Modern Girls 1986
The year: 1986. The hour: late. This is a night shoot on Hollywood Boulevard for Modern Girls, a comedy about girls going to nightclubs in Los Angeles, looking for love. All action on the set halts. The rain machine shuts abruptly off, leaving the asphalt slick and shiny. The bustling crew stops and goes eerily silent because the three actors playing the leading characters of Cece (Cynthia Gibb), Margo (Daphne Zuniga), and Kelly (Virginia Madsen) panic as they huddle around me in the dark alley. Virginia Madsen plays Kelly, the sultry party girl now dripping wet and shivering, saying, “Anita, this is a big scene, and we need your help. We have no clue what to do. Please direct us!”
From the shadows, where I am discreetly directing the girls, I understand better than anyone how the scene should be played. After all, Modern Girls is my original story, the story of my life, and I set up the entire project. Yet I am not the director. The producers hired a male director. Virginia Madsen is my champion on the set. She makes me promise, then and there, that in my next movie, I will be out front in masterful control as the fully-credited director. And that is precisely what happened a few years later with my directorial debut, Assault of the Killer Bimbos.
Even though I was only given Story By and Associate Producer credits, I made myself useful in ways that made me invaluable on set. That’s me in the Day-Glo go-go outfit dancing at Club Power Tools!
Main Cast & Crew of Modern Girls
Virginia Madsen-Kelly, Daphne Zuniga-Margo, Cynthia Gibb-Cece, Clayton Rohner-Clifford & Bruno X, Chris Nash-Ray, Stephen Shellen-Brad, Rick Overton-Marsats
Jerry Kramer-director, Laurie Craig-writer, Anita Rosenberg-story by & associate producer, Gary Goetzman-producer, Tom Coleman-executive producer, Karen Grossman-DP
