Celebrity Jukebox #26: Rosanna Arquette

In 1985, Rosanna Arquette won the best supporting actress BAFTA for her role in Desperately Seeking Susan. I'm not suggesting this was made easier by the fact that her co-star wasn't really great shakes in the acting department... then again, Sean Penn was also in that movie, so Rosanna did have some competition. 

Desperately Seeking Susan is a mistaken identity movie, based on the premise that someone might think Madonna and Rosanna are the same person because they wear the same jacket. Well, Mary Prankster has a few thoughts about that...

Mary Prankster - Breakfast

"Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?" he said

"Rosanna Arquette doesn't look like a thing like Madonna

And you'd have to be a moron

To desperately seek either one."

Rosanna Arquette also appeared in Pulp Fiction, After Hours, Crash and a bunch of other movies and TV shows. She also has a few famous siblings, meaning this might not be the last time an Arquette features here. However, her biggest claim to immortality surely comes from the fact that she inspired not one but two huge 80s songs. 

The first is the most obvious. Rosanna was dating Toto keyboard player Steve Porcaro at the time this was written by the band's other keyboard player, David Paich, and sung by Bobby Kimball. Could have been awkward, although Paich claimed the song was actually about his old high school girlfriend and Not About Rosanna Arquette At All. 

Many years later, he confessed that might have been a bit of a lie... by which time, Rosanna and Steve Porcaro were history anyway.

All I wanna do when I wake up in the morning is see your eyes

Rosanna, Rosanna

I never thought that a girl like you could ever care for me

Rosanna

All I wanna do in the middle of the evening is hold you tight

Rosanna, Rosanna

I didn't know you were looking for more than I could ever be

Soon after, Rosanna ended up in a relationship with Peter Gabriel. When director Cameron Crowe wanted to use a song from the album So in his movie Say Anything, Rosanna apparently persuaded Gabriel to let him have it. (Apparently Gabriel asked to see a rough cut of the movie first and was willing to let them use his song, although he didn't like the downbeat ending... but the production company had sent him the wrong film anyway.) All this led to a particularly iconic (and much parodied) scene featuring John Cusack and Ione Skye...

In your eyes

The light, the heat (in your eyes)

I am complete (in your eyes)

I see the doorway (in your eyes)

To a thousand churches (in your eyes)

The resolution (in your eyes)

Of all the fruitless searches (in your eyes)

The cognoscenti are convinced Gabriel wrote this song about Rosanna Arquette, although Pete has refused to Say Anything. Rosanna married film composer James Newton Howard the following year, So... 

Not wanting to end on such a downbeat note, I found one more song that mentions Rosanna Arquette, by the French answer to Neil Hannon, Vincent Delerm. This is from his 2004 album, Kensington Square, although the title rather dates it. "Les filles de 1973 ont trente ans" translates as "The girls of 1973 are thirty years old". Well, next year, they'll be 50, Vincent. Will they still be wearing their bandanas and Rosanna Arquette Reeboks then? Let's hope so...