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The Rocketeers
By Susie Pitts
Cosmopolitan (Australia)
December 1991
Bill Campbell and Jennifer Connelly
Ready for blast off!
He's tall and sporty; she's a sophisticate. He's been doing daytime TV; she's been in movies since she was 12. They met at the screen-test for The Adventures Of The Rocketeer ... and fell in love. Susie Pitts talks to the two stars of this summer's blockbuster action romance.
What would summer at the movies be without a full-on, full-scale action romance? Enter The Adventures Of The Rocketeer , and Indiana Jones-style spectacular set in the '30s and packed with gung-ho heroics. Based on a comic book, The Rockeeter is about Cliff Secord who finds a rocket backpack and saves the world--it has big stunts, big special effects, big adventure ... "big" everything except big name stars.
But the Disney studio doesn't take chances, however--especially when there's $US35 million at stake; as the film's leads, Bill Campbell and Jennifer Connelly, arrive for our shoot it's clear why they were chosen. At 184cm, 31-year-old Bill Campbell is athletic without being beefcake. He has the affable ease of someone who's from out-of-town and the looks of a man who was star player on his high-school football team (both, it turns out, are true). Jennifer, 20, is the sophisticate of the pair, a green-eyed brunette who's groomed for the city in a black Armani jacket and leggings. And what's more, they're both wearing identical gold bands on their ring fingers. It's something a publicist can only dream of--Bill and Jennifer are in love.
The couple met after Bill had been cast as Cliff and the search was on for his romantic interest, a starlet called Jenny Blake who falls into the clutches of the evil Neville Sinclair (Timothy Dalton).
Was it love at first sight? Not quite, since Bill had already seen Jennifer in a screen career that was launched when she was only a child. Even though Jennifer Connelly's name isn't on everybody's lips (yet), she's had no shortage of acting experience. "I started when I was 12," she says in a cultured New York accent. "Although my mum helped, it was basically my idea. I got myself an agent and started going along to auditions, and then I met the casting agent for Sergio's [Leone] movie Once Upon A Time In America . It was the easiest casting process I'd ever gone through--then I just sort of kept doing more of the same, auditioning and doing more movies."
The "more movies" she mentions saw Jennifer share credits with David Bowie in Jim Henson's Labyrinth (1986), star with Patrick Dempsey in the teen film Some Girls (1989), steam up the screen with Don Johnson in Dennis Hopper's The Hot Spot (1990) and, most recently, finish Career Opportunities , a comedy set in a supermarket which hasn't yet been given an Australian release date.
Bill was trained as an actor (Jennifer says she's never taken an acting class, and is currently studying Literature at Yale University) and his credits are less flamboyant--daytime TV, stage work, some series guest spots. If you dig a little deeper you come across a real gem: Bill was part of television history when he appeared in Dynasty as Luke Fuller--Stephen Carrington's lover--and was machine-gunned in the infamous Maldavian Massacre. Although he cringes when reminded, Bill survived the incident unscathed and his short stay on the series--"13 episodes, so I was in and out of there pretty quick"--meant that he avoided the typecasting that's plagued other Dynasty cast members.
Right now the couple are far too engrossed in each other and publicising the film to dwell on the past. There's talk of a sequel, "I'm obligated to do two more if they make them. Jennifer, I think, is obligated to do one more," says Bill. If Son of Rocketeer does become a reality, one thing's for sure, there won't be any problems getting Bill and Jennifer to do the love scenes.
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