Nephew calls and Milton mom lands in movie

The Boston Herald

BEVERLY BECKHAM

She is not your typical movie star. She sings in the choir at St. Elizabeth's in Milton, MA. . She works in the advertising department at The Boston Globe. When her husband died at 34, she had four children, aged 1, 5, 7 and 8. The 7-year-old suffered seizures and permanent mental impairment from an inoculation. He died two years later.

She never remarried. She'd been an entertainer when she was young, and went back to it. She was Ann Bortolotti by day and Ann Warren, singer, impressionist and lip-sync artist at night.

"Every little bit helped," she said.

She impersonated Liza Minnelli and Barbra Streisand. Now she's in the new film "Hanging Up" with Diane Keaton, Meg Ryan and Lisa Kudrow. It's Warren's first movie, but not, she hopes, her last.

The role she was born for was Auntie Mame - the throaty laugh, the high energy, optimism and love of life.

And she's got the nephew too, Bill Robinson, who asked one day, "So how would you like to audition for a movie?"

Robinson, a co-producer with Keaton, called to wish his aunt a happy birthday, then added: "We're having trouble casting a part. We need someone ethnic-looking and your age. I want you to audition."

Robinson Fed-Exed his aunt a package.

"It contained a video of the girl they'd tried but was too young for the part," said Warren, "another video of the fellow who was supposed to be my son, the script of the movie and the script he wanted me to read. I was to be the Iranian mother of a successful surgeon. 'Wear what you have in your closet,' he told me. 'Try different outfits. If you have a jacket and scarf that would be good. Take two or three days. Then mail the tape to me."'

Using her own video camera, Warren made the tape and mailed it off.

"I grew up with my mother and aunt. I'm Lebanese. I could do Iranian."

Robinson called: "Diane wants to know if you'll fly out for a live audition."

Warren reported, "They sent a limo to take me to the airport and I flew business class and when I got to L.A. there was a man holding a card with my name on it, and off I went into another limo to the hotel. Everything was timed and on schedule and organized."

On the set, Warren met Keaton.

"'Hi. I'm Diane Keaton,' she said coming up and introducing herself as if I didn't know who she was. I mean, who doesn't know and love Diane Keaton?"

Two weeks later, her nephew told her she had the part. This time she flew first class.

Was she nervous working with seasoned actors? "Not a bit. They made me feel comfortable."

Warren talked about a scene she did with Meg Ryan. "We're in the hospital cafeteria moving along with the tray. Her father is sick. She says he has 'the dwindles.' I say he's dying. Things are hitting her hard, and I take and put my arm around her and I'm thinking I've got this $ 20 million actress with her head on my shoulder."

Ryan, Warren said, is "beautiful, sweet, warm and sincere," Keaton "hard-working" and "someone I'd like to party with," and Walter Matthau "an absolute darling." She didn't meet Lisa Kudrow.

As for her future plans? She has an agent, her nephew made sure of that. And she has a great attitude: "Like my sister said, maybe Hollywood's sick of tall, thin blondes." In the meantime, she'll keep her day job and her night and weekend job, too.