More than Madeline

There’s nothing like starting the weekend with a conversation about Gilmore Girls, and when that conversation happens to be with actress Shelly Cole (Madeline), you’re in for a real treat. That’s what I discovered Saturday.

It has to be said that there is no shortage of nice people involved in Gilmore Girls; I’ve had the good fortune to speak with many of them. But every now and again you come across someone so unjaded, so down to Earth, you wonder if Hollywood is really the soul-eater many people say it is. (It probably is; there are just some people who guard their souls a bit more carefully than others.)

While Shelly enjoyed her time as the “away with the fairies” Madeline, she has since played a number of roles on television and in film, many as dark as Madeline was warm and friendly. Her latest, as a determined young woman who takes up the clippers in a previously men’s only barbershop in The Village Barbershop, (see photo above) may be the first since Prey for Rock and Roll to demonstrate her range.

Gilmore Girls fans will enjoy her recollections of behind-the-scenes life at Chilton and beyond in The Gilmore Girls Companion. But they also will discover someone very special behind fan favorite Madeline.

‘Girls’ and Horror Flicks

If you’re a working actor and want to keep it that way, sooner or later you’re going to end up in a horror film — that’s just Actor Econ 101. Those who’ve always wanted to see Luke paid back for his callous treatment of Lorelai, for example, can see how Scott Patterson fares in next month’s Saw V.

Next year, you also can look forward to seeing the nicer side of Paris’ Chiltonettes, Shelly Cole (Madeline), popping up in Dark House, a haunted house story starring genre favorite Jeffrey Combs (of Re-Animator fame).

Next year also sees a far more controversial cinematic offering: the remake of the quintessential grindhouse classic The Last House on the Left, featuring Riki Lindhome (Juliet, one of Rory’s fellow Yale students) as sadistic killer Sadie. If the remake turns out to be anything like the Wes Craven original, you’re in for a pretty traumatic experience. Only true Life and Death Brigade members need apply.