HAVE YOU HAD AXCESS TO HUDSON?
By Bret Rudnick (brudnick@cfa.harvard.edu)
Copyright © 1997 held by author
622 words

[01] For what it's worth, here's a review of the Hudson Leick spread in the March 1997 issue of "Axcess" magazine:

[02] After *finally* getting a copy of the March 1997 issue of "Axcess", solely because it had a feature article on Hudson Leick, here are some thoughts about it...

[03] "Axcess" is *not* your typical mainstream magazine. I am not exactly sure how one would classify it, but "Out of Town News" in Harvard Square puts it in the "Entertainment" section. That is fairly appropriate, but it is much more "web-connected" than many other magazines of that ilk, and certainly seems directed to a "youngish" crowd (teens and early 20's, I would conjecture).

[04] If you are shy about frank language and sexual references, this ain't the mag for you. Also if you are not web-connected, the magazine is a lost resource, since it supplies http addresses about various topics aplenty.

[05] That being said, the key feature for me was the six-page spread devoted to Hudson Leick. Two pages were text, four were pictorial. If you breeze by the table of contents, you will miss another Hudson picture in that section.

[06] I will not comment on the pictures -- many people have already done that, and the pictures are already available all over the web.

[07] However, for those who have not had a chance to read the text yet (or those who have, who like to commiserate) there is some interesting fodder in the article.

[08] We learn much of what we HL fans already knew, and a couple of things I certainly did not know. I had already read she was "about" 27, grew up in the Rochester, NY area, and did modeling work after High School. I did *not* know her high school nickname was "junk" (in reference to her clothing choices) and that she was pretty well teased and tormented by her classmates. In fact, according to the article, it made her very depressed and near-suicidal, but she picked herself up, determined her tormentors would not get the better of her, and launched herself on a modeling career, in which she felt woefully inadequate. Other models would laugh at her when she told them of her acting aspirations, but again she prevailed, and got a break from Aaron Spelling in UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL, and the rest, as they say, we know about. She did not like working on MELROSE PLACE because the environment, colliding egos, etc., made her feel uncomfortable. She really loves the role of "Callisto" and sees parallels in the character and her High School life (yes, I can certainly see that too). Right now she seems to be having a great time with all the fame and such, and I am sure we all hope the success continues.

[09] A note: The article also gives the web addresses of a couple of Hudson Leick/Callisto sites. Any one of these will branch to many others.

[10] A side note: There is another article in the magazine about the official Hercules/Xena Convention in Burbank. I have to seriously wonder if the author knows much about either the show or the convention. For example, he writes "at 22 one-hour-long episodes per season", when Xena had 24 hour-long episodes in Season One. He writes as if Kevin Sorbo and Lucy Lawless appeared simultaneously at the convention -- they did not, they appeared on different days, and the Xena convention sold out while Hercules did not. He also wrote that Lucy Lawless threw the chakram that went for $8,500 across the room and that did *not* happen.