Unbitten peach

Another one of those ancient articles about Rosemary Harris. This is from 1992, when she was performing Lost in Yonkers and Ms Ehle was in Tartuffe. The whole article is in the archives.

"People used to say to me, 'How did you know Jennifer was going to be an actress?' I suppose, looking back, the signs were all there."

She reaches for a photograph of her daughter taken the night years ago when the family stayed at the Plaza Hotel. Harris suggested that Jennifer play Eloise, the little girl whose portrait hangs in the lobby of that august establishment. And before the evening was done, the child, only 5 or 6, had created a look that was Eloise to a tee. Arms akimbo, she affected the stance, the lopsided smile."

Now the inevitable has happened. Jennifer Ehle has been discovered by Sir Peter Hall, who directed her mother on Broadway in "Old Times."

But the casting was no favor to a friend. Like her mom, Ehle has the groceries (the critic for the Sunday Times of London said she was "like a peach that has never been bitten").

That strikes Harris as a very funny line, something for the scrapbooks. Listening to her laugh, one is reminded how lovely the English voice is. And in the hands of a virtuoso like Rosemary Harris, it becomes a dangerously seductive weapon. No heart is safe.

And if that's not cool enough, there's a lovely review and encounter story on EhleNews.