KATE HUDSON
She's young, gorgeous and Goldie Hawn's daughter, but until now KATE HUDSON was only Almost Famous. Her leading role in Cameron Crowe's new film about the 705 rock scene has changed all that. But is it really for the better? Words: Miles Fielder
SO I'M HAVING DINNER IN A TRENDY LONDON restaurant with Hollywood ‘lt Girl‘ Kate Hudson. daughter of Goldie Hawn, star ofCameron Crowe‘s new film Almost Famous. We‘ve had a lovely day together: lunch at the Dorchester Hotel on Park Lane, then a stroll through Hyde Park. We‘ve talked about Hudson‘s leading role in Crowe‘s autobiographical film about a music journalist and a band aid (more of a muse than just a groupie) on tour with a rock band across America in 1973. We‘ve talked about Kate‘s famous mother and stepfather. actor Kurt Russell, and her biological father, musician Bill Hudson, who left home when she was two years old. I lean across the dinner table and ask Kate, ‘Would you pass the salt‘?‘
And then I wake up from my daydream.
The reality of interviewing Hudson is being squeezed into her busy promotional schedule along with four other journos; 25 minutes with her the afternoon before Almost Famous premieres at the London Film Festival last November. l am in the Dorchester, though. Like Hudson, it‘s glamorous.
And it‘s ironic. William Miller, the teenage protagonist in Almost Famous (Patrick Fugit playing a thinly disguised Crowe), becomes a rock journalist at a time when access to stars is easy, certainly without parallel in today‘s world of press
agents and minders. Miller‘s mentor, legend- ary rock journo Lester
Bangs (chameleon-like Philip Seymour Hoffman in the film), warns the kid it‘s the end of rock music. Record companies and ' PR companies are taking
control. Musicians are
becoming savvy to the commercial rewards of publicising themselves.
Rock and roll is dying and rock journalism‘s going down the tubes with it. So I sit through Crowe‘s sharp, amusing, well-made if somewhat nostalgic film, and then I join the promotional
carnival and take my 25 minutes to ‘get to know‘ Kate} 8 Jan—1 Feb 2001 THE Ll8T15