Stuff must happen to your friends while

you're away.

Yes! I'll be on the phone with them and they'll tell me something that

happened. Like last year I missed the first day of high school because I was

filming 'Gold Diggers'. I missed the whole first month, so when I came back

everyone was used to it and I was like 'What do I do?'

Are your friends at school used to the idea of going to school with a

celebrity?

In the beginning people went nuts. They would say, "She's in 'My girl',

she's in 'My Girl'." But then they got used to it. Some people would tease

me, but they're not my friends. They don't know me.

How about people on the set? Does the pressure of making a movie make it

harder to get to know people?

There isn't really any pressure at all. You're with these people for a long

time, so if you don't get along, then where are you? It's funny because on

each movie I seem to make friends with different departements, like sound or

lights. It was great, because on 'My Girl 2' a lot of the same people worked

on it. So it was like a big reunion.

Have you kept in touch with any one person you've worked with on a movie?

My mom calls a few of them, but mostly I keep in touch over the holidays.

You should see my Christmas card list!

Did you draw on your own experiences with friends while preparing for your

role as Jody?

Yes. I would imagine one of my friends in the place of Christina Ricci's

character, Beth. I would think, "What would I do if this was Joy and she

needed my help?"

Did you and Christina Ricci become friends?

Yeah, we're friends. They would put us together a lot for certain subjects

during school, so we became friends.

Do you think you'll have a reunion with the people you met on 'Gold Diggers:

The Secret of Bear Mountain'?

No! I already did one sequel, and that's enough! Anyway, the ending of the

movie wouldn't really be good for one.

What's next?

Well, I have a few things I'm thinking about, but nothing is for sure, so I

can't say anything. I don't think I'll start a new movie until the summer.

so it looks like I will get to stay this whole year at school!

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Co-star Anna Chlumsky talks about the making of 'Gold Diggers'. (Originated

from Knight-Ridder Newspaper) by Steven Rea Knight-Ridder/Tribune News

Service Nov 3 '95

© 1995 Knight-Ridder / Tribune News Service

Eighteen years after its release, "Saturday Night Fever" still wields a

mighty influence over the movie biz. The latest instance of wields a mighty

influence over the movie biz. The latest instance of "Fever-" ish homage:

Anna Chlumsky doing John Travolta's disco moves atop a tiny boat while the

Bee Gees wail "You Should Be Dancing." This occurs midway through "Gold

Diggers: The Secret of Bear Mountain," an outdoor-adventure movie in which

Chlumsky, star of the two "My Girl" hits, is teamed with Christina Ricci,

star of two "Addams Family" films and "Casper." "We choreographed it by

studying John Travolta's dance moves in "Saturday Night Fever,"" reports

Chlumsky, a Chicago-area 10th-grader. "At first, it was a little difficult

gettin used to the rocking of the boat... but I was really doing well

towards the end."

Filmed last year in British Columbia, "Gold Diggers" tells the tale of two

teens - a city slicker (Ricci) and a tough, troubled tomboy (Chlumsky) - who

form a friendship when they traipse into the woods looking for a legendary

treasure. The movie bears absolutely no resemblance to the lavish 1930s

"Gold Diggers" series with their Busby Berkeley-musical numbers. A little

disco on a dinghy is as musical as the "Gold Diggers" of 1995 gets.

Although the new "Gold Diggers" is slightly nostalgic (it`s set in the early

'80s, and framed with a voice-over narration from a reflective Ricci), and

deals with the camaraderie between the two girls, Chlumsky says that it's

not just one of the "buch of women's films out there now." That is: "Now and

Then" (also with Ricci), "How to Make an American Quilt" and "Moonlight and

Valentino."

"It`s kind of the fad of the season," Chlumsky said by phone from her

hometown the other day. "But our movie doesn't emphasize the fact that we're

girls. ...The story could have worked perfectly if there were two boys or a

boy and a girl." Chlumsky's favorite movies of the year, thus far: Mel

Gibson's "Braveheart," "Unstrung Heroes" and "Smoke."

Unlike Ricci, who has been busily employed since filming "Gold Diggers"

(Ricci's done a Gabriel Byrne-scripted Irish movie, "The Last of the High

Kings," and a remake of Disney's "That Darn Cat") Chlumsky hasn't had

another job since. "I'm trying for 'em, but no luck yet," she said a little

ruefully. "Sometimes it gets frustrating, but I just have to tell myself,

well, someone else is getting it, and good for them. It just wasn't meant to

be. ... You just have to go on the audition, enjoy the audition for what it

is, and then not wait ba the phone and get all distraught over not getting

it. Just get on with real life."

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Short item in the

Entertainment Weekly Inc.

© 1994 Entertainment Weekly Inc.

On screen, she has quickly gone from being motherless, in My Girl, to having

a stepmother, in My Girl 2, to swapping mothers, in the outrageous Trading

Mom. In real life, thank goodness, things are a bit more stable for Anna

Chlumsky. At 13, this eight-year veteran of show business knows the

advantages of having a mom and a manager rolled into one.

EW: Has your mom ever done anything that made you think about trading her

in?

Chlumsky: She was late once to pick me up and I was really mad... actually

she's late all the time.

EW: How did you start out - did you just go to your mom and say, "I want to

be an actress"?

Chlumsky: I started modeling when I was 10 months old, so, really, I've

always been doing it.

EW: Are you goint to stick with acting?

Chlumsky: I think I want to do it until college - then I want to be a

paleontologist. I love dinosaurs.

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A Cast

Anna Chlumsky recreates the role of the irresistable Vada Sultenfuss in 'My

Girl 2'. Prior to making her film debut in 'My Girl' at the age of 10, Anna

was one of more than 1.000 young hopefuls vying for the title role. A video

audition submitted to director Howard Zieff by the David and Lee Talent

Agency in Chicago led Zieff to travel to the Windy City to audition Anna

personally. She was then flown to Hollywood for a screen test with her

future leading man, box-office champ Macaulay Culkin.

Anna was born on December 3, 19080 and appeared in her first magazine ad at

the tender age of 10 months. Since that time she has worked regularly as a

photographic model, as an actress in local and national television

commercials and industrial films and on the Chicago stage in 'Annie' (first

as Mollie, then tessie, during 166 performances of the musical). Subsequent

to filming 'My Girl,' Anna hit the boards once again as 'Amaryllis' in a

Chicago production of 'The Music Man'. Prior to filming 'My Girl 2', Anna

starred with Sissy Spacek in the film 'The Mommy Market," due for release in

early 1994.

In addition to her schooling, where she excels in creative writing, English

and German (her favourite subject), 13-year-old Anna has kept busy playing

'Mama' in a school production of 'Bye Bye Birdie' and studying a variety of

performing arts, including singing, ballet, tap, piano and clarinet.