The newsroom could not have been more star-struck if Meryl Streep or Sylvester Stallone had dropped in. The occasion was a visit from one of Italy’s more popular romantic-comedy stars — known to Fort Worth as a Harlingen-born millionaire heiress, but as prominent in Europe as any made-in-Hollywood personality could be in America.
Fran Fullenwider made her entrance as unobtrusively as any 5-foot-2-inch, 250-pound beauty could manage. She and Star-Telegram drama critic Perry Stewart and I maneuvered toward the entertainment department. (Back then, every daily newspaper had its own staff of credentialed film-art-music reviewers, attuned to a local readership.)
The murmurings arose: “I know her — she was in that Rocky Horror thing!” — “I hear she’s famous in Italy!” Celebrity-gawking of a high order. Only one voice sounded rude: “Hey, Perry!” shouted one loudmouth. “Who’s your girlfriend? Betcha she’s an armful!”
Fran Fullenwider paid no heed. Perry Stewart responded, with slow-burn indignation: Offering the lady his arm, he approached the offending editor: “Nice of you to say as much, chief. I don’t believe you’ve met my fiancée…”
The culprit, humbled, went slinking away. Fran Fullenwider thanked Perry Stewart and added: “Well, I could have decked the fool, or just ignored him, but you managed to deck him with a polite word.” (Perry Buck Stewart [1942-2018] was a quick-witted treasure among Star-Telegram staffers.)
The event, in 1988, involved Fran Fullenwider’s visit to help a favorite stage company, Johnny and Diane Simons’ Hip Pocket Theatre, to raise production funds. Most actors who visited my office would come because they had new movies to promote. Fullenwider’s pictures seldom played America. One such film, Piero Schivazapa’s Una Sera C’incontrammo (or “One Night We Met”) proved typical. That runaway hit had outdrawn the 1975 Italian opening of Steven Spielberg’s “Jaws.”
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Fullenwider explained: “I sing and I dance in my films … Very like the Doris Day romantic comedies, and no mention is made that I am fat,” she said, inverting the term to her advantage. “Invariably, I get the leading man in the last reel of a picture.”
In 1988, the immediate Hollywood romance was Norman Jewison’s “Moonstruck,” a tale of hit-and-run romance among Italian American families. If “Moonstruck” had been produced in Rome, leading lady Cher could have expected formidable casting competition from Fullenwider, who practically owned the genre and the territory.
Fullenwider remained comparatively unknown in America — except for her real-life role as an heir to the $6 million estate of a Fort Worth banker. Her audience at the Hip Pocket benefit raised contributions that co-founder Diane Simons reckoned at $5,000. Fullenwider made the event a marvel of lyrical, improvisational comedy.
Fullenwider’s star-making strategy was to specialize in sympathetic, glamorous roles of a type seldom seen stateside. Americans more likely would have noticed Fullenwider in 1974’s “The Great Gatsby”; 1975’s “The Rocky Horror Picture Show”; and 1987’s “Eat the Rich,” portraying the Queen Mother.
Her starring pictures represent an essential component of Italy’s moviegoing fare. Although the nation has propelled the worldwide appeal of Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni and made lucrative exports of its horror and frontier pictures, Italian romances and comedies seldom leave the country.
“[My pictures] hold a great deal of charm for the Italians,” Fullenwider said, “but might not exercise that much appeal, otherwise.”
It was in 1982 that Fullenwider was summoned to claim part of the estate of Fort Worth banker Raymond McGee. The settlement led to a division of wealth among two nephews and Fullenwider.
“Here I was, playing well-to-do parts — and suddenly, I’m well-to-do,” Fullenwider had said at the time. “It’s really too much. But the inheritance has enabled … a very nice lifestyle.”
Her talents and ambitions buoyed Fran Fullenwider along into the 1990s, with acting assignments persisting in London and Rome. Fullenwider died of a heart attack at age 52 in 1997.