A Mighty Fortress
Page 53
Ms. Shipman, who is married to General Nigel Moore of Special Service or SS, herself served in the Northwest insurgent forces during The Trouble, as an eighteen year-old nurse. She is modestly dismissive of that time in her life.
“I wasn’t actually ever in the NVA,” she said. “I think I joined something like two or three days after it officially became the Northwest Defense Force, so I was never a domestic terrorist, if you insist on the term. No fifty thousand dollar bounty on my head. It was while the Longview Conference was going on. I was a member of the official army of a government, even if it wasn’t formally recognized yet. I helped save a lot of wounded people’s lives, soldiers from both sides and civilians, and I will always be proud of that. Mostly I just remember that was a cold, wet winter and I had to sleep in a tent in a clammy sleeping bag a lot of the time, when I wasn’t on night shift or in the OR. I was issued a pistol at some point, in case our field hospital was attacked, but I don’t remember ever firing it. I think I still have it in a trunk up in my attic somewhere. It’s probably rusted solid.”
Shipman has admitted that her character of Emmeline Parsons, the role which is expected to win her an Oscar tonight, is based on a genuine woman who was a rebel agent and assassin, whom she actually met when both were in high school in Seattle.
“By sheer coincidence I was in the same school with the real Nightshade. None of us had any idea that she was a Volunteer, until the last few months of the war,” said Shipman. “That was what made her such a great spy. She was just this quiet unobtrusive little girl off in a corner that no one would have suspected of being involved in anything. Of course, she was a lot younger than Emmeline in the movie. An amazing number of Volunteers were very young. I certainly can’t credibly play a teenager again, so my movie Nightshade had to age some, up into her late twenties. Late twenties, I can still manage, thanks to a lot of time on the treadmill and a really great makeup crew. When we were doing the film I tracked the real girl down, and got together with her. We lived over old times at Hillside High, and she and her husband gave me a lot of really great tips and advice on the role. But she wouldn’t even let me give her a mention in the end credits of the movie. She’s married with children of her own in high school now, and she didn’t want her kids to have to deal with their mom being known as the real Deadly Nightshade.”
Chicago police are on high security alert to deal with a number of planned demonstrations against the Oscar Ceremonies, to be held in the Daley Plaza Civic Center beginning at 8 P.M. Central Time tonight. Rachel Cohen, spokesperson for the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai Brith and Barry Glickstein of the Coalition for Anti-Fascist Action issued a press release… [snip]
Table of Contents
A Mighty Fortress
© 2005 H. A. Covington. All Rights Reserved.
Contents
Glossary of Northwest Acronyms and Terms
A Mighty Fortress
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