SIGOURNEY WEAVER TO CONNECT WITH WOMEN IN THE TWIN CITIES

Celebrate Mother’s Day and May With a Memorable Girls Night Out!



MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. (April 22, 2011) – Givethe gift of inspiration and a unique “girl’s night out” this Mother’s Day with a special treat: A SmartTalk Connected Conversation with Sigourney Weaver! This esteemed actress and mother will take the stage for a special evening at the Orpheum Theater on Tuesday, May 17, at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are available through the Ticketmaster Arts Line at 1-800-982-2787 or online at www.HennepinTheatreTrust.org/smarttalk. A limited number of seats are still available with ticket prices starting at $45.



A SmartTalk Connected Conversation is a great way for women to be empowered and entertained through the life stories of the series’ distinguished speakers. Sigourney Weaver promises to transport the audience “Out of This World” with tales from her career, perspective on balancing roles as a mother and actress, and more intimate details gleaned from personalized questions direct from the audience.



The gift of SmartTalk is exceptional for a mother/daughter night out, girlfriend time or simply a chance for mothers to take a time out and recharge their batteries with a distinctive evening of entertainment.



Hosted by Mpls/St. Paul Magazine Style Editor Allison Kaplan and moderated by MyTalk 107.1 Radio’s Margery Punnett, the SmartTalk with Sigourney Weaver is a “must attend” VIP event for mothers and women throughout the Twin Cities.



About SmartTalk

A wholly-owned subsidiary of SmartTalk Media LLC, SmartTalk ConnectedConversations™ series provides its audiences with inspirational, connected conversations – from renowned entertainers, political figures and other accomplished individuals. Since 1992, SmartTalk has presented captivating stories from such remarkable women as Julie Andrews, Maya Angelou, Lauren Bacall, Erin Brockovich, Whoopi Goldberg, Goldie Hawn, Mary Tyler Moore, Priscilla Presley, Susan Sarandon, Gloria Steinem, Lady Margaret Thatcher and Barbara Walters. The performers share their real, very personal views and life experiences in a way that is intimate, empowering and, above all, connected to the lives of women everywhere. For more information, please visit www.smarttalkwomen.com.

Isabella Rossellini

Isabella Rossellini

“If I were to pick my parents, it would be Roberto Rossellini and Ingrid Bergman.” Said Isabella Rossellini on March 7th at the Orpheum Theater in Minneapolis, Minnesota for Smart Talk’s Connected Conversations series.



Rossellini, comedian, actress, director, model and self proclaimed daddy’s girl spoke of her parents, their love and careers. She also spoke of their affair, pregnancy, marriage and subsequent divorce. And still, she explained they were the best parents, and Rossellini, herself, is the best proof of that statement. A mother herself, Rossellini has had, and continues to have, and amazing career.


Ingrid Bergman



Roberto Rossellini

Isabella Rossellini is joy to watch. She is intelligent, beautiful and so very personable. On stage she comes off as a friend, someone who is confiding to you about her family, her parents in particular who she loved dearly. Usually when you go to hear someone speak you hear a lot about their accomplishments, but not so much about the family unless it is to say how the family helped them in their career. In Isabella Rossellini’s case, it was almost entirely about her parents Roberto Rossellini and Ingrid Bergman. Who they were, what motivated them, what they suffered through, what made them what they were. It was a love story about her parents. When she did talk about her self, it wasn’t so much about her personal life as it was about her career. Family and career, for Rossellini, seem to be one in the same.


Elettra Rossellini Wiedemann

Rossellini’s daughter, following in her mother’s footsteps has become the new face of Lancôme. An interesting addendum to Rossellini’s firing from her 14 year career with Lancôme for being too old.


Isabella Rossellini

If you haven’t seen them yet, check out Green Porn. Rossellini’s latest acting/directing project. You will be entertained, educated and laughing your head off.



You can find out more about Isabella Rossellini here and here. But if you can, see her in person. For me, she was my favorite Smart Talk speaker. You can still see her in Des Moines on April 4th. Tickets are available here.

Oxygen Not Included

There's still time to get tickets! Click here for more information.

Team Captain of the 1st American Women’s Everest Expedition and Groundbreaking Polar Adventurer; Alison Levine is no stranger to risk-taking. She’s survived sub-zero temperatures, hurricane-force winds, sudden avalanches, and a career on Wall Street. Levine was born with a life-threatening heart condition that precluded most demanding physical activities. After her initial diagnosis she had surgery that changed her life – and climbing stairs soon gave way to climbing mountains. (Taken from the Smart Talk website.)

The Divine Miss M

“Let’s get the trash off the ground and back on stage where it belongs.”
Bette Midler said to a full house at the Orpheum Theater in Minneapolis, Minnesota Tuesday night as part of the SmartTalk Connected Conversations Series.



Bette Midler is famous for her film and stage career, winning tree Emmy Awards, Four Grammy Awards, Four Golden Globes and a special Tony Award “for adding luster to the Broadway season.” She starred in films such as “The Rose,” “Beaches,” and “Ruthless People” as well as 32 other films. She has 13 albums, has starred in 23 Television productions and is a producer, writer and composer. Yet still, she has found time to clean up New York.



Born in Hawaii on December 1st 1945, Midler learned early to organize and clean when her mother became overwhelmed with the responsibility of caring for her special needs son. She also learned that when she sang, people paid attention to her. Little did anyone know that these two skills would bring passion and joy into her life.


Bette Midler at the Continental Baths, 1971

In 1965 Midler mover to New York to pursue her career. She worked as an actress and singer but probably is the most famous for working at the Continental Baths with Barry Manilow starting in 1970. During that time the Aids epidemic took many of her friends and coworkers. She threw herself into fund raising and education. Midler says that she “sunk like a stone” from losing so many friends.



Midler moved from New York to LA to star in “The Rose,” in 1979. “The Rose” was the story of a drug addicted rock star and said to be modeled after the late Janis Joplin. Midler says the story is her story as well Joplin’s and that she caught up in the life style.

In 1984, six weeks after meeting Martin Von Haselber she married him and two years later at 40 years old, Midler gave birth to their daughter Sophie. Midler threw herself into motherhood and later mover back to New York.



Midler was saddened to find that New York was a mess. Parks were abandoned and trash was everywhere and in 1995, Midler, the organizer and cleaner, threw herself into action and founded the nonprofit New York Restoration Project (NYRP).

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The NYRP has picked up more than 133000 bags of trash from the city’s green spaces, owns and manages 55 community gardens and has planted hundreds of thousands of trees, bushes and flowers to clean up and “green” New York city. You can read more about the organization and learn what you can do to make a difference in your own community by clicking here.

Midler advises people to use their natural gifts and follow their obsession to find their passion and joy. She goes on the say, “If you haven’t found your thing, remember, there is always trash.”

Comediennes Talk Ageism in Hollwood

Diane Keaton

Diane Keaton

“If you go where you’ve always been, you’ll get what you’ve always got.” Diane Keaton said last night at Orchestra Hall in Mpls, MN for the Smart Talk series.

Diane Keaton should know, she has been to a lot of places. From movie star and singer to photographer and real estate developer, Keaton has been everywhere.


Dorothy Dean Keaton Hall is on the fat left.

Keaton talked about her life travels, focusing on the rediscovery of her mother, Dorothy Dean Keaton Hall, through her mother’s journals. Using film clips of her mother, Keaton shared her insights with the audience.

Crediting her mother as the reason for her “luck” in life, Keaton traced her career backwards in time until she landed on the support and encouragement of her mother.

“My mother was the foundation for my convoluted belief to be a movie star.”


Annie Hall

The support she received from her mother has resulted in 36 movies, an Oscar, a BAFTA Award, two Golden Globe Awards and numerous other awards and achievements.

“One of the most important people in a woman’s life is her mother.”


Diane Keaton with her son, Duke

Keaton also talked about her experiences with being a single mother, adopting her first child at the age of 50. Her advice for women thinking of motherhood later in life was, “Get help.”

Commenting on age discrimination and women becoming invisible with age, Keaton said she realized she was getting older when a man looked straight through her for the first time. It’s a realization that makes most women dress “age appropriate” and start accepting limitations, but not Diane Keaton. At 57 years old, Keaton’s nude scene in the film, “Something’s Gotta Give” proved that older woman can be sexy, and very, very visible! At the age of 60, she became the new face of Loreal, challenging the idea that only youth is beautiful.


The New Face of Loreal

The only question now is, where will Diane Keaton be when she’s 70? Someplace she’s never been.

Special and Invincible

(Best known as Clair Huxtable on The Cosby Show, for which she received two Emmy Award Nominations, Phylicia Rashad is also the first African-American actress to win the Tony Award for best leading Actress for “A Raisin in the Sun.” In 2009 she won the NAACP Image Award for outstanding Actress.)

by Stella Strout

Born on June 19^th 1948 in Texas, also known as Juneteenth, the day African-Americans were given Emancipation in Texas, Phylicia Rashad (then Allen) took comfort in the knowledge that she was special, after all, everyone in town celebrated on her birthday.

Poised and confident and beautiful, Rashad’s rich mellow voice commanded the attention of the hundreds of women attending the Smart Talk 2009 Series at the Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

“The sun and the moon followed me wherever I went.” Rashad said of her childhood. It was another proof that she was special. Then one day, when climbing a tree as high as she could go, she fell. Landing in a lower branch, shaped like a hand, she was caught safely. Now she knew, not only was she special… she was invincible!

She and her siblings were encouraged to be creative and value education by their mother, Vivian Ayers. When the children sprinkled baby powder on the living room floor to go ice skating or scattered cornflakes on the porch so that the crunching noise would warn them of a possible intruder, their mother’s only response was, eyes raised to the ceiling, “Mercy.” She never discouraged their “inventions.”

Rashad spoke often of her mother’s advice and lessons throughout the evening. Art, Ayers had explained to her children, is fundamental to human development. Rashad found that it was also her gateway to freedom.

While in grade school, Rashad was chosen as Mistress of Ceremonies in a state school competition. On stage, she would stand in the spotlight and talk to the light, speaking her memorized lines. After the show she heard people talking about her, saying, “Look at that girl. She’s so beautiful.” It was exactly what Rashad wanted to hear.

 “When I grow up,” She decided, “I’ll be an actress and play in the light and be beautiful all the time.”

Rashad graduated Magna Cum Laude from Howard University and moved to New York City.

“Shaft was on every corner.” She said. “I was totally unprepared for the city.”

She lived at a YWCA and supported herself typing, a skill her mother taught her when she was just seven years old. Rashad started in community shows and was spotted for a part in “Young, Gifted and Black.” Soon after, Rashad took a part in a musical, and was let go before the show began. Special and invincible no longer applied.

“It felt like the ground disappeared beneath my feet.”

Instilled with a strong work ethic by her parents, Rashad got back to work, married and had a son. She was hired as an understudy in “Dream Girls” on Broadway.

“I saw my son in the morning and then in bed at night when I got home.” When she was passed over as a full time replacement, Rashad quit.

“I told him I wasn’t an understudy. I was a leading lady. He said, ‘You’re right.’ And I left.”

“Sometimes you think you made a wrong turn, but it turns out to be the right one.” She says about that period of her life. Divorced by then, she went on unemployment which gave her time with her son and a chance to rediscover him. Then, joining the cast of “One Life to Live” she could work days and see her son at night.

Soon after her father died, a crushing event for Rashad, she had the opportunity to audition for “The Cosby Show.” Her fame from this show would forever overshadow her other, numerous accomplishments. Rashad does not regret a minute of it and expressed her gratitude for the opportunity.

In 1985, Rashad married former NFL receiver Ahmad Rashad. By then she had two children and had a third child during this marriage. Although the marriage did not last, Rashad speaks of love.

“Love is a constant in life.” She explains, “Love has always been there and always will be. There isn’t a lot else that matters.”

Rashad’s love of her children, her spirituality and her mother’s advice carries her through life. She advises other mothers to “Bring your children everywhere with you. Find a way to make them part of your life.”

When asked what she would do differently in life, Rashad said she had only one regret, not pursuing piano lessons.

 [Go to SmartTalkWomen.com for more information about their 2009 series. Tickets are still available for  Diane Keaton on 5/21.]