The Compleat Steve :: About Steve :: Person :: Romance



				About Steve :: Person :: Romance :: Victoria Tennant British papers give Victoria Tennant's date of birth as in 1950; when she came to America, she got younger, with a birthdate listing 1953. She is the daughter of a Russian ballerina and an English talent agent. Her godfather was Sir Laurence Olivier. After a beginning movie career in Britain, she came to America to work in The Winds of War. She met Steve while making All of Me in 1983. They lived together and then married in 1986. They divorced in 1994. She subsequently remarried and had a daughter.
			The Washington Post February 9, 1985, Sunday, Final Edition TV Tab; Pg. 8 Victoria Tennant; Over Here and 'Under Siege' By Michael E. Hill "The Winds of War" blew her across the Atlantic Ocean. Until she was featured in that miniseries on American television, Victoria Tennant was a British actress, known to a relatively small circle of friends for her work over there and on stage over here. But "Winds" brought her to a larger audience -- and circle of producers -- who simply refuse to let her go home again. "That was a dramatic change for me," she said. "For a European actor it's hard to get a maximum exposure to an audience . . . If actors get exposure they become commodities that are saleable." There couldn't be much wider an audience than the millions who saw "Winds of War." And what they saw in Tennant, who played the British consort of Navy officer Robert Mitchum, was an actress with looks reminiscent of Grace Kelly's and an icy facade fronting for a feisty temperament. Ah, if only Alfred Hitchcock were here. But a series of other producers and directors have been here to help bring about the Americanization of Victoria. Since "Winds," she has appeared in another prominent miniseries, "Chiefs." Carl Reiner cast her in "All of Me" with Steve Martin and Lily Tomlin, and John Frankenheimer put her in "The Holcroft Covenant," playing Helden in the film version of the Robert Ludlum thriller. And when she hasn't been asked to play a role in this or that theatrical or television film -- she's simply asked to play parts; she hasn't auditioned since she was in acting school -- she's developed her own material. She co-produced and starred in "Strangers Kiss," a film in which she plays the girl friend of a petty hood. "There are far fewer good women's parts than there are for men," she said, speaking of the need for a woman to produce projects for herself to ensure steady employment. "You have a lot of action pictures (featuring men in the leads), with women often being window dressing and supplying sex. Also, a lot of the business is youth-oriented." Tennant is all of 34. She is a featured player this week in NBC's "Under Siege," a three-hour TV movie that asks how America would respond to terrorism. "I play Peter Strauss' wife and he's the head of the FBI," said Tennant. "The women's role in this picture is to bring some private humanity to the movie. The men are moving around dealing with public tragedy. The women make it private and personal. "The theme (of the movie) is a little close to the bone," she said. "The idea that terrorists would put a bomb in America meant for Americans is not too far- fetched." She noted the outrage Americans feel when even one is killed by terrorism overseas. "Can you imagine what would happen if a bomb were put on a 747 in an American airport?" Tennant can well imagine such things from both a European and American perspective. She was born in London to a ballerina mother and a talent-agent-turned- producer father. She went to ballet school at age 8 and had a godfather who was not a bad model to follow for a life on stage -- Laurence Olivier. For the last nine years she's been working first out of New York and then Los Angeles. A few months ago she became a United States citizen. The path to naturalization came into view while she was in this country in connection with "Winds." At a Capitol Hill lunch, she caught the ear -- and no doubt the eye -- of a couple of congressmen who liked her political views (she's pro nuclear disarmament, pro ERA, and in favor of women's option to have abortions) and asked her to give some speeches. She declined on grounds that she shouldn't speak where she couldn't vote. "When I got home," she said, "I found naturalization papers in my letter box."
			The Toronto Star November 22, 1986, Saturday, SATURDAY SECOND EDITION SECTION: NEWS; Pg. A8 U.S. comedian Steve Martin weds Victoria Tennant LOS ANGELES (AP) Comedian Steve Martin has married actress Victoria Tennant, a co star with Lily Tomlin in the movie All of Me, in a private civil ceremony in Rome, his publicist says. "They've been seeing each other for a long time, but I didn't even know they were engaged," said spokesman Paul Bloch after the marriage Thursday, the first for Martin and the second for Tennant, who has no children. Martin, 41, and Tennant, 28, exchanged vows in the brief ceremony, Bloch said. They plan to live in Los Angeles.
			The Associated Press March 21, 1990, Wednesday Entertainment News Victoria Tennant Travels Around for Miniseries Roles Jerry Buck LOS ANGELES: Victoria Tennant says starring in a miniseries is a good way to see the world well, sort of. "The Winds of War" and its sequel, "War and Remembrance," took her to her native England and other parts of Europe. But for some exotic sites, from Moscow to Singapore, they had to make do with stand ins. New Delhi, for instance, was really Cambridge, England, with potted palms. Her newest miniseries, "Voice of the Heart," which will be seen in syndication beginning April 16 in about 80 percent of the country, did take her to authentic locales in England, the South of France and New York. In Nice, she ran across the trail of her husband, Steve Martin, who was filming "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels." "I spent two weeks with my husband in the South of France while he was working," she said. "Then I had to go to London for 'Voice of the Heart.' Then we went to Nice to film, and we got there five days after Steve had left. I got his trailer, his driver, and we had the same crew." The four hour "Voice of the Heart," which also stars Lindsay Wagner and James Brolin, is based on the best selling novel by Barbara Taylor Bradford. The story covers 12 years in the life of a troubled American actress played by Wagner who disrupts the happiness of her best friend, an aristocratic British author played by Tennant and an American movie star played by Brolin. The book was inspired by a friend of the author, who attempted to heal old wounds and patch up broken friendships when she learned she was dying. Bradford loosely based Tennant's character, Lady Francesca Cunningham, on her own writing career. Tennant, who currently is starring in the motion picture "The Handmaid's Tale," filmed "Voice of the Heart" two summers ago. A year ago, she worked on another miniseries based on a Bradford book, "Act of Will," in which she stars with Jean Marsh, Peter Coyote, Kevin McNally and Elizabeth Hurley, playing a mother who sacrifices everything for her daughter. Two other Bradford books, "A Woman of Substance" and "Hold That Dream," also became miniseries. Tennant was born in England, where her father ran MCA's London office and her mother was a Russian prima ballerina. At 8, she began studying ballet, and later attended the Central Drama School. "It was an assumption early on that I would be involved in acting," she said. Her first film was "The Ragman's Daughter," after which came "Sphinx" and "The Dogs of War." She was also in the miniseries "Chiefs" and the movie "Best Seller." "'The Winds of War' was the first television I did, and it was a terrific life changing thing to do," she said. "It brought me back to America and gave me a new career. I'd lived in New York before, but if you're a European it's hard to have a career in this country. 'Winds of War' made me a recognizable quantity that producers were willing to hire." She met Steve Martin when they worked together in the comedy "All of Me." "I played the baddie who pretended to be the goodie and then revealed herself to be the baddie," Tennant said. "I was Lily Tomlin's stableman's daughter. When she dies, she leaves me all her wealth thinking her soul will enter my body. But an Eastern mystic making the transfer makes a mistake and her soul enters Steve's body. In the meantime, I've inherited all the money. It ends happily, however." In her next project, she co stars with Martin in a movie he wrote tentatively called "L.A. Story." She calls it a romantic comedy about bringing yourself to accept another person. Tennant also has written two screenplays that she hopes to star in. Both have been optioned by producers. "Steve and I don't write together," she said. "I look at his work, he looks at mine. It's nice when you live with someone in the business and you can go for walks and talk about your story. It clears up a lot of questions in your mind. "I wrote my first script in a week when my husband was shooting at night. I worked all night in periods of euphoric concentration. When I typed 'The End,' I burst into tears. It was so wonderful that I had written something. And it was so wonderful that it had come to an end."
			Los Angeles Times March 10, 1990, Saturday, Home Edition Calendar; Part F; Page 2; Column 4; Entertainment Desk FACES: BEAUTIFUL VILLAINESS David Pecchia There are any number of deliciously unsympathetic characters who populate the now playing "The Handmaid's Tale." What's notable is that the most despicable of them is also the most beautiful. "It's nice that you're not decorative and you're not there to make the leading man look like a heck of a guy," declares Victoria Tennant, who does a sinister turn as the Nazi like Aunt Lydia. The film of the Margaret Atwood novel deals with a futuristic society wherein women are relegated to the role of baby making machines. Aunt Lydia's job is to strip them of their emotions and indoctrinate and humiliate them into their new roles. "I sensed quite strongly when I turned up for work that the crew and everybody around looked at me quite skeptically," says the veteran actress of "All of Me" and the "Winds of War" marathons. " 'This isn't how we imagined Aunt Lydia,' they would say. Then, after the first of the dailies had been shown, they were going, 'You are Aunt Lydia.' " Director Volker Schlondorff had seen something in Tennant in "All of Me" and "Strangers Kiss," both 1984 releases, that prompted him to cast a villainess who could just as easily grace a cover of Cosmo. "It was a very different part from the things that I'm usually offered," says Tennant, who'll next star with husband Steve Martin in his screenplay of "L.A. Story," which rolls cameras next month. "And I thought it was terrific to play against type." Nor did Tennant display Aunt Lydia's viciousness when Schlondorff said "cut." In the Queen's English, she becomes vehement when reminded that some actors carry their character, however offensive, around all bloody day long. "I don't believe in all this psycho drama (stuff)," asserts the actress. "I mean, give me a break. There's no need to live a character. There is something very simple and it's acting."
			The San Francisco Chronicle APRIL 15, 1990, SUNDAY, SUNDAY EDITION SUNDAY DATEBOOK; Pg. 43 Post 'War' Victoria Tennant Miniseries actress stars in 'Voice of the Heart' JOHN STANLEY, CHRONICLE STAFF WRITER VICTORIA TENNANT has wonderful eyes. They have a searching curiosity that bores into you as if you are the one under scrutiny, not her. Since she is wearing little (if any) makeup, her eyes are naturally beautiful. The setting is a posh San Francisco hotel restaurant. The occasion is an interview about her new four hour TV movie, ''Voices of the Heart,'' airing at 8 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday on Channel 2, which in a moment of inspired rhetoric has described it as ''passion and high gloss glamour, glitzy and gripping.'' Tennant, probably best known for her role as Robert Mitchum's lover in ''War and Remembrance'' and ''Winds of War,'' isn't exactly glamorous in a basic black miniskirt, green jacket and low heeled shoes. But, in the words of one spectator, ''watching her is like looking at a piece of sculptured porcelain.'' Being a woman direct in eye contact, she gets right to the point. In the case of ''Voice of the Heart,'' that is internationally best selling writer Barbara Taylor Bradford, on whose second book the TV film is based. ''Barbara almost always bases her stories on fact; she's always looking for that sense of reality that good storytelling springs from,'' Tennant says. ''In this case her theme is the terrible consequences of thoughtlessness and how friendship can be destroyed by careless remarks. Specifically, Barbara was a good friend of theatrical publicist Jeannie Gilbert, who was married to producer David Merrick. ''They had a falling out, and for 10 years they didn't see or speak to each other. Barbara had no interest in ever meeting her again until she heard that Jeannie was dying of cancer. That hit her hard, made her realize that a long dead form of respect could be brought back to life. They became friends again and remained that way until Jeannie died.'' In dealing with its theme of betrayed friendship and twisted loyalties, ''Voice of the Heart'' focuses on four interwined lives. Tennant is Francesca Cunningham, a woman of British peerage (the daughter of an earl), who writes thick biographies i.e., Gordon of Khartoum that receive international recognition (shades of Bradford herself). Her lover is Victor Mason, a dashing actor and prestigious film producer played by James Brolin, who must keep their affair clandestine lest his shrewish wife back in the states take everything he has in a divorce. The producer/actor is remaking ''Wuthering Heights'' and his co star is Katherine Tempest, played by Lindsay Wagner, an insecure Irish American actress. She is in love with Brolin's chief screenwriter Nick Latimer (Neil Dickson), another love affair that seems eternally doomed. A fifth individual knocks the pins out from under the other four: Mike Lazarus (Stuart Wilson), a manipulating movie mogul and studio owner whose evil grasp for power and control is counterbalanced by his obsessive love for Tempest. Lazarus is a well written villain, and ultimately a tragic figure destroyed by his own possessiveness. ''I agree about Lazarus,'' Tennant says. ''He's not motivated by an evil impulse but a loving impulse based on a shattered childhood experience. Hence, he's a very rich character, richly named. Lazarus . . . rising from a dead soul to claim his greatest passion.'' ''Voice of the Heart'' is the third TV adaptation from novels by Bradford, who is now one of the highest paid writers in the world, ranked with Stephen King, Danielle Steele and Sidney Sheldon. (''Voice'' sold 7 million copies.) ''A Woman of Substance,'' a six hour epic about a young woman who rises to become one of the world's leading clothiers, was the first TV venture in 1984, produced by Carol Baker and starring Deborah Kerr. The second was the sequel, ''Hold the Dream'' (1984), produced by Bradford's husband, Robert, who has such film credits as ''El Cid'' and ''55 Days at Peking.'' These adaptations were microscopic studies of the rich and the beautiful, featuring a stream of American and British actors who swept from country to country, fortune to fortune, generation to generation the powerful and the privileged, the bitchy and the profane. ''Voice of the Heart'' also was produced by Robert Bradford, who is distributing into America through Worldvision now that Operation Prime Time is out of business. The film cost is $ 8 million, with locations in London, Yorkshire, France, New York and Long Island. In the summer of 1988 ''I was on the 'Dirty Rotten Scoundrels' location in the South of France with my husband (actor Steve Martin) when the script arrived,'' Tennant recalls. ''Naturally, I wanted to play Francesca, so I met the director (Tony Wharmby) for lunch at the Holland Park Hotel in London to find out how he intended to pull it off. A no holds barred romance can be done honestly and delicately, or it can be done heavy handedly. I decided Tony was not the heavy handed type. The time length was also important. This would have been impossible to adapt in a two hour format, because Barbara's story takes place over a long time span, and time is needed to allow the characters to grow.'' Tennant identified with special friendships in her own life. ''There are people you love and consciously think about as being your friends for life. You know they'll be there for you.'' Tennant describes Barbara Bradford ''as a straightforward woman who says what she thinks. Totally energetic, bubbly, a happy woman who's had a happy marriage for 17 years. She and Richard are mad about each other.'' Tennant's relationship with the Bradfords during the filming went so well that this past summer she starred in a second TV movie for them, ''Act of Will,'' which she describes as ''a very autobiographical account of Barbara's mother, whom I play. She gives up all opportunities of pleasure in her marriage and life to devote herself to her daughter.'' Tennant's parents are Cecil Tennant, onetime head of the Universal MCA London office, and Irina Baronova, a Belorussian ballerina with the Ballet Russes de Monte Carlo. She was the godchild of Laurence Olivier. With her father in the movie business, she grew up with the British film set and spent much time backstage at the ballet theater with her mother. She made her first movie in 1970, ''The Ragman's Daughter,'' for director Harold Becker. Tennant is best known in America for her work as Pamela Tudsbury, the woman having an affair with Victor (Pug) Henry (Robert Mitchum) in ''Winds of War'' and ''War and Remembrance.'' Her other American films have included ''The Holcroft Covenant'' (opposite Michael Caine), ''Flowers in the Attic'' (in which she was chillingly convincing as a mother who betrays her own children) and the recent science fiction tale, ''The Handmaid's Tale'' (in which she plays an aunt equipped with an electric cattle prod). ''Playing villainous character parts gives you more character to play,'' she says. ''Aunt Lydia, for example, was cast against type, because basically she's a monster . But I'm hardly the type to play a Nazi commandant sadist. I played it with a sense of inner relish, like I was someone having a good time. On the first day, the crew all shook their heads and said I wasn't Lydia. On the second day, they couldn't see Aunt Lydia as anyone else but me.'' She calls acting ''a craft, and like any craft, it must be practiced. And occasionally, only occasionally, acting is an art. Rarely does a good actor like an entire performance; one always feels one could have done it better. The circumstances of filming are such that things are usually beyond your control. There isn't enough time.'' The film and TV worlds ''are great'' when she's working but ''lousy when I'm not.'' She points to the fact she is in a minority with a 40 to 1 ratio of men's to women's roles. SHE and Martin, who were married in 1986, ''stay together as much as we can. If I'm not working I travel with him, and vice versa.'' She believes that her private life is as important, if not more so, than her work. ''Movies are only movies; your life is your life. But I also realize you have to have a balance if you want to be an artist,'' she says. ''And one struggles to keep that balance.'' She thinks that Martin has escaped his ''wild and crazy guy'' image and has grown into ''a believable dramatic actor with comedic moments.'' She and Martin soon will begin filming ''L.A. Story,'' their first time together since ''All of Me'' in 1984.
			The Courier-Journal (Louisville, KY) February 17, 1991, Sunday - METRO Edition ARTS; Pg. 2I SPOTLIGHT ON: STEVE MARTIN'S ROMANTIC VISION JACK GARNER "I tried to make romance tangible," says Steve Martin, explaining his seven-year commitment to the script for "L.A. Story," the new comedy in which he co-stars with his wife, Victoria Tennant. "I wanted to take that feeling when you first fall in love and make it visible," says the former "wild and crazy guy" whose more personal films reflect an increasing sophistication. Consider, for example, the way he balances wacky humor with lyrical romanticism in "All of Me," "Roxanne" and now, in "L.A. Story." (The film is playing at Showcase Cinemas and River Falls 10.) The script for "L.A. Story" apparently started out more specifically autobiographical -- a film that would be to Martin and Tennant what "Annie Hall" was to Woody Allen and Diane Keaton. But after seven years of honing, the autobiographical elements, he says, are more to be found in the romantic tone, and less in the story. After all, the guy and girl in "L.A. Story" are brought together through the fantasy of a talking freeway sign. And, in one of the most daring sequences in this comedy, the lovers literally become children again through the magic of love. But as the title indicates, "L.A. Story" is also about Martin's longtime love-hate relationship with Los Angeles. The Southern California city is most decidedly the third central character in the film, as Martin and his cohorts generate a lot of laughs through affectionate satire. Superficial attitudes, laid-back behavior, freeway tie-ups and the unchanging sunny weather are all targets for Martin's hilarious jibes. "It's the L.A. I've seen over the past 25 years," Martin says. Though born in Waco, Texas, 45 years ago, Martin was raised in Southern California, and he has lived and worked in Los Angeles since writing for television in the early '60s. "I'm saying L.A.'s both likable and unlikable. The unlikable things are that Beverly Hills culture represented by Marilu Henner's character in the film -- the clothes, the concern about your makeup. You see women at lunch who took two-and-a-half hours to get ready. What for? "The good side is that the weather's lovely, and a lot of nice people live there." Martin says he always envisioned his wife, Victoria Tennant, as his character's true love in "L.A. Story," especially since the story grew out of their own story. They met and fell in love when Tennant played a supporting role to Martin and Lily Tomlin in "All of Me." As his ideas for "L.A. Story" began to germinate, it was always with Victoria in mind. Beyond the obvious truth of the romance, he liked bringing a foreign perspective to Los Angeles. Tennant is English. "I wanted an alien's eye, an alien's point of view. And I wanted the character to be what I see her to be, which is very smart and calm, in contrast to the characters played by Marilu Henner and Sarah Jessica Parker, who are both very busy and sort of superficial. Henner plays a self-absorbed woman with whom Martin is involved at the start of the film. Parker is a wonderfully funny young airhead with whom he has a brief fling. "I wanted Victoria to represent to my character the possibilities of an adult relationship," Martin says. Martin considers Tennant a key collaborator in his work, as inspiration, of course, but also as a sounding board. He also enjoys working alongside her. "There's no getting-to-know-you period," he explains, "And you have someone you like that you're working with. If you're working with somebody you don't like, it's horrible." But, he says, there's at least one disadvantage to performing with a spouse. "Well, they know when you're 'acting.' You can't fake it." Since turning from stand-up comedy to feature films with "The Jerk" in 1979, Martin has striven for a career that balances entertaining performances for other writers and directors with his own personal series of films. Between personal projects such as "Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid," "The Man with Two Brains," "All of Me" and "Roxanne," he has played the demented dentist with the Elvis fetish in "Little Shop of Horrors," a father in "Parenthood,' a businessman in "Planes, Trains and Automobiles" and a toothpick-chewing gangster in "My Blue Heaven." But in recent years, his personal material has turned more and more to romantic comedy. "Yeah, I think of romance as a 'high concept,' like 'Lethal Weapon II,' " he says, smiling. "After all, it gets all the emotions going, and you fantasize with the characters. There's a lot there. "I do like that particular emotion of longing and melancholy you can play in a romance. I like performing it, because it's meaningful." As for the future, Martin says he's doing a supporting role as a Hollywood movie producer for writer-director Lawrence Kasden in the forthcoming Los Angeles-based drama "Grand Canyon." Then there's an as-yet- untitled romantic comedy with Meg Ryan, as well as a modernization of "Father of the Bride." All of those projects are from scripts by other people, but Martin also has a screenplay in his typewriter. "I can't tell you what it is, because it's a public-domain novel that I'm modernizing, and I'm afraid if I blab it, someone else may do it. "It's one of those densely plotted 19th-century novels." It's no coincidence that Martin frequently turns to "modernizations." His "Roxanne," for example, put "Cyrano de Bergerac" into the 20th century. He explains, "The plot is the hardest thing about a movie. But with 'Roxanne' I knew the plot would work because it's worked for 100 years. "So, you don't have to worry about a plot, and can concentrate about the romance and the laughs." Ah, the laughs; the payoff in a field that is often taken for granted or underappreciated. Consider, for example, Martin's inability to secure an Oscar nomination, despite rave reviews for his work in "All of Me" and "Roxanne." "Well, comedy is appreciated by the audience, definitely," Martin says, adding that he doesn't worry about the other things. "It's sort of like playing the banjo. It may be harder to play the banjo than to play the guitar, but the guitar's really on top. "Comedy and drama are kind of like that. But there are a lot of respected comedy artists who've gone before who give comedians their own sense of satisfaction and credibility."
			The Commercial Appeal (Memphis) September 18, 1993, Saturday, FINAL EDITION APPEAL, Pg. C3, PEOPLE MARTINS SEPARATE Steve Martin and Victoria Tennant have separated after nearly seven years of marriage, the actor's spokesman said. ''It's an amicable separation,'' publicist Paul Bloch said Friday. The couple have taken no other action beyond separating, he said. Martin and Miss Tennant married in November 1986. They starred together in the 1991 comedy L.A. Story.
			People 4 Oct 1993 PASSAGES Toby Kahn After nearly seven years of marriage, comedian and actor Steve Martin, 48, and British actress Victoria Tennant, 42, have decided to separate. The couple met in 1983 while filming All of Me and appeared together in 1991's L.A. Story. Just last January, Martin said in an interview, ''We're a couple forever. As our marriage goes on, I like her more and admire her more and more. . . .'' Then he added, ''People say, 'We have this perfect marriage,' and two weeks later they're divorced.''
			Esquire 1 Apr 1996, Vol. 125, Issue 4 MISTER LONELY HEARTS (comedian Steve Martin laments about his love life) Martha Sherrill [excerpt] STEP NUMBER EIGHT: LEARN FROM MISTAKES How did all his love problems start? Martin offers another E-mail that he received from Ephron. "I'm not Steve's love adviser," she says later, when asked about them. "That would be the blind leading the blind. [Ephron was once married to Carl Bernstein.] I was just writing him back after he wrote me." This second E-mail is even more devastating and also from December 1995: "Anyway, for what it's worth . . . you see the women you do because you are still so hung up on women who aren't kind and sweet that seeing the ones who are is a way of being with the ones who aren't. Do you know what I mean?" I look up at Martin. Sweet and kind? Was your wife sweet and kind? "My wife was strong and, uh, nice," he says. "But those wouldn't be the two words that would come to mind to describe her. No." He met British actress Victoria Tennant while they were making All of Me in 1983. After a few years together, they married in 1986. She was thirty-five. He was forty-one. And even though some would say there was a discrepancy in talent between them, by Martin's account, he married up. She was all the things he wasn't. Martin was shy around strangers and had not had a long-term relationship, aside from the time he'd spent dating Bernadette Peters. Tennant, on the other hand, seemed to know how to become part of a couple easily and was gregarious, quick to make friends. Martin had grown up middle-class. Tennant was from a cultured family--and her godfather was Laurence Olivier. Despite Martin's refined sensibilities, he had never traveled much. Tennant spoke several languages, knew her way around the globe. "We eloped and were married in Rome," says Martin, "because Victoria was the sort of woman who knew how to do complicated, impossible things like that." They set up house in Beverly Hills and an apartment New York, and entertained, acquired friends, bought art, traveled, inspired each other. "As far as muses go, Victoria was a good one," says Ephron. "I think she truly knew how brilliant and talented Steve is, and that was a focus of the marriage." Martin continued to make a picture a year--which has been his habit ever since his first film cameo, in The Kids Are Alright in 1979--but he started writing again, too: Roxanne in 1987 and L. A. Story in 1991 (in which Tennant also appears). When he began toying with the idea of writing plays, Tennant was especially supportive. His first attempt was a comedy called Picasso at the Lapin Agile, the story of a fictional encounter between the young Picasso and the young Albert Einstein, which he says he had been waiting to write all his life. The play, like his two screenplays, offers all the Martin trademarks. It merges his interests in art, magic, science, and philosophy--and runs an emotional range that goes from slapstick to esoteric to schmaltz. A few critics complained that it was too showbiz, or theory of relativity lite, but Martin's gift has always been to make the intellectual accessible, and when Picasso opened in Chicago in 1993, and later ran in Los Angeles and New York (where it is now), it was a commercial and critical success. By the debut of Picasso, Tennant was gone. While on location making a TV miniseries in 1993, she fell for an Australian television star (friends refer to him as the Tom Selleck of Australia) and returned to Martin just long enough to announce she was leaving. Later, she would explain privately to friends that though her marriage had been satisfying in some respects, Martin was emotionally unavailable. According to Martin, the divorce wasn't friendly and though the two share a circle of confidants, they rarely speak.

			NY Post CINDY ADAMS May 17, 2001 CBS takes the ax to 'Diagnosis Murder' ******** TWENTY years ago "Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All" was a Catholic bashing play. Today "Sister Mary Explains It All" is about to be Showtime's Catholic bashing movie, starring Diane Keaton. Says Showtime's Matt Blank: "Listen, I'm Jewish. We're into projects that are too political, too religious, too black, too gay. We're a home for wayward movies." Its director Marshall Brickman: "Listen, I'm Jewish. I reserve the right to satirize any minority." "Sister Mary" author Chris Durang: "I'm a fallen Catholic who's into New Age whatever and please write, 'He smiled as he said that.'" Its producer Victoria Tennant: "I went to a Catholic convent. But Catholic bashing is something skinheads do. This is just humor." At Circo's for the after screening party, someone murmured: "I just don't see Cardinal Egan breaking up with hysteria when he sees this."
			The Arizona Republic 13 Apr 2001 Preview MOVIE BUZZ Behind the barbs The Australian provides a theory about why host Steve Martin made so many jokes at Russell Crowe's expense during the Oscar ceremonies. It "goes back to the dark days of 1993," says the Sydney newspaper, "when his then wife, Victoria Tennant, left him after having a raging affair" with Australian Andrew Clarke during the making of a TV miniseries.
			Victoria Tennant BORN: in London, England on September 30, 1953 (female) [All British sources say 1950] NATIONALITY: English BIO: This blonde lead and occasional supporting player was memorable opposite Steve Martin (and Lily Tomlin) in "All of Me" (1984) and "L.A. Story" (1991) and co-starred with Robert Mitchum in the ABC miniseries "The Winds of War" and "War and Remembrance." She is the daughter of ballerina Irina Baronova and talent agent Cecil Tennant. The god-daughter of the late Laurence Olivier, Tennant was married to Steve Martin from 1986 to 1994. MILESTONES: 1972 Film debut, "The Ragman's Daughter". 1983 First major TV role, portrayed Pamela Tudsbury, the mistress of Victor 'Pug' Henry (Robert Mitchum) in the ABC miniseries "The Winds of War". 1984 Co-starred with future husband Steve Martin in "All of Me". 1988 Reprised the role of Pamela in the sequel miniseries "War and Remebrance" (ABC). 1991 Last screen teaming with Martin, "L.A. Story". 1992 Last feature (to date), "The Plague". 1993 Played recurring role on the Australian series "Snowy River: The McGregor Saga" (aired in the USA on The Family Channel). 1996 Scripted and produced "Edie and Pen"; aired on HBO. PROFESSION: actor; also, producer, screenwriter; also, singer, lyricist EDUCATION: Attended Central School of Speech and Drama in London, England.
			Chicago Sun-Times August 3, 1997, SUNDAY, Late Sports Final Edition Pg. 2 Working relationships; Showbiz types, we beg: Keep your lover at home Richard Roeper When Jamie Tarses was named ABC's entertainment president earlier this year, one of her first executive decisions was to give producer Robert Morton a two-year, $ 2 million deal. It was a move that raised eyebrows and caused more than a few cluckety-clucks in the industry. Not that Morton isn't qualified; after all, he'd been associated with David Letterman during Dave's golden years. The problem was that Morton and Tarses are, as they say, "romantically linked." He's her dude. Would Morton (who was fired by Letterman after they had a messy falling-out) have received a sitcom production deal somewhere without the help of his girlfriend? Sure. Would it have been that lucrative and would he have such intimate access to the big boss? Of course not. These days Tarses is barely hanging onto her job, while Morton's first sitcom is set for ABC's fall schedule. If Tarses falls completely out of the picture at the network, you know Morton's deal will warrant a second look. A further complication: The romance is reportedly on the rocks. Such are the perils of being the perceived lesser half of a glamor duo in Hollywood. If you hitch your wagon to someone who's on the fast track, you have to be prepared to crash if and when that wagon derails. But at least Tarses and Morton are behind-the-scenes players. There probably won't be any public disaster created by their relationship. This is not always the case. The video stores and cable channels are brimming with movies and TV shows that suffered because the more celebrated half of a couple insisted on casting the significant other, however untalented that significant other may have been. Case in point: Victoria Tennant, a mildly attractive British actress with an icy and stiff screen presence. In 1991 Tennant was cast in "L.A. Story," a sharp but whimsical romance written by and starring Steve Martin. At the time, the two were lovers -- which explains why Martin thought Tennant would be perfect as the flitty, witty, ethereal Sara, who inspires magical rainstorms and deep longing. Judging by Martin's screenplay, Sara is supposed to be kind of a West Coast Annie Hall. The problem is, Tennant thinks the way to achieve kooky charm is to wear floppy hats. Other than that, she is astoundingly uninteresting and utterly devoid of sex appeal. (The hats have more warmth.) When Steve Martin looks back on his career, the casting of Tennant in a potentially great romantic comedy will plague him more than the rabbit ears. In regards to Ms. Keaton, of course she was involved with Woody Allen at least some of the time when they were working on such films as "Annie Hall" and "Manhattan." The difference is that whether it was Keaton or Mia Farrow, Woody apparently knew enough to hook up with actresses who had the credentials to be in his films regardless of whether they wanted to smooch him -- although Farrow would be the first to admit she wouldn't have been cast in so many Allen films if they hadn't been mixed up in that stupid I-can-see-you-from-my-window-across-Central-Park relationship. The point is, Allen isn't going to cast Soon-Yi in his next untitled project. Likewise, Richard Gere was smart enough not to do any movies with Cindy Crawford, and Johnny Depp confined his dramatic scenes with Kate Moss to hotel rooms and airport terminals. Those last two romances didn't last, but at least there aren't a bunch of lousy movies to remind everyone of that. Wish we could say the same thing about the Clint Eastwood/Sondra Locke union. Not only did that end with incredible bitterness on both sides and litigation that will continue into the next century, but Clint's ouevre from the 1980s is forever tainted by the presence of the so-pale-she's-nearly-invisible Locke in films ranging from "The Outlaw Josey Wales" to "The Gauntlet" to "Bronco Billy." Before the thing ended, Locke was even given a chance to direct, and she foisted the unspeakable "Ratboy" (yes, it's about a boy who looks like a rat) on film audiences. For shame, Clintster! When the roles are reversed and it's the woman who's the star and is finding jobs for her husband, the results are just as disastrous. Two words: Tom Arnold. Roseanne should still be apologizing for unleashing that hyper-bouncy schlub on the world. And thank goodness Julia Roberts and Kiefer Sutherland never got married, or it might have been Kiefer starring in "My Best Friend's Wedding" and "Something to Talk About." It comes down to a matter of artistic priorities. Love may not be forever, but movies stick to videotape, and TV shows spin into eternity when they reach rerun-land. "Hill Street Blues" was a great show, but it would have been even more memorable if Steven Bochco hadn't cast his then-wife Barbara Bosson in the role of Faye Furillo. Lord, she was a shrill one. Everything works so much better when the romantic partners have similar abilities and status. As far as the movies are concerned, Dennis Quaid and Meg Ryan can stay together forever, because neither is carrying the other. Their chemistry was terrific in "D.O.A.," "Innerspace" and the terribly underrated "Flesh and Bone." But if Barbra Streisand ever casts James Brolin in anything, mark my words, that'll be the beginning of the end for them. Imbalance of talent A few examples of past and present relationships in which the first entrant outshines the second. Michelle Pfeiffer/Fisher Stevens Sylvester Stallone/Brigitte Nielsen John Travolta/Kelly Preston Sean Penn/Madonna (as an actress) Tom Hanks/Rita Wilson Dan Aykroyd/Donna Dixon Together . . . but equal In these partnerships, the talent level was (or is) fairly well-balanced. Paul Newman/Joanne Woodward Will Smith/Jada Pinkett Tea Leoni/David Duchovny Kurt Russell/Goldie Hawn Sam Shepard/Jessica Lange Burt Reynolds/Sally Field Kim Basinger/Alec Baldwin Elizabeth Taylor/Richard Burton Tom Cruise/Nicole Kidman Bruce Willis/Demi Moore Why nepotism can be painful Francis Coppola/Sofia Coppola Sylvester Stallone/Frank Stallone GRAPHIC: "Fool" is the key word here: Steve Martin's real-life squeeze, Victoria Tennant (left), ruined a perfectly fine movie. And Clint Eastwood (below) had good reason to look wary of his co-star in "The Gauntlet," Sondra Locke. She later sued him.
			Buffalo News (New York) November 28, 1993, Sunday, Final Edition BUFFALO MAGAZINE; Pg. 19 NOT JUST ANOTHER MONSTER MOVIE ** Q It was a shock to hear of the breakup of Steve Martin's marriage. What gives? A Hollywood spies began hearing rumors of trouble in Martin's seven-year marital paradise some time ago. He was spotted recently at a big-time movie premiere with none other than still-single Diane Keaton on his arm. The story then was that wife Victoria Tennant -- Martin's co-star in "All of Me" and "L.A. Story" -- was, at the time, off in Australia making a movie. Word is that they have separated "amicably." **
			The Post-Standard (Syracuse, NY) February 8, 1991 Friday City Edition LIFESTYLE A CELLULOID VALENTINE STEVE MARTIN'S 'L.A. STORY' IS A LOVE LETTER, SAYS HIS WIFE Joan E. Vadeboncoeur Entertainment Editor LOS ANGELES: Some people say it with flowers; others with boxes of creamy chocolates. How's this for Valentine's Day extravagance? A starring role in a full-length movie about your own romance. Impossible? Not for a chosen few. Steve Martin has turned the trick with "L.A. Story," a package wrapped in celluloid for wife and actress Victoria Tennant. It opens today in Central New York theaters. Martin's comedy, which has been brewing since before he Review of 'L.A. Story' Page CX filmed 1987's "Roxanne," recounts the love affair of a wacky Los Angeles weatherman with a British journalist. The 46-year-old comedian and his British-born wife of more than four years play the pair slogging through this rocky romance. Tennant refers to the film as "a love letter to our relationship," but stops short of calling it autobiographical. IN AN INTERVIEW recently, the actress was claiming the film details her courtship "only in that I'm English and that we met in Los Angeles. "Well, some incidents are really from my life. We did go skating at the Brooklyn rollerdrome. But it stops there. In real life, there were no obstacles to our marriage." But there was one small glitch in the romance. That was when Tennant broke the news to her mother about her relationship with Martin, which developed during the shooting of "All of Me" in 1984. "Nobody at home knew who he was then," says Tennant, 40. "I said to my mother, 'I have a new boyfriend -- an actor I'm working with.' There was this long silence. Then she said, 'Oh, no. Not an actor.' " Her mother, Tennant points out, "knew better than most" the economic and egotistical pitfalls of the profession. Mother and father, actually. Her mother, Irina Baranova, was a Russian prima ballerina. The actress' late father was Cecil Tennant, agent and friend to some of the hallowed names in the English acting realm. NO LESS a figure than Sir Laurence Olivier served as Tennant's godfather. With typical British understatement, Tennant says, "He was just Uncle Larry to me. But I was always aware of how hard he worked -- how distracted he was when preparing for a part." Movies were simply part of everyday life during Tennant's youth. She recalls, "By 11, I was seeing dailies of 'Billy Budd' and sitting on the set of 'The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner.' " [NOTE: Billy Budd was released in 1962 as was Loneliness] To the 10-year-old, stage and film stars were merely her father's friends and associates. "I couldn't understand why they were asking for their signatures," she says. "I didn't know until later about press interviews and premieres." "All of Me," her first American motion picture, attracted Hollywood producers, as well as Martin. In rapid succession, Tennant did a series of roles opposite Michael Caine, Brian Dennehy and Peter Coyote. None scored, including her most recent motion picture, "The Handmaid's Tale," starring Vanessa Redgrave. BUT THE ACTRESS' credibility and visibility remained high, due to her role in Herman Wouk's TV miniseries "The Winds of War" and "War and Remembrance." The epics cast her as the daughter of a British journalist whose gentle beauty drew Robert Mitchum's naval officer away from his wife. "L.A. Story" marks the first film Martin and Tennant have made together since they wed. Working with her husband is far different from their home life, the actress says. Life on the set is also far afield from the wild and wacky Martin of the concert hall and nightclubs. Says Tennant, "It is not like waking up in Las Vegas. It would be dreadful to live with someone who starts tap dancing when he opens the fridge."
			The Record (Bergen, New Jersey) February 8, 1991; FRIDAY; ALL EDITIONS LIFESTYLE / PREVIEWS; Pg. 005 HEARTS, FLOWERS, FREEWAYS Frank Lovece, Special to The Record ** "L.A. Story" is about romantic love, a heartfelt reaffirmation that it exists and has everything to do with being human and not just an upright animal. The greatest proof of this, perhaps, is Martin-the-executive-producer casting his wife, Victoria Tennant, as his on-screen love, a non-commercial choice of an adequate but not dazzling actress that speaks volumes about real-world love when the bottom-line chips are down. **
			The Record (Bergen, New Jersey) April 7, 1990; SATURDAY NEWS; Two Star B; Pg. A02 SATURDAY'S PEOPLE ** FILMS AFTER MARRIAGE?: Since her marriage to Steve Martin, actress Victoria Tennant has had a hard time finding roles that interest her. After her acclaimed performance in the popular 1983 TV mini-series "The Winds of War," she says too many of the films she was offered wanted only to make use of her looks and cool sexuality. She told the San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News: "I don't see any point in being uselessly ornamental, where you're given nothing to do but wear dresses or take off dresses, with emphasis on the taking off." **
			Sunday Age (Melbourne) September 14, 2003 Sunday Agenda; Pg. 1 My Life With ... BY: Peter Wilmoth Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dali, Laurence Olivier, Vivien Leigh and Steve Martin (to name but a few). After fleeing Bolshevik Russia Irina Baronova became one of the world famous 'baby ballerinas' in the 1930s. Now she has retired to the tranquility of Byron Bay. Peter Wilmoth reports on an extraordinary life. FROM the balcony of Irina Baronova's house outside Byron Bay, you look out past the mango, banana and orange trees to the Eden-like valley that stretches beyond. It could be a massive canvas by Constable except that it's moving: you can hear the whirr of wings as flocks of birds sweep past in formation, a glider plane floats silently across the grey skies and a couple of magpies warble restlessly in the huge gum outside her bedroom. For a writer, its superb beauty could either anaesthetise or inspire, depending on energy levels. This is the view that bookends her day. It would be nature's most perfect screen saver, except she is writing the story of her extraordinary life in long-hand on a pad with wide spaces and with the help of a magnifying glass. She is a vivacious host with the skill charming people have of transmogrifying you from stranger to welcome visitor in a minute or so. With her wicked laugh and robust capacity for anecdote, she was born to tell a story. And so a table set for lunch is a promise the view isn't the only thing going here. Ms Baronova's daughter Irina, who lives up the road, is here. Her grand-daughter Natasha and her husband Christian play with Zoe, her 20-month-old great-grand-daughter. It's 11.30am and Ms Baronova lights a cigarette and sips on a glass of white wine. "I have all the vices now I've retired to pasture," she says. At 84, her eyesight might not be what it once was, but there's very little else that has slowed her down. Besides, there's work to do, to tell her story of her parents fleeing Bolshevik Russia when she was 10 months old, making a new life amid the industrial slums of Bucharest, at 13 touring the world as one of the famous "baby ballerinas", and then, as she hit her prime, dancing on stages and in costumes designed by Picasso, Dali, Miro and Chagall. It is the story of the celebrated ballerina coming to Melbourne in 1938 at the height of her fame, with schoolgirls queueing at the stage door for a glimpse. Of glamorous soirees and pool parties hosted by Melbourne's establishment, including the Myer family. Of becoming, many years later, the mother-in-law of American comic Steve Martin. And of her discovery of this sub-tropical paradise where she hopes to spend the rest of her life. It promises to be a rich tale. "I've got to hurry up," she says. "Time is not on my side." In November 1919, two years after the Bolsheviks seized power from the ruling Tsar Nicholas and his wife Alexandra, Irina Baronova was the adored baby of Misha, a senior officer in the Russian navy stationed in the Black Sea in Russia's south, and Lydia, a 20-year-old from St Petersburg's comfortable middle-class. On a good salary and with strong social contacts, neither had known hard times. As part of the officer class that found itself persecuted, the revolution not only meant the end of Misha Baronova's career, but put his and his family's lives in danger. The end of their life in Russia was quick and brutal. When the family house in St Petersburg was requisitioned by the authorities, they fled to their dacha, or country house, not far from the city. Soon this, too, was requisitioned. The family were allowed one room in which everyone could live. Lydia's father, Alexander Vishniakov, a general in the army, was travelling by train to the family's dacha when a Bolshevik soldier entered his cabin and shot him in the head. A sailor who liked Misha one day brought a grim warning. "You better grab your wife and your baby and try to get out because you're on the list to be shot next week." With forged papers, the family that night headed for the Romanian border, hiding by day and walking by night, Misha carrying Irina under one arm and his violin under the other. Lydia carried a sack containing every item she had left in the world. When they reached the river a Russian man was ferrying groups of refugees across the river in rowing boats to Romania. "If they catch us," the man told Misha, "I'll be in trouble. So your child has to be absolutely silent during the crossing. If she makes a sound I'm going to drown her. And I'm not joking. The last time a baby cried I threw it into the river." A peasant woman gave Lydia a piece of sugar. "You stuff it in her mouth and she won't cry," she told Irina's mother. The crossing passed without incident. "The sugar worked. I didn't make a sound." The family stumbled out of the boat in the rain onto the muddy bank. "Here we were in Romania. No language, no money, no papers, no nothing," she says. "When daylight came he went straight to the police station and said 'Here we are, we disembarked during the night from Russia'." Misha Baronova took any job he could find, washing carriages or cleaning offices, while he looked for a position that suited his skills at drawing and painting. The local cinema gave Misha and Lydia jobs playing piano and violin for the silent movies. "There was no one to leave me with," Ms Baronova says, "so I was sitting by them in the front row watching until I fell asleep." Eighteen months after arriving in Romania the family moved to the capital, Bucharest, where Misha found a job at a factory printing posters. The family lived in a building around the factory infested by rats, bedbugs and lice. "I spent my days in the factory yard with the other factory children climbing trees, throwing stones at each other and the passers-by, rummaging around the garbage bins. It was great fun." Lydia coped badly with the change in the family's circumstances. "At 21 she found herself from being the spoilt rich little lady living in luxury to total misery," Ms Baronova says. "She was bitter, she was unhappy. She'd just lost her father who was shot, that she adored. She lost her youth. People in their 20s like to go to parties. Here it was a miserable life in a dirty home." But Lydia was about to make a decision that would change the family's life. Irina was to be taken to dancing lessons. "My mother adored the ballet, but she was never allowed to have lessons because nice young ladies did not go on the boards in those days," she says. "When all the snobbery and class statures didn't count anymore, she decided that even though she hadn't been allowed to do it, Irina will do it." Lydia found a dancing teacher who lived in one tiny room and asked her to teach the seven-year-old. "I would hang off her little kitchen table and Madam Majaiska would sit on the bed with mum," she remembers. "And mother would hum tunes so we had some music. Irina hated every moment of it. "Couldn't understand what the hell they wanted from me, you know, turning my legs like that. I couldn't imagine what for. One night Lydia took Irina to the theatre to see the great ballerina Tamara Karsavina who was touring Europe. It transformed her. "It was like a fairy tale," she says. "Amazing. Mother said, 'You will see what a ballet dancer should be.' When the curtain parted and Karsavina appeared, it was like a fairy princess from Pushkin's stories." After a while Madam Majaiska felt she had taught Irina everything she could.She tried to persuade Lydia to take the young girl to Paris to the studio of the famous teacher Olga Preobrajenska. Misha travelled to Paris and found work in an advertising agency making ads for Vogue and Harpers Bazaar magazines. He sent for Lydia and Irina. When they arrived, the eight-year-old was taken straight to Miss Preobrajenska's studio. "It was the first time I had seen a proper studio, bars, mirrors, lots of students and this tiny little woman who could get irritated very quickly. I was afraid. I was afraid of Preobrajenska, I was afraid of mother." Gradually her interest in dancing grew. "The first desire to do it was not because I loved it but because it was a challenge. So I worked hard and ... slowly I began to like it, then love it, then it just became my life." Irina made her debut with the Paris Opera in 1930, aged 11. Choreographer Georges Balanchine one day noticed the little girl with the grace of movement and obvious commitment to the stage. He engaged her for the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo. She was 13 years old. And then Balanchine hit on an idea. He would get three very young dancers straight from the school and make them into a company of children. He chose Tamara Toumanova, 13, Tatiana Riabouchinska, 15 and Irina, 13. In 1933, during their first season in London, ballet writer Arnold Haskell gave them a nickname that stuck: the Three Baby Ballerinas. It turned out to be a piece of marketing genius. The baby ballerinas caused a sensation, packing houses around Europe, the US and beyond. Young girls around the world went crazy for the three little stars. But the girls weren't just a novelty act. All were brilliant dancers with whole shows created around them. "At 14 I was dancing with (the great English dancer and former child prodigy) Anton Dolin in Swan Lake in London," Ms Baronova remembers. From its base in Monte Carlo, in 1933, the Ballets Russes toured the United States, Paris, London, Barcelona, Madrid, through Italy, Germany, Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Canada, Mexico, Cuba. In four months the girls performed in 125 cities. "We had our own special train for the Russian ballet in America. Lots of carriages for scenery, costumes, 100 people in the company, 25-piece orchestra. It was our special train and we lived in it." It was a tough schedule for a 13-year-old, but Irina was no dilettante. Now world-famous, she refused to be swept up in the fuss and the crowds and the autographs. "I never gave it a thought. I was not interested in that, I was interested in my work. I didn't read the critics much. I knew whether I had done well or not and the response of the audience was the best critic." Irina's mother was her chaperone, her acting as a sort of personal assistant, unpacking and re-packing the make-up, washing her tights and cleaning her pink satin toe-shoes with benzine. Misha, meanwhile, stayed home in Paris. But Irina missed her father. Soon, Misha was invited to join the company supervising the scenery which had to often be touched up with fresh paint. "He gave up the job he loved." This is the only moment in our interview when Ms Baronova's voice cracked with emotion. "My parents really sacrificed, especially my father, to give me a chance in life. At least I had my Papa who was my soul mate." Irina started to meet some extraordinary people in the artistic world in which she was moving. Painters were commissioned to design the costumes and sets. At various times, Irina worked with a dazzling array of already famous names: Picasso, Dali, Miro, Chagall, Matisse. Pablo Picasso, she says, could be "a bit heavy-going, very concentrated on his work. He could be very silent. The face was hard. And then suddenly exploding in that Spanish temperament. "In Barcelona we were hanging his decor for a performance and he came to see how it looked. "Picasso went to look at his scenery. He was about to get off the stage when he said, 'Oh.' He rushed to Papa and demanded a pot of black paint and a brush and said to the orchestra, 'Stop!' Picasso went to the right side of the stage and at the bottom of the panel refreshed his signature, walked away and said 'Ola!' We all applauded him." With Salvador Dali there was "lots of show-offings. But quietly". At a party after a performance in New York, there was a long table in the middle of which was a bathtub full of champagne. In the tub sat a beautiful naked girl. "Dali was acting as though that were quite normal. They knew it would be in the papers next day. There was quite a stir. Gala (Dali's Russian wife) said to me 'See? It succeeds, it succeeds'. She knew how to do the publicity for Salvador." In 1938, Irina came to Melbourne and danced at His Majesty's Theatre in Spring Street. Melbourne was thrilled to have such a great star on its stage. Groups of school children waited outside the stage door for a glimpse of their heroines, now willowy 19-year-olds. A Melbourne eye surgeon, Dr Ringland Anderson had become friends with the company. During their stay in Melbourne he shot film of rehearsals and performances. During their days off in Melbourne, the dancers would gather at the Anderson's house in South Yarra for a barbecue and a swim in the pool. "In the evening they put a sheet on the wall and Ringland would show us what he had photographed during the week," Ms Baronova remembers. "We all sat on the floor and provided music by singing. Our friends' nephew would be there, exciting for him to be jumping around in the pool with the Russian Ballet. We loved him. He was adorable." The little boy would grow up to be Melbourne establishment figure Sir Robert Southey, who died in 1998. In 1949, Ms Baronova, now 30, married Cecil Tennant, a well-known theatrical agent who managed the affairs of Laurence Olivier and his wife Vivien Leigh. Tennant had demanded she quit the ballet world as a condition of marriage and gave her 48 hours to make up her mind. She knew she could have gone on for a few years, even made a life teaching. But she decided marriage was more important. "I knew I'd miss it, but I was in love with Cecil and I'd always wanted a family. I thought it was much better to leave when the audience is saying 'What a pity' rather than 'It's about time'." The couple were close friends with Olivier and Leigh who, respectively, were Victoria's godfather and young Irina's godmother. "We went through all their troubles," Ms Baronova says, "their marriage and Vivien's illness. She'd had TB as a youth but still smoked like a chimney and drank martinis like there was no tomorrow." It was a wonderful family life. But in 1967, Cecil was driving through the countryside in Berkshire, England, with Irina, 14 and Robert, 12, when the car veered off the road into a ditch. Cecil was killed, and the two children were badly injured. It was a difficult time for Ms Baronova. Today, she says: "I think to myself at least I had 18 years of blissful happiness: children, home, family, when so many people don't ever have that." Her beloved father died of a heart attack aged 57 in 1952. Her mother Lydia moved in with Irina and lived with her for 45 years, first in England, then in Malta, Switzerland, and then back in England where she died in 1992 aged 94. "Until the end she walked on high heels, beautifully dressed, flirting madly with every pair of trousers who happened to be passing by." Ms Baronova had always kept fond memories of Australia. In 1992, she received a letter from the chairman of the Australian Ballet inviting her to coach the company for a month. "I thought 'How wonderful to see my Australia again, of course I'll come.' The chairman was Sir Robert Southey. I couldn't wait to see my little Robert." By then Sir Robert was widowed and re-married to Marigold Myer. "They threw a party," she says. "Noel Pelly, the administrator of the Australian Ballet (who died last month), took me to that party. Robert and Marigold were there at the door waiting. Robert said to Noel 'Where is Irina?' I said, 'It's me, here I am."Oh,' he said, 'I expected a little old lady in a wheelchair.'" In the 1980s her eldest daughter Victoria married the actor Steve Martin. The couple divorced about 10 years later. "He wasn't the sort of person to allow one to come too close to him, but I liked him very much, I admired his work," she says of Martin. "He was very nice in his calm way. His mind is 99.5 per cent always on his work, which sometimes was off-putting. "I send him birthday and Christmas cards. If he comperes the Academy Awards I always write him a note to say 'Well done' and I get a lovely little note from him back." She has lived in London for the past 20 years. Three years ago she came to Byron Bay to visit her daughter Irina, who has lived there for six years. At 80, she was reluctant to move yet again, but Irina persuaded her mother to move to Byron. "Irina said 'Why don't you come here instead of sitting in the rain in London?' So I did. I bought the first house the agent showed me." Writing her autobiography has been an emotional experience. "I'm hoping when I finish it, it will be a feeling that I got out of prison, you've spat it out, and now forget it and just enjoy your last years on this earth," she says.
			Daily Mail (London) March 13, 1995 Pg. 29 Victoria in a state‑of‑the‑heart Nigel Dempster AMONG the guests in San Diego of Louis Vuitton, the chic French luggage manufacturer organising the Challengers' competition for the fourth time at a cost of $10 million, has been English actress Victoria Tennant, 44, former wife of America's leading comedy actor, Steve Martin. She chose to introduce the new man in her love life, Warner Brothers executive Kirk Stambler, a 36‑year‑old lawyer based in the business affairs department of the company's Burbank studios. Although Victoria lives mainly in New York and he in California, they met last spring and have been inseparable. Goddaughter of the late Lord Olivier, Victoria married Martin in Rome in 1986, but the couple split up two years ago, saying it was a 'mutual decision'. Her first husband, at 19, was Italian Peppo Vanini, who ran the King's Club niterie in the basement of the Palace Hotel, St Moritz. 'It was a vulnerable time for me,' Victoria has said, recalling her theatrical agent father's death in a car crash and her entire family moving abroad. Five years later she walked out on the marriage, then found fame playing Robert Mitchum's screen mistress in the TV blockbuster Winds of War. Before she met Steve on the film set of All Of Me, Victoria, whose mother is former Russian prima ballerina Irina Baranova, was involved with film director Matthew Chapman. Says a mutual friend: 'Kirk's a really nice guy and nobody would be surprised if they married.'
			Daily Mail (London) September 16, 1993, Thursday Pg. 29 Martin and Wife doing the splits Nigel Dempster THE ten year marriage of comic actor Steve Martin and English actress Victoria Tennant has run into trouble the couple have 'mutually decided' to go their own ways. But all may not be lost for 47 year old Martin and Victoria, a god daughter of the late Lord Olivier. Through a friend in Hollywood, Martin says: 'There is every hope that we'll be able to work out our problems.' In the meantime, Victoria, 43, the daughter of the late showbusiness manager Cecil Tennant and former Russian prima ballerina Irina Baronova, remains at the couple's Los Angeles home while Martin is working on a Disney film called Twist of Fate. Adds the friend: 'There's no one else involved. They have simply decided to have some time apart, but the eventual hope is that they will manage to sort things out and get back together.' Victoria fell for white haired Martin on the set of All Of Me and ditched her long standing boyfriend, film director Matthew Chapman. Previously she had been married for seven years to Swiss nightclub owner Peppo Vanini, and after leaving him she found fame playing Robert Mitchum's screen mistress in the TV blockbuster Winds of War. The couple's separation has come as a shock to the Hollywood community. Only last April, Martin said in an interview with the Daily Mail: 'Victoria has taught me about the meaning of a relationship; that it must be worked at. A marriage which is not about having a friend is almost like an arranged marriage. 'I see my wife as a peer and, in many cases, as a superior... I like her Englishness; there is a lot more sophistication and confidence in English women.'
			Daily Mail (London) April 9, 1993, Friday Pg. 49 no laughing matter ! Corinna Honan STEVE MARTIN has a little card up his sleeve. It says: 'This certifies that you have had a personal encounter with me and that you found me warm, polite, intelligent and funny.' It gets him off the hook with the autograph hunters and makes them feel good, he explains. He gives me one halfway through our interview, but I find it puzzling. Warm? I've felt warmer in Siberia. He sits in the same rigid position for precisely 60 minutes, one hand resting on his thigh and the other on the sofa halfway between big star boredom and terror of the next question. Polite? To me, yes. But the photographer arrives and does not merit so much as a 'Hi'. Intelligent? Sure, he holds a BA in philosophy and his current bedtime reading is a book about Wittgenstein. Funny? On film, certainly. In this, the sole British newspaper interview to promote his new movie, he occasionally breaks into what can only be described as a humorous snuffle. But the one joke he cracks is distinctly lame. This is the man who famously lives in a house with no windows at the front. As befits a former philosophy student, he is entirely logical about it. ONE, the house is on the rubber necking Hollywood coach tours and he likes 'to have a house where people can't come up and peek in your windows'. Two, it's his joke. 'I've always said it's the house that says: 'Go away.' That's partly why it appealed to me.' So here we have a world famous 47 year old comic actor with no windows at the front. Ask a direct question and you're likely to be told: 'I don't feel comfortable talking about that,' accompanied by a dark, impenetrable stare. He'll talk haltingly about his insecurities or his childhood or even his aloof English wife. But you have to drag it all out of him. Perhaps he is on the defensive because his dark and ambiguous new movie, Leap Of Faith, virtually flopped across America. It opened against all those 'feel good' Christmas blockbusters and hardly stood a chance, he grumbles. But he needn't be so worried. It is actually one of the best films he has made, easily ranking alongside Roxanne, Parenthood or LA Story. He stars as an evangelist conman whipping audiences into religious hysteria. Part of his brilliance comes from hours of wandering about in disguise, studying the real hucksters at work. But his performance also manages to combine a rare physical intelligence with the flawless timing he developed as America's most popular stand up comedian. Indeed, the character is not so far removed from his own comic creation. The turning point in his career came after a college gig in North Carolina, where he brought new meaning to the concept of 'walking on water'. 'I'd finished the show and the only way to get off the stage was through the audience,' he explains. 'These people kept following me. Then I came to a swimming pool with no water in it. So I asked the audience to get in and I kind of swam over them, holding on to their arms. 'It was a pivotal point because I realised I could make the boundaries of comedy wider, make it nuttier. After that, I'd take audiences out into the street and we'd walk around. I took 500 people for a Big Mac once.' He sees many similarities between the evangelist and the comic. 'There's a lot of stand up in the American revival circuit. They're both about exuding confidence and authority. In fact, when I started, one of my manifestos was to be supremely confident even when something wasn't working. That created a kind of comedy because people would say: 'I can't believe this guy thinks he's funny'.' He was never fazed by his hypnotic powers over an audience. 'That's when you crack up, when you believe you actually have it.' He was more afraid, he says, of not being as good as they thought he was. 'You're driving to the stadium and saying to yourself: 'There's going to be 20,000 people there. They've come to see me. I'd better be good'. 'It was a nightmare. The bigger I got, the more depressed I was. The life is very lonely. You're an individual travelling around, essentially alone, unable to leave the hotel. Not so much because of the fame as the mania that surrounds the fame. 'In the end, I had a mental block about coming up with more material. And because I reached a certain size of audience, there was only one way for me to go.' At this point, he decided to bale out and become a movie actor. He made one good film, The Jerk, then three flops in a row. 'It took five or six years to get the confidence back,' he says. 'I feel I only became good in the past three or four years, because of experience, understanding, whatever it is that makes a performance come together.' Leap Of Faith is his third 'serious' movie. The next, which he is writing himself, will be a 'tender and scary' comedy drama about a father and daughter. He likes to vary the tone. 'You can't say: 'Oh, I've found my genre now.' If you do that, you lose yourself and your audience.' He says he's changed a great deal over the decade he's lived with the actress Victoria Tennant. 'The first 40 years of my life I was a loner.' But didn't he have plenty of girlfriends? 'Yeah, but there was still the sense of being a loner. No relationship was longer than three years. MY ATTITUDE was: well, you're together as long as it's working well. Then you sort of forget about it when it's not. 'My philosophy's changed since then. I realise Victoria and I are going to be together for a long time. She's taught me about the meaning of a relationship; that it must be worked at.' Love, he believes now, is 'all about conversation and understanding, about the settling in and comfort. A marriage which is not about having a friend is almost like an arranged marriage,' he says. 'I do think it's a miracle to meet anybody who is a friend with whom you are compatible. I see my wife as a peer and, in many cases, as a superior. She's very talented, very smart, very well read. Perhaps I am, too, but not like her. 'I like her Englishness; there is a lot more sophistication and confidence in English women. The education of practically every English person I've met has been vastly superior to an American's. 'Victoria's also very adventurous. I have some adventure in me, but it's mainly limited to going to Europe. She, for example, just went to India by herself for three weeks. I didn't go because I didn't want to get sick.' Now, don't get the wrong impression; Steve Martin is not a hypochondriac. Well, maybe he was once, he confides grudgingly, but that was in his 20s. He remembers getting uptight about some ache which he thought might be a heart attack. Then he went into psychoanalysis and it went away. He has, he admits, been in psychoanalysis on and off for years. 'I enjoyed it. For me, it works best when it's temporary because long term analysis makes you think about your problems all the time.' He rejects the tag of the tortured comedian. He is, he claims, extremely happy. But even his friends have commented on his odd sense of detachment. For example, Mike Nichols, director of The Graduate, has said: 'He's a warm and loving friend, but you have a sense of him coming at you across a great distance.' Is there any truth in that? 'If Mike said it, it must be true. There's probably an element of tension in me, especially among strangers. I have to get to know people. I just have to,' he says almost pleadingly. AT THIS point, one feels more understanding. He is clearly ill at ease with aspects of his celebrity; no wonder he needs those specially printed cards. For his 40th birthday, he donned a walrus moustache and took Victoria to Disneyland for the day. 'Otherwise, the video cameras come out and you're just another 'ride',' he complains. People still expect him to be the 'wild and crazy guy' persona he cultivated as a stand up. 'Well, that was never part of my personality. It was an act.' He can be funny for his friends. 'But it's not about standing on the piano. The humour comes out in words. I'm uncomfortable being stared at, you know.' Much to his relief, our 'personal encounter' is finally at an end. Hooray! He can return to the house with the windowless front. He can take up where he left off with Wittgenstein. No one will ask uncomfortable questions and no one will stare. But if you see him in the street, don't be afraid to ask for an autograph. He may give you a card. Then we can all claim we've had personal encounters with the comedian who would rather not.
			Daily Mirror September 21, 1995, Thursday FEATURES; Pg. 4 DIVORCE CAN'T KEEP STEVE AND HIS IDEAL WOMAN APART; SCREEN PROFILE; SCREEN PROFILE OF STEVE MARTIN By GILL PRINGLE STEVE Martin has never doubted the part coincidence plays in our lives. But he didn't expect to be so cruelly reminded of it while filming A Simple Twist Of Fate. By a real life twist Steve, who plays an unhappy divorcee, was watching his own marriage to British actress Victoria Tennant fall apart at the seams. In the movie, which opens in Britain tomorrow, Steve's character also sees his dreams of parenthood dashed when his wife reveals the child she is expecting is not his. The 50 year old comic felt his own hopes of a family fade when he and Victoria, 44, divorced. But there are happy coincidences, too. Just as embittered furniture maker Michael McCann (Martin) rediscovers love through a little girl who turns up on his doorstep, so the actor now has a renewed spring in his step. And in the most ironic twist of all it's all down to Victoria. Hollywood is buzzing with the news that they are courting again. The couple were discovered sharing a hotel suite in Las Vegas where Martin is filming the movie version of the classic TV comedy Sgt Bilko. A studio insider says: "Call it destiny, but Steve and Victoria belong to one another." In A Simple Twist Of Fate, Martin plays a lonely, cuckolded husband who finds joy in adopting a delightful, abandoned five year old girl. Gabriel Byrne is a scheming US senator and the girl's real father. He later seeks to claim her through the courts. The plot is loosely based on George Eliot's 1861 novel Silas Marner. Martin says: "I discovered that the story was stronger than most of the new material out there today. Capable "There are those who may think Silas Marner is a warhorse of Victorian literature but the characters remain rich and the themes are bold. "I have no qualms about using coincidence, no matter how bizarre, to evoke a sense of the workings of fate." Steve and Victoria's secret wedding in Rome in 1986 surprised everyone. But the biggest shock came when they decided to divorce seven years later as Fate entered production. Martin, star of hits such as Roxanne, Parenthood and Planes, Trains And Automobiles, and Victoria god daughter of Sir Laurence Olivier had seemed such an ideal couple. He is intensely private and deep despite his madcap reputation, and she is reserved, intelligent and capable. A close friend says: "Steve and Victoria were the most perfect couple you could imagine. They complemented one another so well. "Both of them were intensely private, enjoying living life on their own terms." Indeed Victoria who rose to fame in The WInds Of War TV mini series has established herself as a talented screen writer in her own right with three movies on the go. Romantic While Martin's Father Of The Bride 2 will shortly be released in the US, his ex wife's romantic comedy Edie & Pen starring Jennifer Tilly and Stockard Channing goes into production soon. Victoria says: "I would look at these awful scripts and think: ''God, I can write better than this'. "So my brain finally said to me: 'O.K. big mouth do it'." Martin has long been an admirer of Victoria's abilities. Just months before their split, he said: ""As our marriage goes on, I like her more and admire her more and more." Judging by their Las Vegas liaison, the feeling is now mutual again. As the studio insider says: "If it is true that they're back together, then this is surely a happy ending the best twist of all."
			The Los Angeles Times March 24, 1998 'L.A. Story' actress heads West Courtney Ronan Actress Victoria Tennant, former wife of actor Steve Martin (the two co starred in "L.A. Story" in 1991), and her husband, Warner Bros. attorney Kirk Stambler, have purchased a Westside home for close to its $1.8 million asking price. The couple were married in 1996 and rented a nearby home before taking the plunge. Their new home is modest by celebrity standards: Built in the 1940s, the two story, 3,700 square foot home, described as country traditional style, contains three bedrooms, a den, an office, and a circular drive. Natalie Janger and Judy Leach, both of Dalton Brown & Long in Beverly Hills, represented both sides of the deal. British born Tennant, 44, is the late Laurence Olivier's goddaughter. She wrote the script and produced the 1996 HBO movie "Edie and Pen." She played the mistress of Victor "Pug" Henry (Robert Mitchum) in the 1980s miniseries "The Winds of War" and its sequel, "War and Remembrance."

			BASELINE II, Inc. Last Update: April 6, 1999 Celebrity Biographies Tennant, Victoria OCCUPATION: actor producer screenwriter BORN: London, England, September 30, 1953 (female). [actual year of birth 1950] EDUCATION: Attended Central School of Speech and Drama in London, England. OTHER JOBS: singer lyricist MILESTONES: 1972: Film debut, "The Ragman's Daughter" 1983: First major TV role, portrayed Pamela Tudsbury, the mistress of Victor 'Pug' Henry (Robert Mitchum) in the ABC miniseries "The Winds of War" 1984: Co starred with future husband Steve Martin in "All of Me" 1988: Reprised the role of Pamela in the sequel miniseries "War and Remembrance" (ABC) 1991: Last screen teaming with Martin, "L.A. Story" 1992: Last feature (to date), "The Plague" 1993: Played recurring role on the Australian series "Snowy River: The McGregor Saga" (aired in the USA on The Family Channel) 1996: Scripted and produced "Edie and Pen"; aired on HBO BIOGRAPHY: This blonde lead and occasional supporting player was memorable opposite Steve Martin (and Lily Tomlin) in "All of Me" (1984) and "L.A. Story" (1991) and co starred with Robert Mitchum in the ABC miniseries "The Winds of War" and "War and Remembrance." She is the daughter of ballerina Irina Baronova and talent agent Cecil Tennant. The god daughter of the late Laurence Olivier, Tennant was married to Steve Martin from 1986 to 1994. FAMILY MEMBERS: Mother: Irina Baronova. Ballerina. White Russian prima ballerina with the Ballet Russes de Monte Carlo. Father: Cecil Tennant. Talent agent. Deceased; clients included Laurence Olivier, Vivien Leigh, John Gielgud and Michael Redgrave. Godfather: Laurence Olivier. Daughter: Katya Irina Stambler. Born on February 12, 1998. COMPANIONS: Husband: Peppo Vanini. Nightclub owner. Divorced. Husband: Steve Martin. Actor, comedian. Met while filming "All of Me" (1984); married on November 20, 1986; divorced in 1994. Husband: Kirk Justin Stambler. Lawyer. Married on March 4, 1996 by mayor of Gustavia, St. Barthelemy; counsel for special projects and for business and acquisitions at Warner Bros. NOTES: He has been involved with Search for Common Ground, Washington based organization which promotes US Russian exchanges.
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