There are only three stages for a woman in Hollywood," says frantically aging actress Elise Elliot in The First Wives Club: "babe, district attorney and Driving Miss Daisy." Hold the lap robe. Elise's real-life counterpart is hardly ready to take a backseat. Accompanied by Wives costars Diane Keaton and Bette Midler, Goldie Hawn hit a prickly, $100 million nerve. The message to wives discarded for "Pop-Tarts": Don't get even—get everything...and then get on with your life. "How about that for a birthday present?" says Hawn, who just turned 51, mulling the film's—and her own—success. "You never know what's around the corner."
The Oscar winner (Best Supporting Actress for 1969's Cactus Flower) has had a few sharp turns in a three-decade career, including long absences from the screen to spend time with her companion of 13 years, Kurt Russell, 45, and the four children they share. Says First Wives executive producer Adam Schroeder: "She's able to stop, take time to raise the kids and then come back." Unlike Elise, though, Hawn has never panicked about maturing in a business where most people would rather catch hoof-and-mouth disease than crow's-feet. "She's not like that character at all," says Wives actress Elizabeth Berkley, 24. "She's more beautiful than any 20-year-old friends I have." She glows, costar Diane Keaton recently told Good Housekeeping, because "she has a huge capacity to enjoy life." And then to transform it. When Hawn's mother, Laura, died of heart disease three years ago, the actress changed agents, restructured her production company and began reading scripts in earnest. "It was time to take control of my life," says Hawn, who appears as the singing, dancing first wife of Woody Allen in his current Everyone Says I Love You. "My mom used to say, 'Goldie, you've got to do it yourself! Stop depending on people!' I didn't want to say, 'Why didn't I?' "
Your Reaction
