A Fierce Passion: Tragic Monologue .

As I mentioned in one of my earlier posts, I'm taking a course called Acting Academy. There are several components to the exam and one of them is to perform a tragic monologue. For this assignment, we are to find a famous person (famous, well-known to the world) that looks and sounds similar to ourselves that has lived a tragic life or death. For many of the students in the class, including me, it was quite challenging. First of all, it is hard to find someone that looks and sounds like you. Everyone is unique and according to myths, everyone has precisely one person in the world that looks EXACTLY like them (An 'evil twin'). And for this assignment you don't have to look EXACTLY like the person that you choose, but there has to be a strong resemblance. On top of that, the person has to have lived through some sort of tragedy. So, for mine, I had a short list of famous people that I saw a resemblance of myself in. First on MY list is Halle Berry. Her husband was abusive ( her first husband ) and that's when she attempted to take her own life. But she realized that she couldn't when an image of her mom popped up in her head . Her mom sacrificed a lot for her and her siblings as they were growing up, which is why she felt it was cowardly to commit suicide. She's had two other failed marriages and is now convinced that she cannot remarry again due to the three failed attempts.( http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20016312,00.html )
A few people from the class including my teacher saw another choice of mine more suited for me, which was Dorothy Dandridge. "Denison not only took over Dorothy's career but he attempted to shut out her friends. He was also very abusive and it is known that he beat her. He was only interested in her money and he took it whenever he could. On top of this, an oil investment that Dorothy had entered into with other Hollywood stars turned out to be a scam and Dorothy lost a large amount of money. She had never handled her money very well and she always relied on other people to handle it for her. To alleviate her troubles, she began to drink heavily.
After almost two years of abuse, Dorothy finally threw Denison out of her house and filed for a divorce. She hoped that things would begin to get better but they only seemed to escalate." Dorothy soon had to claim bankruptcy. Her death remains a mystery to this day, as it hasn't been proven whether her overdose was intentional or accidental. ( http://home.hiwaay.net/~oliver/ddtragicyears.html )
And my third choice is Thandie Newton, who's life isn't as tragic as the other too, but some of my classmates and I think would suit me the best, looks-wise.
"Newton can be hard to get close to. Subconsciously she may feel that too much closeness in her relationships will interfere with doing what she needs to do and being her own person, so Thandie Newton puts up subtle walls and distance herself when someone begins to want more of her than she can comfortably give. However, Newton may cut off sources of emotional nourishment and support that way, and end up feeling alone and lonely. Thandie Newton might even develop digestive problems. Overcoming her fears of intimacy, while at the same time affirming and acting on her autonomous needs, is the challenge here." ( http://famous-relationships.topsynergy.com/Thandie_Newton/ )
The exam's coming right around the corner, so the decision making is quick and dirty. We also need to choose someone in the class to be a promoter and this person will be the one that gets your name out there and 'bamboozals' the audience into loving you and your performance. So it's going to be a dog-eat-dog world, come exam time for our class. But I'm up for the battle.

Here are pictures of the three :