Just 16 years ago today this unlikely trio - who clearly hadn't coordinated their wardrobe choices in advance - gathered to promote a TV movie they made together, If These Walls Could Talk, one of those much-admired-at-the-time kinds of projects that no one ever particularly wants to see again.
At the time, Demi Moore seemed poised to take over Hollywood, even if here she seems to be trying to distract us from her G.I. Jane-skinhead-imposed skullcap by a stealth display of the girls. Walls was meant to be her coming out as a Serious Hollywood Person, the Brat Pack at last behind her. 1996 did turn out to be a turning point; if not quite in the way she'd hoped - Jane garnered her a Worst Actress Razzie and didn't particularly shine at the box office. Coming hard on the heels of the disappointing Striptease and her much-derided go at Hester Prynne in The Scarlet Letter, its failure to thrive meant that her days of opening big movies on her own were suddenly behind her. All too soon she was a voice in The Hunchback of Notre Dame II and an "older woman" guest star in Charlie's Angels, and really things haven't improved much since.
As for Miss Spacek, even then she had started down the path to JessicaTandydom that continues to this day. Never a glamour girl (this apparently is her idea of dressing up, poor thing), she'll likely continue in more or less the same vein for decades, slowly becoming ever more Distinguished and Beloved, not to mention Twinkly and Feisty. Frankly - and I know this doesn't really reflect very well on me as a person at all - she sort of bores me, and has at least since Crimes of the Heart.
And then there's Cher. I am quite sure this is her idea of daywear. In 1996, she had already been a star for 30 years, and even as we speak today she's readying a new album and her latest Final Ever Farewell Tour, the first iteration of which hit the road a decade ago. She is indomitable, eternal, undeniable in her stardom. If Her Walls Could Talk - now that's a picture I'd pay to see.
