![]() ![]() Shortly after her 40th birthday, the actress started to question her identity. Always eager to solve a problem - even one as daunting as administering CPR to her best friend, who got locked in a refrigerator during a game of hide-and-seek. So self-possessed that she was somehow able to pull off a rainbow wardrobe. So why didn’t Moon Frye feel the need to make a theatrical, public break with her squeaky clean child star image?īecause she was actually like Punky. And after being taunted by boys who called her “Punky Boobster” because of her size 38DD chest, she got a breast reduction at age 15, using the experience as a platform to address teenage body insecurities. In interviews, she spoke proudly about being a virgin. When the sitcom came to a close in 1988, she returned to school in the San Fernando Valley and spent her summers at camp in Malibu. But Frye’s wide web of contacts offers a compelling window into not only her past, but the very specific cultural moment when it all unfolded.Soleil Moon Frye never had a “ Wrecking Ball” moment.Īt the height of her fame on “Punky Brewster,” she teamed up with then-First Lady Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No” campaign to urge kids to resist drugs. ![]() ![]() The destination, frankly, is probably less compelling than the journey. ![]() Directed by Frye – who’s starring in a “Punky” revival on the streaming service Peacock – the documentary gives off the feel of wading through old yearbooks, while allowing the viewers to peer over Frye’s shoulder as she tries to sort out what it all meant. There are plenty of memorable tidbits sprinkled throughout “Kid 90,” from Frye videotaping herself going for breast-reduction surgery as a teenager (after her rapid development made her the butt of cruel jokes) to video of her partying with pals – drinking Jagermeister straight from the bottle – quickly followed by footage of her delivering a pitch to “Just Say No” to drugs.įrye also opens up about a date-rape incident – before that term existed – and her later relationship with Charlie Sheen, who insists on referring to himself as “Charles” in the voicemail messages that she saved.įor anyone who watched some of these shows in their heyday, “Kid 90” is like prying open a time capsule, filled with at least as many melancholy memories as joyful ones. While Frye talks about having a reasonably normal childhood all things considered, Gosselaar recalls being told that once an actor walked onto a TV or movie set, kid or no kid, “You have to act like an adult.” Most remarkably, Frye toted a video camera around before cellphones were ubiquitous, which makes this behind-the-velvet-ropes access all the more intoxicating. The list includes Stephen Dorff, Brian Austin Green, David Arquette, Balthazar Getty, Mark-Paul Gosselaar and more. As proof, the film ends with sobering snapshots of all the friends that Frye, now 44, lost along the way.Ĭast in her NBC sitcom at age seven, Frye cites her own questions as to whether “things really happened the way I remembered them” as motivation for the project, enlisting other former kid actors – one wants to call them survivors – to share their recollections. Premiering on Hulu, the 70-some-odd-minute film really plays like a companion to another recent documentary, Alex Winter’s HBO film “Showbiz Kids,” presenting a nostalgic but troubling vision of what it was like to be a child star. Turns out Soleil Moon Frye – TV’s “Punky Brewster” – meticulously documented her formative years, recently wading back through home movies, phone messages and photos and assembling them into “Kid 90,” a documentary that she calls “A true chronological blueprint of what it was to grow up as a teenager in the ’90s.” But Frye was a special teen – one with Zelig-like exposure to practically everyone else who was young and famous during those years. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |