Swedish postcard. Photo: Universal. Daryl Hannah in Legal Eagles (Ivan Reitman, 1986).
Hungarian postcard by Est Media, Budapest. Daryl Hannah as Elle Driver in Kill Bill, Vol. 2 (Quentin Tarantino, 2004). Caption: Aprilis 29 - Töl a Mozikban. (In the cinema from 29 April).
An acrobatic, beautiful replicant punk android
Daryl Christine Hannah was born in 1960 in Chicago, Illinois. She is the daughter of Susan Jeanne (Metzger), a schoolteacher and later a producer, and Donald Christian Hannah, who owned a tugboat/barge company. Her parents divorced and her mother subsequently married music journalist/promoter Jerrold Wexler, brother of cinematographer Haskell Wexler. Her siblings are actress Page Hannah, Don Hannah, and film director Tanya Wexler.
Daryl graduated from the University of Southern California School of Theatre. She practiced ballet with Maria Tallchief and studied drama at Chicago's Goodman Theatre. Her interest in film was sparked by a severe case of insomnia early in life, and young Hannah would spend hours on end soaking in films into the wee hours of the night.
In her twenties, she played keyboard and sang backup for Jackson Browne. She started with small roles, such as a student in the supernatural horror film The Fury (Brian De Palma, 1978) and as Kim Basinger's younger sister in Hard Country (David Greene, 1981).
Daryl's breakout role was as the acrobatic, beautiful replicant punk android Pris in Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, 1982). IMDb: "Pris was the vixen who wanted to live beyond her allotted years and risked the wrath of the title character." That same year she appeared in the summer hit release Summer Lovers (Randal Kleiser, 1982).
Showing her versatility, from there she portrayed a mermaid, Madison, who falls in love with a land-dweller Tom Hanks in the romantic comedy Splash (Ron Howard, 1984). The film was a huge success with both critics and audiences and helped Hannah, Hanks, and director Ron Howard to fame.
Then she co-starred in The Pope of Greenwich Village (Stuart Rosenberg, 1984), with Mickey Rourke and Eric Roberts. She also played a Cro-Magnon woman among Neanderthals in the flop The Clan of the Cave Bear (Michael Chapman, 1986), based on the first part of the 'Earth Children' cycle by the writer Jean M. Auel), and the title character in Steve Martin's romantic comedy Roxanne (Fred Schepisi, 1987), a contemporary take on Edmond Rostand's play 'Cyrano de Bergerac'.
Hannah received a Razzie Award for her part as Darien Taylor in Oliver Stone's drama Wall Street (1987) opposite Michael Douglas and Charlie Sheen. However, she was highly praised for her interpretation of a nerdish hairdresser Annelle Dupuy Desoto in the comedy-drama Steel Magnolias (Herbert Ross, 1989) and was treated kindly by the press and public for her title role in the made-for-TV Attack of the 50 Ft. Woman (Christopher Guest, 1992), a comical remake of the 1958 cult Science-Fiction film of the same name.
French postcard by Cart Postal System, Bourgoin, 1990. French film poster for High Spirits (Neil Jordan, 1988) with Daryl Hannah, Steve Guttenberg and Peter O'Toole.
French postcard by Editions Mercuri, no. 675. Spanish film poster for Memoirs of an Invisible Man (John Carpenter, 1992) with Daryl Hannah and Chevy Chase.
A contract killer with a conscience
Despite public perception that Daryl Hannah withdrew from acting in the later 1990s, it was simply an unfortunate series of career missteps that kept the enigmatic actress out of the multiplexes and in such mediocre fare as The Last Days of Frankie the Fly (Peter Markle, 1996) and the TV series Gun (1997).
Hal Erickson at AllMovie: "Of course, not all was lost during the 1990s, and audiences could indeed catch memorable performances by Hannah in Grumpy Old Men (Donald Petrie, 1993) (as well as that film's 1995 sequel), the Emmy-nominated mini-series The Last Don (Graeme Clifford, 1997) and the Robert Altman thriller The Gingerbread Man (1998)."
As a filmmaker, Hannah wrote, directed, and produced an award-winning short film, entitled The Last Supper (1995), for which she won the Jury Award of the Berlin Film Festival. Hannah also directed, produced, and shot the documentary Strip Notes (2002) which was inspired while researching her role as a stripper for Dancing at the Blue Iguana (Michael Radford, 2000).
She has been a consistent, strong supporter of independent cinema, both acting in and producing many films. Daryl starred in the experimental improvised Dancing at the Blue Iguana (Michael Radford, 2000), as well as the political satire Silver City (John Sayles, 2004). In 2002, Hannah appeared in Robbie Williams' video for the song 'Feel' portraying Williams' love interest.
She worked on several films with the Polish Brothers including Jackpot (Michael Polish, 2001) and the acclaimed drama Northfork (Michael Polish, 2003). The success of Northfork marked the beginning of a critical year for the veteran actress.
A turn as a contract killer with a conscience followed with The Job (Kenny Golde, 2003), and after a trip to the middle of nowhere in The Big Empty (Steve Anderson, 2003), Hannah aspired to adopt a Mexican orphan in Casa de los babys (John Sayles, 2003). Teamed with a powerhouse cast that included Lili Taylor, Maggie Gyllenhaal, and Marcia Gay Harden, the critically acclaimed drama cemented the comeback that would continue with Kill Bill Vol. 1 (Quentin Tarantino, 2003) just a few short months later.
Cast as deadly assassin Elle Driver (Codename: California Mountain Snake), Hannah's eye-patch-wearing killer was inspired by the Eurotrash cult from Sweden, Thriller - en grym film/Thriller: A Cruel Picture (Bo Arne Vibenius, 1973), also known as They Call Her One Eye. This role, for which she won an MTV Movie Award, brought her back into the limelight. Though Hannah was still breathing at the end of Kill Bill Vol. 1 (Quentin Tarantino, 2003), audiences held their breath to discover the ultimate fate of her vicious character until the release of Kill Bill Vol. 2 (2004) four months later.
Vegan Daryl Hannah has been actively campaigning for the environment and a sustainable lifestyle for years. She advocates animal welfare, organic farming, renewable energy, and against nuclear power. In 2006, she made headlines by occupying a tree in Los Angeles together with singer Joan Baez.
After Kill Bill, she appeared in several TV films, miniseries, and a long series of bad to mediocre films. Hannah returned as Angelica Turing in the Netflix series Sense8 (2015-2018) by Lana and Lilly Wachowski and J. Michael Straczynski. She can be seen in the upcoming American comedy series The Now, directed by Peter and Bobby Farrelly. It stars Dave Franco as a man who decides to turn his life around after learning that he is the third member of his immediate family to be suicidal.
Darryl Hannah was in a serious relationship with John Kennedy Jr. for several years but never married due to Jacqueline Kennedy's disapproval of her son marrying an actress. She began seeing musician Jackson Browne in 1983 and eventually broke up in 1992 amid allegations that Browne was physically abusive to her. Since 2018, Hannah is married to singer-songwriter Neil Young.
British postcard by Pyramid Posters, Leicester, no. PC9465. Photo: Miramax / A Band Apart. Daryl Hannah as Elle Driver in Kill Bill (Quentin Tarantino, 2003). Caption: Elle Driver a.k.a. Californian Mountain Snake.
British postcard by Pyramid Posters, Leicester, no. PC9458, 2004. Photo: Miramax / A Band Apart. Darryl Hannah and other cast members in Kill Bill (Quentin Tarantino, 2003-2004). Caption: The 4th film of Quentin Tarantino.
Sources: Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Wikipedia, and IMDb.
2 comments:
She really shined in Kill Bill. Thanks for the post. One of my favorite films and one of her best performances.
Thanks, Maria. I loved her too, first in Splash and later also in Kill Bill. Sadly there are not many postcards of her. But these of Kill Bill are great.
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