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This is the story of a young woman full of surprises.What
you can see from the outside - her stunning beauty - is only the
beginning.Even if you've already fallen in love with this talented
actress,you will be totally captivated once you learn more about her.
MAY-CHEN AY-MICK (pronounced with the long "ä") was born in
Reno,Nevada on December 12,1970.She is half German,a quarter Norwegian,and a
quarter Swedish.Her name,which can also be written as Maedchen,means
"maiden" or "young woman" in German and results from the
desire of her parents,Bill and Judy,to give their daughter a name more
unusual than their own. Mädchen's parents divorced when she was two and a
half years old.Her mother,a medical office manager,re-married to a musician
and band leader,now deceased,who Mädchen considers her real father.His love
of performing would be a strong influence on Mädchen's career choices. In
examining Mädchen's early years,we come to the first surprise,at least for
those who have come to think of models and actresses as nothing more than
pretty faces and perfect bodies.We learn that she is also very intelligent
and has a wide range of artistic abilities. Mädchen has trained in various
forms of dance: tap,ballet,jazz,and modern.She has used that talent to
enliven some of her films,dancing with innocent abandon in
"Sleepwalkers",and with a calculated seductiveness in "I'm
Dangerous Tonight". Inspired by her father's devotion to music,Mädchen
began to study the piano at age three,and continued for twelve years.She
also learned to play the bass,violin,and guitar.She is a gifted painter as
well,having begun painting in oils while in school,and has sold some of her
work.
And,of course,there is acting.Mädchen attributes her sucess to a natural
ability to observe and mimic people.She recalls from her childhood,when her
mother held parties for adult friends,always wanting to be in the room with
the grown-ups,listening to their stories.Her first formal training in acting
came much later,under Roberta Fluke,her drama teacher at Robert McQueen High
School in Reno. When she was sixteen years old,Mädchen launched her
career.With her parents' blessing,she dropped out of school and moved to Los
Angeles,where she found work as a model,and soon was appearing as a dancer
in pop music videos with such artists as Julio Iglesias,Dweezil Zappa,and
Rick Astley.Even at that young age,her outstanding potential was evident to
show-business professionals.A member of the production crew for the Iglesias
video remembers Mädchen from the audition as having "...this
luminescent quality,heads over any of the many other girls". It was
during these first years among the bright lights of Hollywood that Mädchen's
personal life took an important turn.She met a neighbour across the
street,David Alexis,an aspiring singer and songwriter as dedicated to music
as she was to acting.They would eventually marry and have two children.
Mädchen's acting life began quite modestly.First there was a 1988 episode
of "Star Trek:The Next Generation",titled "The
Dauphin",in which she played a shape-shifter who at one point turned
into a teddy bear.Then,in 1989,she appeared in an episode of
"Baywatch" titled "Panic at Malibu Pier".Her first
starring role was in the 1990 low-budget TV horror movie"I'm Dangerous
Tonight".There were also a couple of small parts in other films.
In 1990,Mädchen left behind forever that life of obscurity when she landed
the role which would establish her as an widely-recognized actress.Director
David Lynch chose her to play waitress Shelly Johnson on the TV series
"Twin Peaks",and viewers of that cult hit soon come to love Mädchen's
sensually innocent character,who endured terrible abuse at the hands of her
husband,Leo. Interviewed in the August 1992 issue of the British magazine
"Empire",Mädchen told of meeting viewers who so identified her
with Shelly that they expressed outrage at the indignities and injuries she
had suffered and urged her to seek help.She received mail from all kinds of
people,including prison inmates."...but they were the nice ones,they
were the polite ones",she said,"the scary ones were out living on
Middle America or whatever." David Lynch played a pivotal role in Mädchen's
development as an actress.She remembers Lynch(who gave her a pet name of
"Madge-kin")fondly,calling him her teacher and observing
"...he would set the stage and he would encourage you to then create
and become."Of working with Lynch on the "Twin Peaks" set,Mädchen
told television Interviewer Lauren Hutton "It was really a 'film'
atmosphere where he made you feel like you had all the time in the world and
if it took all day to film a scene he would take it and he would compensate
someplace else.". In connection with "Twin Peaks",we come to
another Mädchen's surprises.In a memorable scene,Audrey Horne(played by
Sherilyn Fenn)proves her occupational fitness by using her tongue and teeth
to tie a knot in a cherry stem.Well,it turns out that Mädchen can actually
do this! She demonstrated her ability during an interview for the October
4,1990 issue of Rolling Stone magazine,saying "I've been doing it for
years".She offered a helpful hint,which the reader must imagine being
delivered in her sweet,almost child-like voice:"You have to bite up the
stem to make it limber.Bite it until it isn't stiff." There's yet
another surprise (and perhaps a bit disappointment) for those who think that
such a woman must be living the fast life of a Hollywood starlet:Mädchen
remains happily married to David,with whom she lives in Los Angeles along
with their two children,and a dachshund named Einstein. Mädchen does not
emphasize the difficulties of nurturing an acting career.Indeed,she feels
that her progress has been remarkably easy.She told the Empire writer
"It's almost like it's never been a struggle for me.A day-to-day
struggle,perhaps,but it's almost like someone's behind me,sort of pushing
and guiding me the way I'm supposed to go".She credits her father with
helping her place successs in perspective,saying to Lauren
Hutton,"...my Dad always told me'stop and look back and appreciate what
you've done;stop and smell the flowers'". Hollywood,though,is seldom
kind for very long to an actress,even one of Mädchen's haunting beauty and
immense talent.Indeed,her career has had more than its fair share of
setbacks and bad luck.Mädchen sees some of this as due,ironically,to her
flawlessly good looks.As she told Hutton, "And so there were a lot of
parts that I was attracted to,that actually had interesting things and were
intelligent,they weren't seeing me as,and the parts that were being offered
didn't have anything to them because they were the good-looking
parts...".A lack of good scripts and the difficulty in finding
challenging roles in studio films has led Mädchen,who is passionate about
her art and relishes creative control,to pursue independent films. Even the
eagerly-anticipated "Twin Peaks" movie proved to be a
disappointment to Mädchen's fans.Studio pressure to reduce the length of
"Twin Peaks:Fire Walk with Me" forced director David Lynch to
drastically cut Mädchen's reprise of her role as Shelly,putting her on the
big screen for less than a minute with just a few lines.It was only one of
several times that the entertainment industry showed how little its
understands Mädchen's talent and extraordinary appeal. A highlight of Mädchen's
film career is the 1994 feature film "Dream Lover",a thriller in
which she co-starred with James Spader.It is one of the few films to
showcase her awesome ability to portray a complex character. Mädchen's
return to network TV came in the fall of 1995,in the much-publicized CBS
dramatic series "Central Park West".Despite her brilliant
performance as the sexy and manipulative Carrie Fairchild,the series
suffered from poor ratings and was pulled after only about seven
episodes.The month-long eight-episode return of the show as a new and
improved product called "CPW" in June 1996 (delayed from
January),was poorly promoted by the network and received scant attention
from viewers. And Mädchen's future looks very bright.She has starring roles
in two recent direct-to-video releases:the thriller
"Wounded"(1996) and the romantic comedy "French
Exit"(1995).She also stars "Bombshell", a futuristic thriller
produced in 1996 by Molecular Films but not yet released.A member of the
production crew expects the film to become a cult hit.She appears in another
video movie called "Perfect Crimes",whose status is unknown. A few
other tidbits,to add to your picture of Mädchen,or perhaps to add to the
mystery:She and her father have survived the crash of a small airplane.After
seeing the movie "Arachnophobia",she dreamed that her body was
covered with spiders.She has stolen items - towels,glasses,a water pitcher,a
set of pillows - from hotels.She was the victim of an attempted mugging
while living in New York City during the taping of "Central Park
West";nevertheless,she feels safer in New York than in LA. |
