Goldie Hawn Movies
A goggle-eyed, ditzy blonde, Goldie Hawn's looks alone make her a natural for the kind of breathless comedy in which she originally made her name. Though she has built a lucrative career with her screen persona of a vivacious, giggly, and befuddled naif, Hawn's onscreen antics conceal her real-life level-headedness: Beneath the wide expanse of her blue eyes lies a shrewd, intelligent, and multi-talented woman.Born the daughter of a musician in Washington, D.C., Hawn grew up in a Jewish neighborhood in suburban Maryland. At the age of three, she took her first dance lesson, and by the age of 17, she was managing a dance studio while studying drama at American University. In 1964, she danced professionally at the Texas Pavilion of the New York World's Fair, and then began appearing in chorus lines in such musicals as Kiss Me Kate, Guys and Dolls, and The Boyfriend. She eventually moved to California, where her first break came when an agent saw her dancing on the Andy Griffith Show and cast her in Good Morning World, a short-lived comedy series. From there she was cast as a dancer in an innovative comedy-variety show hosted by comedians Dan Rowan and Dick Martin. It was on Laugh-In (1968-1970) that Hawn became popular. Originally a dancer on the show, her bikini-clad body painted with funny slogans and designs, she was given a few lines and proved herself a talented performer in a winning, air-headed way.
Hawn made her first foray into feature films as a dancer in The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band (1968). Her acting debut came a year later playing Walter Matthau's ditzy, bohemian mistress in Cactus Flower (1969); she won an Oscar for her role, making it an inarguably auspicious debut. Later that year she appeared opposite Peter Sellers in There's a Girl in My Soup. These first two films and the subsequent Dollars (1971) utilized Hawn's "blonde" persona, but in 1972, she hinted that she concealed more than a talent for perkiness and comedy when she played a young woman who helps her blind lover deal with his past in Butterflies Are Free. Hawn showed even more depth as a wife who springs her husband from jail in hopes of keeping her child in Sugarland Express, Steven Spielberg's 1973 feature-film directorial debut. Two years later, she starred as Warren Beatty's girlfriend in Shampoo, further exhibiting her capacity as both a comedic and dramatic actress.
Subsequently, Hawn continued to work steadily throughout the '80s and '90s, appearing in films of widely varying quality. Some highlights include the successful Private Benjamin (1980), for which Hawn earned her second Best Actress Oscar nomination, Seems Like Old Times (1982), and The First Wives Club (1996), in which she co-starred with Diane Keaton and Bette Midler. Hawn has two children by her second husband, comedian Bill Hudson, and one by her companion since 1986, actor Kurt Russell. She and Russell met on the set of Swing Shift (1984) and have since starred together in such films as Overboard (1987). Following daughter Kate Hudson's success in the wake of Almost Famous (2000), Hawn hit the big screen again in the notorious box-office bomb Town and Country (2001). Though that film did little to re-ignite her appeal as a box office draw, her turn as a free spirited former groupie in the following year's The Banger Sisters drew favorable reviews from critics and audiences and proved a solid indicator that the talented comic actress still had what it takes to bring in the laughs. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1968
- G
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Set in 1888, this tuneful fact-based Disney production concerns the attempts of a musically talented family of Dakota pioneers -- who are politically divided on the upcoming presidential election -- to wrangle an invite to that year's Democratic convention in cosmopolitan St. Louis. Incumbent Grover Cleveland is attempting to win his second straight election and is challenged by Benjamin Harrison. The results are that Cleveland won the popular vote, but Harrison won the electoral vote to be declared President of the United States. Cleveland would win the next election to become the only President to ever serve two non-consecutive terms. Walter Brennan, Buddy Ebsen, Janet Blair, Richard Deacon, Wally Cox, John Davidson and Leslie Ann Warren round out the adult cast. Along with the moppets, they sing and dance to espouse their political allegiances to the candidate of their choice. Look closely for Goldie Hawn in her first film role as a laughing chorine. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Walter Brennan, Buddy Ebsen, (more)
Goldie Hawn won an Oscar for her performance as a Greenwich Village free spirit in Cactus Flower. Middle-aged dentist Winston (Walter Matthau) is enjoying an affair with Toni (Goldie Hawn) but doesn't want to be hemmed in by marriage. He prevails upon his non-glamorous assistant Stephanie (Ingrid Bergman) to pose as his wife so as to keep from campaigning for a ring. Then, to justify his "infidelity," Winston talks his pal (Jack Weston) into pretending to be Stephanie's illicit lover. Flattered by all the attention, Stephanie begins to "doll up." Confronted by a newly gorgeous Stephanie, Winston realizes that his Dream Girl has been right there in his office all along. As for Toni, she ends up in the arms of a writer (Rick Lenz), who has loved her since Reel One. Cactus Flower was adapted by Billy Wilder's frequent collaborator I.A.L. Diamond from the play by Abe Burrows -- which in turn was adapted from a French farce. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Walter Matthau, Ingrid Bergman, (more)
The television host of a popular cooking show, Robert Danvers (Peter Sellers) has a real penchant for women. After one episode, he finds Marion (Goldie Hawn) changing from a wedding dress to street clothes. Instantly deciding to get to her and "take over" before the groom, Jimmy (Nicky Henson) has another opportunity, Robert invites her to his bachelor pad, a specially designed command center for his romantic adventures. He turns on the English gentleman's charm, only to have Marion laugh and suggest forthright that they sleep together. She moves in the following day and the two vacation in France on the Riviera and tour the wine country before returning to London. Upon their return, Robert proposes to %Marion; she rejects him in favor of Jimmy, however, who has sworn faithfulness to her and given up cheating forever. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Peter Sellers, Goldie Hawn, (more)
Originally billed as merely $, Dollars stars top box office draws Warren Beatty and Goldie Hawn. Beatty plays a security whiz, employed in Hamburg, Germany. He devises a clever method of robbing the secret bank vaults of notorious criminals, reasoning that the crooks will never turn to the cops. The notion that the crooks may have a few words to say to him does not dissuade Beatty as he and gold-hearted hooker Hawn work out their carefully calculated, meticulously timed robbery. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Warren Beatty, Goldie Hawn, (more)
Leonard Gershe based his play Butterflies are Free on a real-life blind attorney. The film version stars Edward Albert as Don Baker, a self-reliant, sightless young man who becomes the object of affection for kooky Jill (Goldie Hawn). Spending most of the film in nothing but her underwear, Jill makes love to Don, then tries to help him break free from the smothering influence of his mother, a children's-story writer (Eileen Heckart). The situation grows tense when Jill's boyfriend (Paul Michael Glaser) enters the scene. Eileen Heckart won an Academy Award for her performance. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Goldie Hawn, Edward Albert, (more)
Based on an actual incident, Steven Spielberg's first theatrical feature follows the adventures of a Texas outlaw couple striving to keep their family together by any means necessary. Determined not to lose her child to the authorities, Lou Jean Poplin (Goldie Hawn) gets her obedient convict husband Clovis (William Atherton) to break out of jail and help her kidnap their baby from its foster parents. With hostage Officer Slide (Michael Sacks) in tow, the fugitives head across the plains to Sugarland, Texas, pursued by a flotilla of cop cars. Even though Slide becomes the couple's friend, the Law is bent on capturing its criminal quarry. Even though it was greeted with strong reviews, and Hal Barwood, Matthew Robbins, and Spielberg won the screenplay prize at the Cannes Film Festival, The Sugarland Express flopped. The young audience that had embraced the challenging tonal shifts of Bonnie and Clyde and Easy Rider in the late 1960s was no longer so reliably drawn to narrative uncertainties in 1974. The massive success of Spielberg's next picture, the popcorn thriller Jaws (1975), would confirm his suspicion that downbeat films were no longer the way to popular approval. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Goldie Hawn, Ben Johnson, (more)
- 1974
- PG
A graceful Russian ballerina falls in love with an American news correspondent in this comedy-drama. The KGB is most displeased and does everything it can to break them up and eventually, tragically, they succeed. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
A frankly adult comedy about the sex lives of the aimless and the rich, Shampoo is also a pointed commentary on the demise of 1960s idealism at the dawn of the Nixon era. It is Election Day, 1968, and randy Beverly Hills hairdresser George Roundy (Warren Beatty) is too worried about attending to all of his women's tonsorial and sexual needs, while trying to swing a bank loan to fund his own salon, to notice the fateful Presidential race. As George juggles the demands of girlfriend Jill (Goldie Hawn) and mistress Felicia (Lee Grant), not to mention Felicia's daughter (Carrie Fisher), he meets Felicia's husband Lester (Jack Warden) to get money for the salon and discovers that his beloved ex-girlfriend Jackie (Julie Christie) is now Lester's mistress. Lester asks George to escort Jackie to a banquet for Nixon supporters, leading to a series of climactic confrontations at the dinner and a Hollywood orgy that expose the conflicting demands of sex, love, and security among these terminally narcissistic L.A. denizens. As Nixon's victory speech drones in the background the following day and Paul Simon's mournful '60s music plays on the soundtrack, George's free-wheeling world collapses around him for reasons that he can barely begin to comprehend. Produced and co-written (with Chinatown scribe Robert Towne) by its star Warren Beatty, Shampoo became Beatty's second critical and popular success as a producer after Bonnie and Clyde, and it bolstered Hal Ashby's track record as director. Shampoo earned Grant an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, as well as a Supporting Actor nomination for Warden and Beatty's first nomination as writer. With Nixon's 1974 Watergate disgrace adding an extra edge to the humor for 1975 audiences, this tragic bedroom farce became one of the highest-grossing films in Columbia Pictures' history at the time. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Warren Beatty, Julie Christie, (more)
- 1976
- PG
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Melvin Frank's burlesque amalgam of McCabe and Mrs. Miller and Wagonmaster teams George Segal and Goldie Hawn as Charlie Malloy, a happy-go-lucky card shark, and Amanda Quaid, an ingratiating dance hall hooker, who want to go to Salt Lake City. Pursued by a gang of outlaws, Charlie and Amanda join up with a wagon train of Mormons who are also heading to Salt Lake City. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- George Segal, Goldie Hawn, (more)
As he did in his screenplay for Silver Streak (1974), writer/director Colin Higgins mixes life-and-death melodrama with broad slapstick in Foul Play. Goldie Hawn stars as Gloria Mundy, a recent divorcée whose attempts to start life anew in San Francisco are bollixed up when she is inadvertently swept up in an assassination plot against the Pope. Offering sometimes dubious aid and comfort to Gloria is bumbling federal agent Tony Carlson (Chevy Chase). The film's comedy ranges from the farcical seduction efforts by musician Stanley Tibbets (Dudley Moore) to the zany, gag-filled car-chase finale. Foul Play features character actors Rachel Roberts and Eugene Roche as villains, Burgess Meredith as a martial arts-happy landlord, and Billy Barty as a long-suffering religious bookseller. It also packs in a memorable "throwaway" gag involving a profane Scrabble game played by sweet little old ladies Queenie Smith and Hope Summers. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Goldie Hawn, Chevy Chase, (more)
- 1979
- R
A presumptuous American actress falls for a handsome Italian banker before embarking on the misadventure of a lifetime in this comedy of errors starring Goldie Hawn and Giancarlo Giannini. Anita (Hawn) is an American actress vacationing in Rome. When the free-spirited screen star sets her sights on a friendly banker named Guido (Giannini) who's currently en route to visit his ailing father, she agrees to join him on his trip without realizing that her handsome traveling companion is a married man. In the days that follow Anita and Guido will form a special bond as their journey together leads them from one comic disaster to the next. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Goldie Hawn, Giancarlo Giannini, (more)
For the first (and thus far the only) time in his career, Chevy Chase plays a genuinely sympathetic character in Neil Simon's Seems Like Old Times. This time around, Chase is a divorced novelist who is abducted by crooks and set up as the fall guy in a bank robbery. Arrested, Chase manages to escape and to make his way to the home of ex-wife Goldie Hawn, now a highly respected liberal defense attorney. Chase's unexpected arrival coincides with an important dinner party on behalf of Goldie's current husband, district attorney Charles Grodin. At first making every effort to give Chase the boot, Hawn, ever the champion of the underdog finally decides to help him out of his dilemma--much to the discomfort of her politically ambitious husband. Wisely, Grodin does not play his character as an unpleasant stuffed shirt; he is as likeable as Chase and Hawn, giving the farcical plot convolutions a tinge of reality. We care about the people involved, thus the laughs spring as much from characterization as they do from the situation. If only Seems Like Old Times didn't have that lame-brained final close up..... ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Goldie Hawn, Chevy Chase, (more)
Devastated when her brand-new husband Albert Brooks) drops dead on their wedding night, Jewish American princess Judy Benjamin (Goldie Hawn) is receptive to the pitch delivered by a duplicitous recruiter for the Women's Army Corps. Quickly adivsed by topkick Captain Lewis (Eileen Brennan) that she should not look forward to the private room, fancy clothes and sauna bath that she'd been promised, Judy is forced to go through basic training like any other "grunt". This turns out to be a real growth experience for the pampered Private Benjamin, who for the first time in her life has to work for her privileges. A brief misadventure with a lascivious paratroop officer (Robert Webber) nearly sours Judy on army life, but she turns out to be a darned good soldier-and a woman with a highly developed sense of self-esteem, which enables her to weather a further disappointing romantic fling with French phsycian Henri Tremont (Armand Assante). Private Benjamin turned out to be one of Goldie Hawn's most profitable vehicles. The 1981-82 TV sitcom spinoff starred Lorna Patterson in Goldie's role, with Eileen Brennan repeating her film characterization of the long-suffering Captain Lewis. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Goldie Hawn, Eileen Brennan, (more)
We'd rather not speculate over how much of Best Friends is autobiographical. We'll just note that this story of a male-female screenwriting team was written by real-life married scenarists Barry Levinson and Valerie Curtin. Lovers as well as collaborators, scriveners Richard Babson (Burt Reynolds) and Paula McCullen (Goldie Hawn) decide to make their union legal. Predictably enough, they discover that their relationship goes straight downhill after they say "I do." The stars are far less interesting than the supporting cast, including Jessica Tandy and Barnard Hughes as Hawn's parents, Audra Lindley and Keenan Wynn as Reynolds' folks, Ron Silver as an avaricious producer (no names, please!), and Richard Libertini as a Mexican justice of the peace. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Burt Reynolds, Goldie Hawn, (more)
In this routine spoof of government and media foibles, Sunny (Goldie Hawn) is an ordinary cocktail waitress, someone who graduated in the top 75% of her class. When she dramatically prevents the assassination of a visiting dignitary, an Emir (Richard Romanus) from an Arab country. the event puts her dead center at a whirlwind of media attention, and she gets her a job in the protocol department of the government -- nothing that cocktail waitressing can really prepare one to do. Sunny's nemesis is the evil Mrs. St. John (Gail Strickland) who does not appreciate her inane blunders, and with a few cohorts, she schemes to ship Sunny off to join the Emir's harem, in exchange for a military base in his country. The daffy ex-cocktail waitress is not also blind and deaf, and before long, she suspects that something underhanded is in fact, underfoot. Now she has to find out what it is and how to stop it. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Goldie Hawn, Chris Sarandon, (more)
Director Jonathan Demme made one of his more conventional movies with Swing Shift, an examination of life on the American home front during WWII. Goldie Hawn, who also served as the film's producer, stars as Kay, a woman who takes a job on the line at a plant producing war planes after her husband goes off to fight in Europe. One of her coworkers is her best friend Hazel, played by Christine Lahti, whose performance earned an Oscar nomination and a New York Film Critics award. Kay falls in love with another coworker, Lucky (Kurt Russell), who couldn't enlist because of a weak heart. Kay's husband Jack (Ed Harris) comes home on leave and finds out that his wife has betrayed him. Lucky then decides to pursue Hazel, driving a wedge between the two best friends. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Goldie Hawn, Kurt Russell, (more)
Blonde-haired, blue-eyed women's libber Molly McGrath (Goldie Hawn) quits her teaching job at a comfortable middle-class school to take a new position as varsity football coach at a predominantly black inner-city school. Culture and gender clashes abound; she must win over the hard-boiled youths, convince them to practice hard and show up for class, and convince them they can win football games. Her job begins to take a toll on her family, however, when her ex-husband (James Keach) attempts to take away her daughter, claiming she is neglecting her responsibilities as a mother. Wildcats marked the fourth sports film directed by Michael Ritchie. ~ Jeremy Beday, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Goldie Hawn, James Keach, (more)
This screwball comedy casts real-life couple Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn in a film that finds the latter returning to her roots in a role reminiscent of Private Benjamin (1980). Hawn stars as Joanna Stayton, a snooty heiress who summons carpenter Dean Proffitt (Russell) to her lavish yacht, where she wants an expanded closet constructed that will house her valuable wardrobe. When Dean fails to build the closet out of cedar, Joanna haughtily dismisses him without payment. Later, Joanna falls overboard and is struck by another boat, causing amnesia. Seeing her story on the news, Dean constructs an elaborate scheme to pretend that Joanna is his wife Annie. Soon, the former rich snob is cleaning Dean's home and babysitting his four rambunctious boys. Although at first she's a disaster, "Annie" grows into her role and begins to love being a mom and middle-class wife. When her real husband Grant (Edward Herrmann) comes looking for her, however, her memory is jogged, and she must decide between a life of privileged ease and a life of happy housework. Overboard was the feature film debut of writer Leslie Dixon, the granddaughter of famed photographer Dorothea Lange. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Goldie Hawn, Kurt Russell, (more)
Herbert Ross directed this Nora Ephron-scripted buddy comedy starring Steve Martin, Rick Moranis, and Joan Cusack. Steve Martin plays Vinnie Antonelli, a street smart mobster who agrees to turn state's evidence and is forced to move to Fryburg, California as part of the witness relocation program. Rick Moranis plays the nebbish FBI agent Barney Coopersmith, who is assigned to help Vinnie adjust to small town life. Instead, Vinnie helps Barney come out of his shell, much to the consternation of divorced mother and relentless district attorney Hannah Stubbs (Joan Cusack). ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Steve Martin, Rick Moranis, (more)
The can't-miss teaming of Mel Gibson and Goldie Hawn is squandered on a clumsy, illogical romantic melodrama. Running across her old boyfriend Gibson at a Wisconsin gas station, Hawn is astounded that he seems not to recognize her. How could she have known that Gibson was put into the Witness Relocation Program after testifying against a homicidal mob boss (say, don't they usually alter your appearance when they put you in that program?) Curious over Gibson's furtive behavior, Hawn unknowingly sets herself up as a target for the bad guys. The whole affairs culminates in an after-hours showdown at a zoo (a plot device vastly improved upon in the 1996 Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle Eraser). While Bird on a Wire admittedly has its moments of enjoyment, most of the film is on a par with Gibson's embarrassing, homophobic scene with a pair of epicine hairdressers. And whoever heard of the Chinatown section of Racine, Wisconsin? ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mel Gibson, Goldie Hawn, (more)
Goldie Hawn delivers a surprisingly understated performance (allowing the audience to shift their laughter from the usually comic Hawn to the unbelievable storyline) in the unsuccessful thriller Deceived. Hawn plays Adrienne Saunders, a successful art restorer who is married to Jack (John Heard), a devoted husband who is also an expert in the antiques business. Married for six years and parents of a charming 5-year-old daughter Mary (Ashley Peldon), the Saunders appear to have everything going for them. But after a series of odd occurrences that even an idiot would notice, Adrienne finally comes the conclusion that her husband is not the man she thought he was when she married him. After Jack tells Mary that he was in Boston but Adrienne's friend tells her she saw him in New York, the mysterious clues begin piling up and are too numerous to ignore: there's a call from a department store concerning some sexy lingerie that Jack purchased; a friend is found murdered after checking on the authenticity of an Egyptian necklace; and there are indications that Jack was involved with a scheme to steal artifacts from a museum. Adrienne is finally convinced that something is fishy about her husband when he mysteriously dies is an auto wreck, and she discovers that Jack has been using the name of a man who had died 16 years earlier. Adrienne proceeds to polish her magnifying glass and conducts some detective work on her own to find out who her husband really was. This is when the danger really begins. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Goldie Hawn, John Heard, (more)
High-concept director Robert Zemeckis applies his usual polish -- helped by an equally adept cast -- for this surprisingly gruesome and extremely funny black comedy. The film begins with narcissistic actress Madeline (Meryl Streep) stealing the latest in a series of potential fiancées, wimpy plastic surgeon Ernest (Bruce Willis), from her ex-best friend Helen (Goldie Hawn). Depressed and infuriated, Helen suffers a breakdown that lands her in a mental hospital -- in addition to a junk-food bender that seems to triple her weight. When Madeline crosses paths with Helen again many years later, she is horrified to discover her once-chunky rival looking younger, slimmer and more glamorous than ever before. Fearing that Helen will try to steal Ernest back -- and dreading the thought of not having a plastic surgeon at her beck and call -- Madeline solicits the supernatural services of an exotic New Age mystic (Isabella Rossellini), who sells her a potent youth elixir with the stipulation that she follow the dosage instructions to the letter... yeah, right. It appears that Helen owes her sexy comeback to the same magic formula, and the inevitable violent clash between the two well-dressed banshees leads to the realization that both women have become nearly impervious zombies, clawing at each other's throats long after the blood has run cold in their veins. Best remembered for Dick Smith's Oscar-winning makeup effects, which allow the rapidly-rotting undead femmes to toss off witty one-liners with ragged holes blasted through their bodies or spin their heads Exorcist-style. Not all the sight gags work, and Zemeckis' lighthearted treatment of such grotesque material tends to dull the satirical edge, but there are some truly inspired moments of dementia -- particularly a hilarious cameo from Sydney Pollack as a doctor who comes unglued while examining Streep (who has yet to realize she's dead). ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Meryl Streep, Bruce Willis, (more)
In this romantic comedy from director Frank Oz, Steve Martin plays Boston architect Newton Davis, an impulsive dreamer who builds a bucolic dream home for his girlfriend (Dana Delany) as a means of proposing to her -- only she turns him down. Three months later, the depressed Davis meets a waitress who calls herself Gwen (Goldie Hawn), though pretending to be Hungarian proves to be only the first of her many deceptions. Davis has a one-night stand with Gwen during which he tells her the sad story of the house, which remains unoccupied just outside the city in his hometown of Dobbs Mills, because he can't bear to sell it. Following what seems to be a familiar path for this con artist, Gwen locates the house, figuring she can take up residence without anyone noticing. During a trip to the local grocery, she ends up telling the proprietor she's Davis' wife while trying to charge her purchases to his account. When she offers the same story to a local furniture dealer (Donald Moffat), unaware he's Davis' father, it triggers a string of fabrications in which the shocked Davis unwittingly becomes a co-conspirator. Seeing an opportunity of his own, Davis allows Gwen to stay in the house and agrees to go along with her story in hopes of winning back his jealous ex. Of course, this also necessitates outlandish lie upon outlandish lie, leaving the whole enterprise forever on the verge of collapse. ~ Derek Armstrong, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Steve Martin, Goldie Hawn, (more)
