This one seems to have passed us all by, but it is worth a bit of digging to find the story behind it.
Brian Donovan was an actor (still is) looking to make it in Hollywood. He had many small jobs across a wide range of TV (Wings, In Living Color, Dr Quinn Medicine Woman, General Hospital, Beverly Hills 90210) and films (Gia, starring Angelina Jolie in an early role). He met a lot of different people over this time.
Brian had a younger sister, Kelly, who was born with Down Syndrome. The two of them were very close and as she grew up Kelly proved herself to be a real character and quite the performer, loving the spotlight.
Kelly’s health began to decline and Brian decided to try and make her Hollywood dreams come true. To let her star shine.
The 2015 documentary, Kelly’s Hollywood, is the film Brian made of their journey through this process and the effects it had on both of them.
Kelly was embraced by Hollywood with all sorts of people contributing to this project. A red carpet style première was created, where Kelly turned up in a limousine and faced the paparazzi. Kathryn, Danny Pino and John Finn also welcomed Kelly onto the set of Cold Case to do an interrogation scene with them. In it Kelly was questioned as a suspect in a case involving her favourite actor Colin Firth (A King’s Speech). Detectives Rush and Valens grilled her on her involvement. This whole thing was improvised by them all, not every one could keep a straight face throughout (Kathryn!), and it took some dark turns. Kathryn was also at the première event.
The documentary premièred in October 2014 and had a Los Angeles screening in the January of 2015. Kathryn attended that ocassion, and her and Danny were at a live event where Kelly was on stage with her brother. Danny was one of Kelly’s favourite men and he was great with her.
Sadly, Kelly passed away in 2009 but Brian continues to show the film at festivals around the world as part of campaigns to raise awareness of disabilities and that people should not be defined by them. Kelly wasn’t going to let hers stop her enjoying life. Brian continues his acting work, mostly doing voice work in Naruto anime games in films.
Kelly’s Holllywood was shown on the Showcase network and is now available on Amazon Video, free to Prime subscribers, in the UK and US. I’ve posted a very small selection of not-so-great quality screencaps in the Gallery to give you an idea of Kathryn’s appearance in the film, and a couple of photos related to the première event. There is a trailer and few videos out there if you want to see them. Check out the full film if you can.
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