Press Articles The Press Loves Ellie Weingardt!

She looks like a Hollywood glamour queen in her black one-piece bathing suit, shimmering gold cover-up and spiked gold heels. That's the way Ellie Weingardt greets you in her Highland Park home. We glide into the very pink tinted sun room, complete with ceiling fan. We gaze out at the pool, and then she gracefully serves up quiche.

"Perhaps we can sit in the hot tub later", she says. But now we have more pressing concerns. Let the gossip begin. We start with Ellie's close personal friend Madonna. "We laughed when her bra was stolen from Frederick's of Hollywood. Madonna told me, 'I don't know why anyone would want that smelly old thing!' " We toss back our heads in unison and laugh. OK, time to 'fess up. This is an act. Weingardt is playing a part. We asked and she delivered. Confession No. 2: Ellie only knows the Material Girl because of some material they have in a common - they starred in this summer's hit, "A League of Their Own."

Weingardt played the charm school teacher, the woman who tells the female baseball players to sit up straight, sip their tea and keep their legs crossed. "I say, 'Ladies, legs together always,' and then look at Madonna. Everyone on the set cracked up. Memorable character parts. Actresses kill for those. Weingardt got a little predatory herself, going after the role with the subtlety of a lion stalking a pound of ground round. "They were having auditions in Chicago and the role was described as matronly," says Weingardt, who is anything but. "Anyway, I showed up at the auditions in a black '40s dress, slingback heels, seamed hose, my hair rolled up. And I also did Joan Crawford lips and pencil-thin brows."

Did the other women auditioning hate her? "I don't know," she says, mulling it over. "Every head did turn." Including that of "League" director Penny Marshall, who told Weingardt that she "gave great face." A few weeks later Weingardt got the proverbial call; Hollywood wanted her. Weingardt, in her 40s, is not some Goodman grad with decades of experience. Ellie Bass grew up in Chicago. Where her father owned a haberdashery. At Lindblom High School she was the class soloist and acted in school plays. "I even wrote crazy poems,' she says as we dangle our toes in the Jacuzzi.

"Want to hear a poem?" Sure. "This is called 'Lune Man and the Planet of Max.' Here we go: 'Slip me some skin said my frantic friend. Man, this planet is the end.' You must remember that this was the '60s," she says. "That poem made me very famous in school." A sign of things to come? Weingardt graduated and landed at CBS-TV, where she was a secretary who moonlighted by singing on "The Music Wagon" show. But that ended when she married Ron Weingardt, a manufacturer, and had five kids. They moved to Highland Park, and "I was getting a little bored. My kids were leaving the nest." Then fate stepped in. Weingardt was doing volunteer work when she called in for a radio trivia contest and won an all-expenses-paid trip to the Academy Awards. "I pulled up to the awards in my limo and someone said, 'Who are you?' I said, 'Nobody.' I walked up that red carpet and people were taking pictures of me. I said, 'This is it! I've got to do this!' It was the craziest thing." Even crazier was when Weingardt and her husband followed Jack Nicholson's limo to a party at Spago. "We put on our sunglasses and got right in," she marvels. "Warren Beatty ogled me. It was my claim to fame." There was no turning back.

Weingardt took acting lessons with a neighbor, which led to voice-over work, commercials and various plays, including "Shear Madness." She landed in Hollywood again after winning a Joan Rivers look-alike contest. Yes, Ellie does knock-'em-dead impressions. "I toured Hollywood with two busloads of Joan look-alikes. It was weird. When we went to the bathroom, I discovered most of the Joans were men in drag." Filming a major motion picture like "League" was anything but a drag. We traipse back to the sun room, sip grapefruit juice and look at the snapshots. "Oh, here's actress Ann Ramsey. I adore her! Here's Tom Hanks. He's so funny! Here's Ann Cusack. Annie. I love this girl." A minute passes. "Want to see the script?" Weingardt inquires.

"Come with me." We wander upstairs. "Let's go into my bathroom," says the star. "It's my favorite." This, however, is not a bathroom - it's more like fantasy island. There's a sunken tub, television, VCR and coffee maker in addition to the usual bathroom amenities. You half expect Robin Leach to be hiding near the sink. "I watch movies in the tub," she says as we read the script. While she waits for Hollywood to come calling again, she'll be content to watch "League" in her tub when it comes out on video. And what did she think when she first saw herself on the big screen I thought, 'Oh, I look so thin!' "