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Following Her Dreams
Actress/screenwriter Isabel Rose mirrors her own life
in the new indie film 'Anything But Love."
NAOMI PFEFFERMAN
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ne week after her 1998 wed-
ding, New York actress
Isabel Rose packed up her
belongings and moved with
her husband to London.
Although the Yale graduate had
achieved some success in the theater,
she said her parents had different
expectations.
"I was raised to be a nice Jewish
wife and hostess," Rose, 35, said. So
she scrapped performing to follow
her banker hubby, figuring she'd write
novels while he was at work.
"But I was wretchedly lonely and
traumatized," she said. "I cried every
day. Finally I found a way to write
myself out of that dilemma by writ-
ing a movie."
Her charming debut film, Anything
But Love, tells of Billie Golden (Rose),
a Jewish aspiring singer facing a simi-
lar dilemma. She's a Judy Garland
wannabe addicted to Technicolor
movie musicals, but her attorney
fiance wants her to give up perform-
ing to become a socialite-hausfrau.
"The story reflected the emotional
truth of my life," said the now-
divorced Rose, who is also addicted
to 1950s musicals. "I felt I was being
forced to give up my voice as an artist
to have the stability of this great guy
who just wasn't my soul mate.
'And the movie is about a woman
who stays true to her dreams while being
urged to be practical and realistic."
Just as Billie persists at her sleazy
lounge gig, Rose persevered as her
movie was rejected from 17 film festi-
vals and deemed too upbeat for an
independent film.
Then came the success of other
cheerful indies such as My Big Fat
Greek Wedding, and the multitalented
Rose was suddenly hot.
Samuel Goldwyn Films agreed to
distribute Anything, Rose appeared in
a Vogue profile titled "A Star is Born,"
and she signed a Doubleday deal for
two Jewish-themed books, The J.A.P.
Chronicles, a collection of fictional
short stories, and Member of the Tribe.
"It's been like a fairytale," the spir-
ited actress said during an interview
at her publicist's Los Angeles office.
"My life has paralleled my art in this
crazy kind of way."
Like her silver screen alter ego,
Rose, the daughter of a military his-
tory professor, has been infatuated
with musicals since growing up
Reform in New York. Every Friday in
her Upper East Side apartment, there
was a lavish, formal Shabbat dinner
followed by retro entertainment.
"We were like the von Trapp-
steins," she said, punning on the fam-
ily in The Sound of Music.
"I had a guitar and we would sing,
and after we were exhausted with our
"Isabel was always accused of being
old-fashioned and mainstream while
everyone else was doing experimental
work," said Robert Cary, 35, her
classmate and Anything director/co-
writer. "Like Billie, she marched to
her own drummer, despite people
saying critical things."
After graduation, Rose starred in
productions such as the national tour
of Six Degrees of Separation, but life on
the road eventually wore her down.
She reinvented herself by earning a
master's degree in fiction from
Bennington College. "I imagined I'd
write this starring role for myself and
51.MItleattr p oOrfi ffO
w .
Isabel Rose in 'Anything But Love": "I was raised to be a nice Jewish wife and
hostess," says the actress/screenwriter.
singing, we would retreat into the liv-
ing room and my father would pull out
the movie projector, and we'd see An
American in Paris or Singin' in the Rain.
"Always, attached to this religious
meal, were these MGM movie musi-
cals. And always, during the reel
changes, I was the one imitating Gigi
or Anne Miller in Kiss Me Kate."
Although Rose starred in all the plays
at school and Jewish sleep-away camp,
she said her parents hoped she would
make acting a hobby, not a career.
Her struggle continued as she por-
trayed musical theater leads at Yale.
announce myself to the world," she
recalled.
Instead, she said, she bought into
the "30 and no ring on the finger, oy
vey," stigma and got engaged.
It was just before moving to London,
while en route to meet Cary at an
Eartha Kitt cabaret show at the Carlyle
Hotel, that Rose envisioned Anything.
"Isabel ran out of the taxi and said
she'd had this flash of inspiration," Cary
said. "She was anxious to tell a story
about a woman who wants to sing but
has a problem with her [fiance]."
The two friends worked on the