Andrea Naschak (aka April Rayne) in Hold Me Thrill Me Kiss Me
Commentator Mark Allen is a writer living in New York. He says there is one word to deal with every hassling request. Can you guess what it is?
Commentator Mark Allen is a writer living in New York. He says there is one word to deal with every hassling request. Can you guess what it is?
July 8, 2009
Best line of the year for me? Shorter. I sent an e-mail that was four sentences long to one of my bosses, and he sent a one-word reply back from his Blackberry: Shorter—one time he jokingly mentioned that I sent long-winded e-mails (I do, sometimes). This e-mail I sent was just quick, information, work-related…and I needed answers.
At first I thought it was a weird typo, but indeed it was him, telling me to make my e-mail to him shorter. Basically re-type it, shorter, and submit it again for his “is-it-short-enough” approval. And his e-mail was an example for me on how to do that. Because he’s savvier than me, that’s why. Not even a period, just “Shorter”. Even the “Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry” at the bottom was longer. I didn’t even respond. It’s probably because he’s very into the one-sentence blogging social network sites like Facebook and Twitter, which he still uses constantly (but if you ask him, he’ll tell you he’s “over” them).
Anyway, it’s now my new favorite response to anyone, at anytime, for anything. I’ve been saying it to my boyfriend all day. I just say “shorter” and walk away. Next time someone you don’t like hassles you about something and uses more than two syllables to do it, just calmly say “shorter” and walk out of the room. Try it! It’s brilliant!
Actors who have fallen off of the face of the Earth: Andrea Naschak (aka: April Rayne) + interview!
At some point in 1993, I went to the Angelika Film Centre in Manhattan to see a new comedy directed by Joel Hershman, called Hold Me Thrill Me Kiss Me. The film, which concerned the kook-a-zoid goings-on of several desperate characters in a trailer park, had gotten good reviews in the papers. Everyone seemed to agree that the film was somewhat of a John Waters/Pedro Almadovar-esque knock-off, but was nevertheless quite a good one, with it's own unique qualities. The screening was on a weekend night, and was sold out. As the film played, my friends and I, and the whole audience, laughed and enjoy it all. It was a good movie! However, of the ensemble cast, there was one character in particular; a megalo/nymphomaniac/homidic-al, garbage-mouthed stripper named "Sabra" - who seemed to get the biggest guffaws from the audience. The film featured a lot of known actors, like Diane Ladd, Sean Young, Adrianne Shelly and even Timothy Leary. But the actress who played the irrepressible Sabra, billed as one Andrea Naschak, was hard to ignore. She was like the soul of Carole Lombard, Ruth Buzzi, Sandra Bernhard, Shirley Stoler and Pat Ast - whizzed in a blender and poured into the body of Gina Lollobrigida, then topped with Cookie Mueller's head and crowned with one of Jessica Hahn's worst wigs...
It was like she had a built-in megaphone for a mouth, and she effortlessly cold-cocked every scene she was in. Whenever she walked on screen and said or did anything, the audience howled. She just had it - she was remarkably funny. The actress was billed as one Andrea Naschak, and was someone I had never heard of, but didn't forget.
A year later, when the film was released on video, I immediately rented it. And *gasp!* there she was again! Sabra! She was like some sort of nightmarishly hysterical screen heroine. I kept the video for almost a week, paying all the late fees, just so I could show it to my friends, who loved it. We began to quote Sabra's lines from the film in our everyday lives. There always seemed to be a perfectly logical reason to say things like "Watch the grease will ya? I don't need any zits popping up on my ass while I'm filming." or "Don't talk, don't move, don't breathe, don't ruin it..." or "Don't let my dildos, vibrators and handcuffs fool you..."
But again, who in the world was this actress, Andrea Naschak? I pulled out my dog-eared copy of Leonard Maltin's 1994 Film & Video Guide to look her up. Ahh... there she was! But wha..? Hold Me Thrill Me Kiss Me was listed as her first film, and also her last?! How? She had such talent! Had Andrea just been a good friend of the director and producers, and done the role as a favor to them? Had she just been a computer-generated animation? Had she left the planet? We hoped not, and I eventually bought my own copy of the video.
Years later, when I figured out how to finally open the box that held my new computer, I looked Andrea Naschak up on the internet, and... uh, who's April Rayne? Her filmography did indeed end at Hold Me Thrill Me Kiss Me, but it didn't start there... holy cow! Before that were listed about zillion other films! *gasp!* I looked at the titles closely, and soon realized they were actually porn titles. In addition, they had Andrea Naschak listed under a few psedonyms like Valerie Harte, and mostly April Rayne. Wow... had the producers and directors of Hold Me Thrill Me Kiss Me hired a one-time porn actress to star alongside other great actors in a "real" film, and struck gold? It looked like they had. It was hard to believe. She suddenly seemed ten times as interesting as just some newly discovered, unknown actress.
When porn stars usually make it to the "big time," it's that transition itself that gets celebrated, not their actual performance in that new plateau. They're usually pretty bad, and despite the gonzo world they come out of, porn stars ironically never seem brainy enough to do comedy, or at least do it well. Poking fun at yourself on screen, in the truest and funniest sense, requires a kind of double (triple?) layer of awareness that, if not channeled, ends up falling flat. Andrea Naschak seemed to have a gut instinct for that and more, and her first foray into the big time - her performance in Hold Me Thrill Me Kiss Me - seemed to defy all of those stereotypes. A true success story?
Over time, Hold Me Thrill Me Kiss Me has ended up being one of those unforgettable indie nuggets - one that has unfortunately been sequestered out of the current cultural arena because it has (still) never been released on DVD. Argh! And now even the initial VHS run is now out of print (although it's easy to find reasonably-priced, decent used copies of those on Amazon or Ebay). In 2006, the film got more than a handful of mentions in the press, by default, due to the tragic death of one of it's stars (Adrianne Shelly), and the subsequent investigation. Gawker called the film "criminally underseen." People that did get to see Hold Me Thrill Me Kiss Me when it came out tend to remember it fondly, and it does have a small following. So until a company like Blue Underground or Anchor Bay decides to harvest it's much deserved reputation with a DVD re-release - the film will have to live on amongst treasured, dusty VHS copies, word-of-mouth, and clips on YouTube.
Whatever happened to Andrea "Sabra" Naschak? I was contemplating another entry in my Actors Who Have Fallen Off The Face Of The Earth series, and decided Andrea Naschak had to be the third entry. She must be recognized! She was a small, but fondly remembered, bright blip on the vast-est of vast screens that is popular culture. I would write about the film, and report what I could find on her history (where had she disappeared to?) I nearly fell out of my chair when I discovered that she has a MySpace page. %#@&*!! I breathlessly contacted her.
In coresponding with her to ask her for this interview, I found out that Andrea Naschak is of course not like the explosive Sabra, but certainly seemed of Sabra. In contrast, Andrea is actually more of a perfectionist, and a goal-oriented Leo. She's still very much a wild child at heart though, and pretty brazen. She is also extremley proud of all of her accomplishments, and more than anything, is certainly someone who lives life by her own rules.
It turns out she happily retired from performing back in 1993, and moved up to Northern California to become a mom(!) and raise her new son. However now that some years have passed, and her son is a bit older - amongst other things, she has found time to work on some writing projects, and indeed is perhaps positioning herself to get back into acting, something she loves. She was thrilled to hear from a fan of the film, and said she'd be happy to talk about her life experiences, as well as her experiences working on Hold Me Thrill Me Kiss Me. So... here, folks, is Andrea Naschak.
See clips of Andrea Naschak in Hold Me Thrill Me Kiss Me here (Vimeo - best quality)--oops, been deleted, so try here (YahooVideo - lesser quality).
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