The Cedar Rapids Gazette
Entertainment
Friday, August 18, 1989

Iowans Are 'True'
by Dee Ann Rexroat
Gazette assistant arts/entertainment editor

Photo Caption: Actress Annabeth Gish (right) and her mother, Judy, spoke at UNI's Annual Summer Institute for Gifted Education. A Cedar Falls resident, Annabeth has starred in such movies as Hiding Out and the current Shag: The Movie.
 

Annabeth Gish, the 18-year-old actress from Cedar Falls who recently starred in Shag: The Movie, says living in Iowa has kept her personal life balanced while her career has skyrocketed.

"People ask me, 'How can you return to Iowa, which doesn't have all the cultural opportunities (of the coasts)?' I find creative expression is the truest where people are true. Iowa is a much truer place than Los Angeles, Calif. There is so much insecurity and falseness there; everyone is an actor," Gish told participants of the recent Fifth Annual Summer Institute for Gifted Education at the University of Northern Iowa.

Gish graduated this year from Northern University High School and will enter Duke University this fall with a full drama scholarship.

Gish, whose other films include Mystic Pizza, Desert Bloom and Hiding Out, credits part of her success with keeping up with school and staying in Iowa.

"I get pressure from Hollywood people, who always assumed I'd move," she said. "Many people look at our (family) operation as a novelty - it intimidates some people. They can't get to me as easily. I look at my parents as the fence people have to get through before they can touch me."