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 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.
  
 As the large television networks build up towards the autumn/fall season, and the big summer movie releases have become a vague shouty/crashy memory, things are a little quiet for September’s CCCC-up. Thankfully one in particular helps fill the void. You’ll never guess which of the other Cold Case cast members it is…
Tracie Thoms (Kat Miller in CC) returned to the Fox network show 9-1-1 to reprise her occasional role in last Monday’s season opener. My assumption in the previous CCCC-up was a little off, the tsunami that formed much of the footage isn’t due until episode 3. They didn’t start with a splash after all. It looks like Tracie could well be back again in episode four though.
Another show that started a new run last Monday was ABC’s The Good Doctor. Having not seen it myself, The Good Doctor‘s premise of a young autistic savant surgeon looks a bit like a cross between (and this ages me!) Doogie Howser M.D. and House M.D. The latter should be no surprise as both TGD and House are the creations of David Shore. Tracie will be guest starring at some point during the show’s third season, possibly across several episodes, as she appeared briefly in a promo trailer for the show released earlier this month. If what she says in it is anything to go by Tracie’s character will be dealing with another aspect of the law. The video is a general teaser for the whole season. Watch it on YouTube HERE.
The big news for John Finn (John Stillman in CC) this month has been release a couple of weeks ago of the Brad Pitt-lead space-based movie Ad Astra. Generally speaking the film has been well received, with a few questioning the sometimes jarring shifts between epic outer-space battles and the inner-space introspection of Brad’s father issues. Either way, the film is on course to make a profit, even if it was never going to be a mass-appeal blockbuster like a Toy Story 4 or The Lion King.
The Start TV network has posted some additional items on their website referencing Kathryn.
The channel is very much focussed on women in and around the media. All but one of the main shows they broadcast is female lead. Only Early Edition starring Kyle Chandler (Catch-22) gets a look in, and he’s relegated to the appropriately middle of the night slots. Cold Case gets televised back-to-back in mid-afternoon double.
First up is a brief article previewing a series of pieces celebrating women in TV ahead of the Emmy Awards, which happens on Sunday (22nd September). After a quick recap of Kathryn’s career (so far) they link back to the interview we covered here back in July. Not surprisingly that interview was not a complete transcript of the conversation which took place, and they have been holding bits back for use in these extra items. It ends with this quote:
“I never really looked at Cold Case as an overnight success. I feel like I had 13, 14, 15 years of being an apprentice or a journeyman. I never underestimate the small steps in learning to become an actor.” After a pause, she added, “or learning how to do anything in life.”
Next is a much longer feature covering ten women, including Kathryn and Tracie Thoms (Kat Miller in CC), that work in and around TV. There are actors, producers and writers.
I assume that Start TV will continue to post pieces like these in the future and I will endeavour to highlight the ones involving Kathryn when they do.
 As I started to put this post together the obvious subject line to use was ‘Resurrection Of A Cheerleader’. It tied in very nicely with the Death Of A Cheerleader film title. Turns out I thought it was a great title back in February when I first used it! Mind like a sieve sometimes!
This news I recently found of the Lifetime channel in the US, broadcasting a remake of the 1994 movie sometimes called A Friend To Die For yesterday, should have been less of a surprise as I’d previously reported this same thing. So often I post about the announcement of a project Kathryn is due to star in, following up some time later when it gets released or other news breaks on the subject. I initially took my earlier article on this 2019 TV movie as a ‘in development’ item. As I said, very forgetful.
Nope. Turns out February was the début. Not sure why some outlets are reporting the Labor Day weekend showing as a first. It did form part of a cheerleader themed week of films (Denise Richards of Cougars, Inc. stars in one of them). Some of of them were premières, so maybe that’s where the confusion lies.
Anyway, Kathryn got some mentions as a star in the 1994 film. Sadly she didn’t make a return in this one, Kellie Martin (one of the teenagers before) did guest star as a police detective though.
If, for some reason, you want to see this remake then it is no doubt being shown often enough on Lifetime so you won’t have to wait long for it to come around again. They’ll probably re-do it again in a few years. Perhaps Kathryn can be persuaded to be in that one.
Sorry to have bothered you.
The original Death Of A Cheerleader was covered 8 years ago on KM UK HERE.
 August can be a limited month for showbiz news. Lots of people are on holiday, the blockbuster movies have largely come and gone, and the TV series are well into production for the autumn/fall start. We’ll do what we can though for our latest CCCC-up, covering careers of the other Cold Case cast members.
It has been a couple of months since we put Tracie Thoms (Kat Miller in CC) front and centre, in fact she didn’t even feature last month (I though hell had frozen over!), so we’ll put that right.
Panic over, emergency service cross-over show 9-1-1 is due to return on the Fox network on 23rd September 2019. According to IMDb, Tracie is slated to be in the season 3 première. Whether that is true or not we’ll no doubt find out closer to the time when official press releases are published. Based on the promo video (watch it HERE) the panic is just starting and Tracie will need her armbands and rubber ring. Get out of the water! It’s amazing to think that just a few years ago a production like that first episode, with all the computer graphics etc. required, would have the preserve of a high-budget movie but can now be done on a television series.
We ended our June CCCC-up Tracie news talking about a rom-com movie called Straight Up. The film had just premièred at the LGBTQ+ focused Frameline Festival and was heading to the Outfest event in July. As said at the time, no further distribution had been arranged. Early this month the new broke that Strand Releasing has acquired the rights to screen the film in US cinemas. A somewhat vague ‘spring of next year’ is the currently expected time of a theatrical release for Straight Up.
John Finn (John Stillman in CC) has been featured an unusually large amount in recent CCCC-ups as we head rapidly towards the mid-September release of the new Brad Pitt space epic Ad Astra. The film had its premiere at the Venice Film Festival two days ago (29th August 2019). There are a number of reviews of it out there already. The main thrust of the appraisals I’ve skimmed through are that, for all its huge interstellar dramatics, this is really a small film about a man and his relationship with his father. Talking of hugeness, the IMAX trailer for Ad Astra has been released and you can experience that immersive grandeur HERE on your non-IMAX mobilephone or laptop via YouTube! Despite including additional footage compared to the previous trailers (see older CCCC-ups) John does not feature this time.
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Shout Outs To… Those suffering in war-torn areas
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