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Searchin' for Sally

The revival of Bob Fosse's legendary musical Cabaret won Natasha Richardson a Tony Award for her portrayal of the chicly decadent Sally Bowles.
 
 It was also the role that won Liza Minnelli her Oscar.
 
 Richardson and hubby Liam Neeson are preparing to star in the psychological thriller Asylum, so Jennifer Jason Leigh has taken over the Cabaret role in New York.
 
 An L.A. version of the musical is in the works.
 
 Anne Heche admits she is lobbying to play Sally Bowles, but concedes "it's not looking too good. I hear Sharon Stone is also sending out signals that she wants to open Cabaret in L.A."
 
 Richardson admits she made the producers of Cabaret put her costumes into storage.
 
 "Somewhere deep in my heart, I'm hoping I'll have a chance to go back into the show at some point. It's definitely one of the highlights of my career," explains Richardson.

Natasha's parent trap

MARINA DEL RAY, California -- Natasha Richardson felt just a little trapped by her desire to be a parent.
 
 Richardson met Liam Neeson when they starred in the 1993 Broadway production of Anna Christie.
 
 They got engaged the following year while co-starring in Jodie Foster's Nell.
 
 Marriage was not far behind and neither was their first child, son Michael Richard Antonio Neeson, who arrived in June 1995. The couple's second son, Daniel Jack Neeson, was born 14 months later.
 
 "Having two babies back to back like that wasn't planned. In fact, once I discovered I was pregnant with Daniel, I wondered if it was such a good deal for my career," admits Richardson, whose films include Patty Hearst, A Month in the Country, The Comfort of Strangers and Widow's Peak and the remake of the 1961 Disney film, The Parent Trap, opening Wednesday.
 
 Instead of fretting, Richardson decided to enjoy the experience as much as possible.
 
 "First off, there's nothing romantic about being pregnant, but once you accept that fact, you can get a kick out of being in your own body for a change.
 
 "As an actress I had learned to deny myself, but as a pregnant woman I ate everything I wanted for the first time in my adult life. Liam ate along with me, so we both got pleasantly overweight."
 
 Once Daniel had arrived, reality struck with a vengeance.
 
 "It felt as though I'd never sleep again or be slim again and here I was being offered the role of Sally Bowles in (the New York revival of) Cabaret. I had to work overtime to get my old body back. I dieted and worked out.
 
 "Liam took care of the boys and encouraged me and lost just as much weight as I did."
 
 Richardson's performance in Cabaret was a triumph. She soon became the toast of Broadway, earning a coveted Tony Award this year.
 
 "Theatre has been very good to me. It gave me Liam and it gave me a Tony."
 
 There was only one drawback to her Tony nomination and subsequent win. At the same time as she was starring in Cabaret, Neeson was starring on Broadway as Oscar Wilde in The Judas Kiss.
 
 "I was heartbroken that Liam didn't get nominated. His being slighted took the joy out of my nomination. I thought it was going to be one of the most joyous days of our life together, but it was not meant to be and that hurt me."
 
 Both Richardson and Neeson end their Broadway runs Aug. 2.
 
 "We're going on a long, family vacation. We'll sleep and eat and play with the boys."
 
 Richardson is the daughter of actress Vanessa Redgrave and the late Tony Richardson, the award-winning British director of such films as Tom Jones. Her grandfather, the late Michael Redgrave, was a contemporary of Laurence Olivier. Her grandmother Rachel Kempson, aunt Lynn Redgrave, uncle Colin Redgrave and sister Jolie Richardson are all actors.
 
 "I come from this British acting dynasty. Liam is poor, working-class Irish. We couldn't be more polar opposites. We rub each other the wrong way at times, but that's what keeps our marriage interesting."
 
 Richardson and Neeson are hoping to work together again soon on the dark psychological thriller Asylum, but they're still looking for a director for the project.
 
 "My family had periods when we were wealthy, but we also had periods when there was very little money.
 
 "The real wealth I derived from my family was the enduring sense of fancy and history. There's something magical and rewarding about growing up surrounded by working actors."
 
 Richardson's parents divorced when she was a child, and her father and mother had several much-publicized liaisons.
 
 This painful experience was all the research Richardson needed for her role in Disney's remake of The Parent Trap.
 
 Richardson plays the mother of twin girls who gives one of her daughters to former husband Dennis Quaid when they split up. The twins meet more than a decade later and conspire to get their mother and father back together.
 
 "I think this rematching is a fantasy of every child of divorced parents. It certainly was my fantasy.
 
 "I'd fantasize about buying dozens of roses that I'd sign my dad's name to and then send to my mother. I never did, of course, but the fantasy was something I clung to for years."

Making a name for herself

After years of working in relative obscurity, Natasha Richardson is winning over critics and fans

HOLLYWOOD -- Some folks make a career out of being famous by association, but Natasha Richardson didn't want to be one of them.
 
 Certainly, her identity crisis potential was dramatic.
 
 Her mother is Oscar-winning Vanessa Redgrave, her father the late but loved director Tony Richardson, and her grandfather the departed-yet-still-revered Sir Michael Redgrave.
 
 If that wasn't enough, four years ago Natasha Richardson married the high-profile handsome hunk who is the often-swooned-over Liam Neeson.
 
 Richardson made a name for herself anyway after staying relatively obscure in plays and movies the last 10 years.
 
 This has been her year.
 
 She won over fans and impressed critics on Broadway with her Tony-winning Sally Bowles portrayal in Cabaret.
 
 And she's about to do the same in film, by all reports, with her performance in the remake of The Parent Trap, which opens in a few days.
 
 Richardson plays the mother of twin girls who get split up after their parents divorce. When the teenaged twins meet inadvertently at summer camp, they plot to reunite the parents.
 
 In the Nancy Meyers update of the 1961 Disney comedy, Lindsay Lohan plays the classic Hayley Mills role as the twins. Dennis Quaid is their dad.
 
 Certainly, Richardson underestimated the impact of being featured in The Parent Trap, which originally starred Mills, Brian Keith and Maureen O'Hara. Ironically, the film was based on a 1953 British movie called Twice Upon A Time.
 
 "For me, The Parent Trap wasn't like The Sound Of Music or Mary Poppins," says a cheerful Richardson at a Marina del Rey hotelroom recently. "None of my London contemporaries knew of it, and neither did I."
 
 She found out soon enough.
 
 Luckily, the London-born actress has already been through the anxiety of attempting what had been successfully accomplished before with Cabaret, Liza Minnelli's stage and screen triumph.
 
 "I was quite clearly touched by the story of The Parent Trap, and I empathized," reports the 34-year-old mother of two toddler boys. "I understood the mother aspects of it, the woman in love aspects, and the woman in pain and in love."
 
 She might've added that she could relate to a woman with a busy year.
 
 Her hectic schedule is almost behind her. She finishes her run in Cabaret by early August. And she's thrilled about what the future holds -- a family vacation.
 
 Richardson looks almost relieved to proclaim in her sophisticated Brit accent: "We are going to France."
 
 Then she reminds herself. "Oh, yes, we're in London first. Liam has to do a few extra days on the prequel for Star Wars, then we're off to France to eat and drink and sleep."
 
 What about Liam's Star Wars thing?
 
 "I'm not allowed to tell it," she says, smiling coyly.
 
 "Okay," she decides, "he's like a cross between Harrison Ford and Alec Guinness. Like one of those Jedi masters. I think I'm allowed to say that."
 
 All right, then what about Liam's dad thing?
 
 "He's totally hands on. He loves the kids (Michael, 3, and Daniel, 2) and never tires of playing with them," says Richardson.
 
 What about the Natasha Richardson mom thing?
 
 "One of the good things about being an actress and a mother is that there are long stretches where you can be the mother and you are always there. When you're working and it's intense, it's difficult."
 
 This summer a little coincidence and a lot of planning had Richardson in Cabaret and Neeson starring in Broadway's The Judas Kiss.
 
 Sometimes the family even made it home to their permanent address in upstate New York.
 
 That's right, after vacationing in France, the working class Irishman and the upper crust Englishwoman will return with their U.S.- born children to their base in rural America.
 
 "I don't know," says Richardson, trying to explain their choice. "I guess we're both quite down-to-earth people.
 
 "We come from very different backgrounds. Liam comes from a very poor working class background, and he takes nothing for granted.
 
 "And, of course, I come from an actor's background, and I know that it's up and down, and up and down, and that you don't live in this magical bubble.
 
 "It actually means that we both take this show business thing with a very large grain of salt."
 
 The fact is Richardson had moved to the U.S. before she met Neeson five years ago on Broadway when they were doing Anna Christie together.
 
 "One of the reasons I moved to America," she says, "was the same reason a lot people moved here --to start a new life.
 
 "I always sort of felt the burden of the Redgrave family on my back in Europe, that I really haven't felt here. Which I very much appreciate.
 
 "Of course, Americans are interested, but it isn't their main thrust.
 
 In America, "It's the third paragraph. There it's still the headline."
 
 It's a parent trap of a different kind.
 
 THE NATASHA RICHARDSON FILE
 
 BORN: May 11, 1963, in London.
 
 MARRIED TO: Robert Fox, divorced, then Liam Neeson, father of Michael, 3, and Daniel, 2.
 
 NATASHA ON NATASHA: "I'm a split personality. The American side is hard-working and optimistic. The European side is not quite thinking in black and white, and not so moralistic."
 
 ON CYNICAL LONDONERS: "I can't handle it. It's too much negative energy. Everybody trashes everything."
 
 ON CABARET: "I had one dancing injury, it was two weeks into rehearsal. I jumped and I heard a sound. I thought it was my Achilles (heel). It wasn't, but I hobbled around for a while. It has been a grind, but it has been worth it."

Neeson and Richardson have second child

 LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Liam Neeson and Natasha Richardson are parents again.
 Daniel Jack Neeson was born Tuesday morning in New York City, said Susan Culley, the couple's Los Angeles-based publicist.
 Other details of the birth were not released. The couple has another son, Micheal, born in June 1995.
 Neeson starred in Rob Roy and Schindler's List, which won seven Academy Awards in 1994.
 Richardson, granddaughter of actor Sir Michael Redgrave and daughter of actress Vanessa Redgrave, was in the recent film Widows Peak.
 The couple met in 1992 while performing on Broadway in Eugene O'Neill's Anna Christie. They married in 1994.