Reese Witherspoon

It�s not a stretch to imagine Alicia Silverstone staying up nights sticking pins into a Reese Witherspoon doll and trying to divine why her contemporary is on the Hollywood A List while she�s wound up on its Sh*t List.

Both were born in 1976, just eight months apart, Witherspoon the elder. Their initial career paths were amazingly similar: modeling and television commercials before they knew their times tables; starring movie roles before alcohol could legally pass their lips.

But the similarities stopped there. Silverstone�s star reached its zenith with the 1995 sleeper hit �Clueless.� And as this is a profile of Witherspoon, there�s no need to get into the grisly details of Alicia�s ill-fated foray into producing and her astoundingly brutal filing into the �Where Are They Now?� file.

Witherspoon is one of the �New Hollywood,� this century�s swankier counterpart to the �80s� Brat Pack. Hailing from Nashville, Tenn., the �genki� blonde debuted in theaters in 1991�s �The Man in the Moon,� playing a tomboy grappling and groping with first love.

High school was an academic and acting proving ground for Witherspoon. She maintained good grades -- good enough to get into Stanford, to study English literature -- and completed two films, �Jack the Bear,� with Danny DeVito, and Disney�s �A Far Off Place,� which required her to hole up in the Kalahari Desert for several months. The same year, 1993, she landed a part in the television miniseries �Return to Lonesome Dove,� as well as a lead in �S.F.W.,� a critical bomb that would have defused the fortunes of lesser actors.

The Reese Witherspoon known and loved by millions, if not minions, began to emerge in 1998, when two films, �Twilight� and �Pleasantville,� propelled her into the mainstream. The former, featuring oldsters Gene Hackman, Susan Sarandon and Paul Newman, registered little more than a hiccup at the box office, but Witherspoon�s work as Gene and Susan�s bratty (yet cute and charming) teen got raves. The latter, conversely, was a money-making press darling, a �Leave it to Beaver� for a post-grunge world that had Witherspoon playing opposite another New Hollywood wunderkind, Tobey Maguire. If you haven�t seen this black-and-white special effects-laden cultural coming-of-age fairytale, check it out, if only to see two of today�s hottest adroitly plying their trade before they became who they became.

It would still be another three years until Reese arrived with a capital A. The films in which she appeared in 1999 wavered in quality, but her performances met with few unkind words and were sweetening the buzz around her. In �Election,� a political satire disguised as a high school popularity contest, Witherspoon turned in her best work to date, as a gung-ho candidate for student council president. Next, in the teeny-bopper pap-fest �Cruel Intentions,� she played a goody two-shoes who co-star and soon-to-be-husband Ryan Phillippe was trying to deflower in order to win a bet.

By this time the New Hollywood pie was being divvied up by Witherspoon, Selma Blair, Sarah Michelle Gellar and Jennifer Love Hewitt. Alicia would have gladly given her eye teeth for Reese�s supporting role in �American Psycho� (2000), the much-anticipated adaptation of Brent Easton Ellis� gloriously grisly interpretation of yuppie narcissism. As the girlfriend of the psycho (Christian Bale), Witherspoon took elements from several of her previous characters (vacuousness, primness, passive-aggressiveness) and in so doing actually foreshadowed the role that was to make her a superstar.

How could anybody have known that �Legally Blonde,� a sugary and enjoyable comedy made for a measly $18 million, would become a $100+ million phenomenon? (Did you seethe, Alicia?) The movie was a �Clueless� for the new millennium, with Witherspoon�s tanned, flighty sorority chick, Elle Woods, updating Silverstone�s ditzy Cher Horowitz.

The character, who not surprisingly will be reprised this summer in �Legally Blonde 2: Red, White and Blonde,� though Witherspoon�s ticket to the upper plateaus of the Hollywood Hills, could be dangerous for the actress. Elle Woods could pigeonhole her as the loveable blonde who goes through life with a head full of marbles yet retains a home-spun intelligence that will see her through any situation. �Sweet Home Alabama� (2002), another big hit, didn�t disprove this theory of mine.

But even though Reese Witherspoon may excel at being �America�s Sweetheart,� I think she�s smart enough to eschew the pitfalls of typecasting. Future roles, including June Carter Cash in �Walk the Line� and Becky Sharp in �Vanity Fair,� will be further steps to ensure a long career, one I predict will some day garner her an Oscar nomination � if not a statuette.