Desert Bloom Press Kit
1986

Biography

Annabeth Gish

You can hear a pin drop in the Chismore house. Wedged into a tiny corner of the kitchen, cinematographer Reynaldo Villalobos and his three-man camera crew are frozen in concentration while Desert Bloom director Eugene Corr peers forward intensely.

From Columbia Pictures, the film, starring Jon Voight, JoBeth Williams, Allen Garfield and Annabeth Gish, is a poignant study of awakening adolescence set against the backdrop of the dawning of the atomic age in Las Vegas. On the Chismore house set, 13 year-old actress Annabeth Gish is crying her eyes out as her character, Rose, picks up the broken dishes that her enraged stepfather has dumped on the kitchen floor. Gish continues to sob, even as Corr calls “cut”. Corr steps forward, puts his hand on Gish’s shoulder and comforts her. She then looks up and a beautiful smile appears behind the tears. For this dark-haired beauty from the Midwest, it’s another day making of her first feature film.

Annabeth Gish is not, by any means, an ordinary eighth grader. She possesses an intelligence, an understanding and a poise beyond her years. Without those qualities, the demanding role of Rose Chismore could have been a nightmare.

"I think I was a little unprepared for the amount of work that went into Desert Bloom," she admits, "but I think I handled it well. At times, I was drained both emotionally and physically, but I don’t remember ever saying to myself, 'What am I doing?' Because I know that I like it."

"The real emotional days were especially hard for me. It wasn’t that the degree of the scene was so hard, because all of it played on natural feelings and reactions, but those feelings and reactions brought up something in me that was so unpleasant and so scary that they would depress me for the whole day."

As Rose Chsimore, Gish was given the key role in Desert Bloom. It is through her eyes that writer/director Eugene Corr weaves this 1950’s family drama. Ten weeks on location in Tucson, Arizona, was a veritable education for her.

"I never really understood all the things that make a movie - the different shots and angles, and it’s made me appreciate what movie actors go through. It’s also shown me that acting in a movie isn’t less vital than acting in a stage play. I think that acting is acting, and no matter where it’s going on, it’s important."

Fortunately for Gish, she was immediately surrounded by a cadre of professional actors who took her under their collective wing. “Ellen Barkin and I had a very special relationship that was very much like the relationship in the film between Starr and Rose. And I think JoBeth Williams and I became very much like a mother and daughter on the set. When we first began shooting, my relationship with Jon Voight wasn’t as close as it is now, because we were doing the scenes which required a degree of tenseness in our characters. He was never mean or anything like that, but there were times when we had this unspoken agreement that we wouldn’t be chummy. I don’t really know how to describe these relationships because they’re so special and unique. Everyone went out of their way to make me feel comfortable on the set, and that helped me a great deal."

The fact that one or the other of her parents accompanied her to the set each day played an important part in Annabeth’s experience in Desert Bloom.

"My mom and dad both came to the auditions in Minneapolis, Los Angeles and Tucson, and then my mom was able to spend the first eight weeks of shooting on the set, and my dad came for the last three, and I think that was good for me. You see, my parents kind of helped me be myself, by reminding me that the movie and the movie world is not really my reality. My life is at home in Iowa with my family and friends. I think that was important for me to realize and keep in mind because it’s very easy for a young girl to get caught up in a world like this. So I think my parents have done the very important thing of keeping me where I belong."

As to how all of this experience on Desert Bloom is going to affect her future, Gish is quick to point out, "I haven’t really decided yet. I know that I enjoy acting a lot, and so far, I’d like to become an actress, if I’m not already. I’d like to continue but I’m still young and there’s a whole world out there and a lot of different things that I haven’t even seen. And there’s also the possibility that by the time I’m 19 or 20 and in college, I won’t want to be an actress anymore. In any case, I’ve got lots of time to think about it."

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Jon Voight on Annabeth: "Annabeth has grown enormously as an actress during the course of the film, and she’s done some wonderful things, so I’m really pleased for her, and we’ve grown to be good pals," Voight says. "In the beginning, I was trying to stay away from her to create an edge. But as we worked together and got to know one another, that edge disappeared because, off camera, we really cared about one another."

Ellen Barkin on Annabeth: "Working with Annabeth has been an extraordinary experience. Part of the beauty of it has been watching her grow from a tentative newcomer to someone who is now thinking all the time, and who really understands the boundaries of her character. Rose and Starr are very close in the film; they’re best friends. And I think one of the reasons that Rose loves Starr so much is that she treats her like a peers, not as a 13 year-old child," explains Barkin.