Canyon People
Two Famous Friends In Hollywood, An Interview
By Tommy Garrett
Dec 20, 2009 - 8:21:04 PM

BEL AIR —How come the public can’t believe that two beautiful and talented women can be best friends? Oprah often says that the tabloids say things about her and her best friend, publishing executive Gayle King, because the public is never taught that women can be real friends and that they are naturally catty, which is not true at all. That false belief is an understatement in Hollywood. Even though we have had some of the most famous ladies as friends in this town, people still don’t believe that Jennifer Aniston and Courteney Cox are actually best friends. Long before those two famous friends were born, we had studio buddies like WB’s Olivia deHavilland and Bette Davis, MGM’s Norma Shearer and Janet Leigh and today we have actress Tanna Frederick and artist Felicity Nove as our example of true feminine friendship in Tinseltown. The two beauties not only encourage each other professionally but compliment each other as friends.

Tanna Frederick is smoking hot right now in Hollywood. The beautiful and talented diva is the lead in Henry Jaglom’s Rainbow Theatre Company’s “45 Minutes From Broadway” which single-handedly has raised the temperature of the nearby Pacific Ocean with theater goers leaving in hysterics from Tanna’s witty and fabulous performance as the long suffering Panda. She’s also getting Oscar-buzz from the film “Irene in Time,” which was directed and written by the maverick filmmaker Jaglom as well.

Diane Salinger, her “45 Minutes” costar described Tanna best, “She’s a beautiful person inside as well as outside. She’s a beautiful light on the planet.” Best friend Felicity Nove, the 2005 winner of the Art Directors Guild of America award for Excellence in Production Design says, “Tanna’s an amazing lady. Very talented but so giving. She is so devoted to her family and friends and despite her success, she has never changed.”

Tanna had plenty to say about her best friend’s artwork, “To me, Felicity’s artwork is very childlike and innocent, somehow reminding me of the first time I saw the ocean or went to the zoo, presented in this non judgmental, non intimidating, lovely freshness. Her paintings hold endless possibilities in their simplicity and grace in their primness, somehow elegant and wild at the same time, the personification of a prima ballerina taking her first bow with all of the delectable lines and layers of color put into concentrated demonstration and determination, but still unable to mask the uninhibited joy and celebration. They hold a disciplined feistiness,” said Frederick.

Feisty is a word often used to describe her character Maggie in the upcoming feature film “Queen of the Lot.” Though it’s her marathon performance opposite Victoria Tennant in “Irene in Time” that has Hollywood buzzing about her growth as an actress and also talking a possible Oscar nomination. Tanna explained to Canyon News how she prepared for the role. “I spent time with Tony Franciosa. He was going to play my father in the film, and watching his films, putting him [as anyone would] on a pedestal of perfection in my mind, as my character Irene did with her father in the movie. When Tony unexpectedly died before filming, we sadly reworked the script without him, my character’s father had now lost her father at thirteen, but my admiration for him and his immense talent and beautiful essence stayed with me and always will. The devastation of a girl losing her father was the sadness of Irene’s world and the silver screen losing Tony Franciosa, one of the greatest male actors of all time was a great loss for us all,” said Frederick.

When asked how director Jaglom pulled such a strong performance out of the young star, she thanked me for the question and compliment then said, “Henry demands authenticity and condemns pleasantries. In that sense, actors are forced to come through with the subtext and wear that as a primary color, the rest of the masking is a byproduct of the scene whereas I think a lot of work today has become all about masking and the true emotions become so subtle that they sometimes aren’t even experienced. Henry pushes his actors to roll up their sleeves and get dirty and ugly. From what I've seen the more incorrect my choices or other actors’ choices [or what they tell me after filming they felt most uncomfortable with] feel, the result of that work on screen is glaringly closer to the honesty of everyday life. Life is messy and we are unsure, and Henry insists his actors' performances maintain that lovely nakedness,” stated the “Irene in Time” star.

Back to the other half of the famous friends, artist Felicity Nove talks about her brand of art, which is painting. “I guess I’ve always painted or drawn. My father was an artist and had a huge love of nature. I went to Sydney University where I received my Bachelor of Visual Arts and then went on the do a post graduate in film at Sydney College of the Arts. I was awarded the Kenneth Myer Creative Scholarship upon graduating and spent the following year in Japan where I hooked up with Australian film director Fred Schepisi and subsequently he introduced me to my husband [filmmaker Ron Vignone],” said Nove. Which is how Tanna and Felicity became such good friends. “Tanna and I have been friends for a few years - we met through my husband's work of course, and have become close. We have a deep admiration for each other's work and pursuit's of happiness. We both come from similar heritages, with a huge sense of family which plays into both of our value systems. She’s from Iowa and I’m from Aussie land. I love her wonderful approach to life, her laughter and her wide open heart! It reminds me of the Big blue sky Down Under,” concluded the painter.

Felicity Nove will be making an appearance on the L.A. art scene in a couple months in her upcoming show Life Lines, Heredity Pour: New Brighton System of Lineage opens at LAAA/Gallery 825 with a reception on Saturday, February 13, from 6 to 9 p.m. and her work will remain at the gallery through March 12th. LAAA/Gallery 825 is located at 825 N. La Cienega Blvd. in Los Angeles.

Though Frederick’s “Irene in Time” can still be seen in various screening rooms around town. The very modest actress was asked about the fact that she and Oscar-winner Meryl Streep are often compared to the legendary actress Bette Davis, who not only kicked down every unopened door for women in Hollywood to get parts at Warner Bros and later getting one of her best films of her career in “All About Eve” from 1949 at 20^th Century Fox Studios when Davis managed to get out of her contract with Jack Warner, Frederick almost cried when I asked her about the comparison. Though she refused to put herself in Ms. Davis’s category, she did admit that Bette was her most favorite golden era star, “Bette Davis is by far not only the greatest actress from the classic film era, but in my opinion the greatest actress of all time. She was big, bold, unafraid and unapologetic for her choices and her work, separating herself from self-consciousness and in that respect knocking down a wall between herself and every character she played, embodying her roles with unabashed brilliance,” concluded Tanna Frederick.

The smoking hot actress Frederick and her beautiful talented artist best friend Nove are proof that two of the sexiest, most successful and talented ladies in Hollywood can break all the rules and choose friendship over it all.

Photos Courtesy: Tanna Frederick courtesy Paul Smith. Also, thanks to Felicity Nove for her photograph.