Covergirl


cg02with Michele Scarabelli as “Snow Queen”

Kit Paget (Irena Ferris) is an up-and-coming model. T.C. Sloane (Jeff Conaway) is the wealthy businessman who intends to change Kit from a mere model into a superstar model and, hopefully, woe her at the same time.

A mixture of high-fashion glamour, boardroom battles and romance depicting “…the heartaches and struggles involved in the climb to success.” (at least, that’s what the video sleeve says).

THE MICHELE SCARABELLI FACTOR

Covergirl is a landmark of a film. Not because it’s particularly good – because it isn’t – but because it is currently the earliest recorded appearance of Michele Scarabelli.

Most remarkable in this film is Jeff Conaway who plays Sloane. Conaway has a singular acting style which has recently served him spectacularly well in the hit series Babylon 5 and, to be honest, he’s the only one who comes over well in this film.

Michele has only a brief appearance in this film. She appears as a character, covered in much make-up, during a party scene (she’s credited on the end-titles as “Snow Queen” but that’s not substantiated on-screen). The character has obviously enjoyed a little too much of the party ‘spirit’ and also knows Sloane. She drapes herself around him asking if he will make her into a “superstar model as well” at the same time as suggesting that Sloane should join her for a dance in the fountain – for good luck. Sloane declines and so Michele’s character goes for a watery dance on her own.cg08

As with many of her first films, Michele isn’t given the opportunity to do much more than smile and be very cute (although why they thought that she needed so much make-up for this task is a complete mystery) – but it wouldn’t be long before Michele’s characters became key to the central storylines. (It is wondered whether Michele was only cast in such a small part in this film for fear that in a larger role she would all-too-easily have out-shone the actresses playing the supposed “models”.)

Of note is that this film has a number of brief appearances by Philip Akin who later went on to appear in Michele’s film The High Price Of Passion and was a regular star on War of The Worlds during the time of Michele’s episode – on none of these three occasions did the two actors appear on-screen together.

Unfortunately, this film has nothing to recommend it – unless you’re an avid Babylon 5 fan who simply must see Jeff Conaway in an early role.

To this reviewer, however, Michele’s one-minute segment in the centre of the film will forever be remembered with fondness as the beginning of Michele’s sparkling and captivating film/television career.