“I didn’t wanna do it”: the 1996 movie Goldie Hawn wouldn’t make unless her demands were met
Goldie Hawn is a Hollywood legend whose insights need to be applied in life.
One of the most impressive hallmarks of a great career in Hollywood is being able to transition between different generations and find an equal amount of success. While Goldie Hawn won an Academy Award for ‘Best Supporting Actress’ for her performance in Cactus Flower when she was still reasonably young, there was no guarantee that she would have a career beyond that.
In Hollywood, it’s not infrequent that the industry casts aside women after they reach a certain age, but thankfully, she proved to be one of the biggest stars of the 1970s and ‘80s, with Foul Play launching her into a successful screen duo with Chevy Chase finding even greater fame when she and her partner Kurt Russell starred in the cult comedy classic Overboard, in which their chemistry was pitch-perfect.
However, while she yielded a tremendous amount of power in the ‘90s, which was her fourth decade in the industry, she still had concerns about what she applied her time to, as she’d already faced her fair share of career disappointments and did not want to repeat those mistakes. On paper, The First Wives Club sounded like it would be a guaranteed hit, with the 1992 novel of the same name, on which it was based, already a bestseller, and her co-stars included Bette Midler and Diane Keaton, two legends in their own right.
Regardless, Hawn grew concerned with the project because of what she perceived to be issues with the script, which she fought to correct. “I fought for every single thing I could because what happened with First Wives Club,” she said, “We all turned it down because it was very male-bashing, and didn’t want to do it. I didn’t wanna do it and then suddenly, the girls said, ‘OK, Goldie, you talk, you do it’.”
Hawn said that it was at the insistence of Midler and Keaton that she worked on the script and hired an additional writer to fix the issues in the original draft. While she was already committed to filming a Woody Allen film at the same time, she was able to make time in her schedule because she believed in the potential of the project
“One time they came to my apartment in New York and met with me, and it was a writer who was gonna sweeten it and make it better and all that,” she said, “I don’t know how many notes I gave him, and I was doing Everyone Says I Love You at that point, so it was like, ‘Oh, I have a day off. OK, now I gotta spend it doing this. OK, fine’.“
Despite the tumultuous behind-the-scenes process, The First Wives Club was a runaway success financially, which picked up an Academy Award nomination for ‘Best Original Score’. While reviews at the time were mildly positive, the film began to pick up a cult following among middle-aged female viewers, who had been the intended audience all along.
Hawn didn’t just sustain her own career with The First Wives Club, but helped raise the profile of her co-stars during an important period in their own careers. After the passing of Keaton last year, the film was brought up as a favourite among many young people who had been first introduced to her through it.
