Country star Travis Tritt, whose acting career has been gathering momentum, has alerted his management that, from now on, “I will play anything except a country singer. I want to stretch. And besides, I’m not happy with the way Hollywood portrays country people.”
Tritt complains, “On Hollywood movies, you say ‘country singer,’ and the first thing they want to do is to pull out the sequin-studded jackets, the hay bales, the long dresses. That’s not what country is these days.”
Travis says he gave that message to producers of Ann-Margret’s Nov. 28 Sing Me the Blues, Lena NBC telepic in which he does a cameo as himself. “They had Ann-Margret in a dress that looked like something Norma Jean would have worn in 1965,” he says, referring to the singer who preceded Dolly Parton on The Porter Wagoner Show way back when. “I said, ‘Hey, look. Women in country these days wear more Spandex than anything else.”‘
Tritt just finished playing a morgue security guard for an upcoming Tales From the Crypt. He says there was nary a rhinestone in sight.
— Australian megaband INXS is back in the spotlight thanks to its new greatest hits album, but don’t expect that situation to last for long.
Front man Michael Hutchence says the band will likely “back off for a while” once it’s finished promoting the new disc. Then the members will settle in to work on INXS’s first album under a new deal with Mercury/Polygram.
“We probably won’t get a new record out until mid-’95,” Hutchence says. And when they do get back to work, “I’d like to throw caution to the wind and make us almost unrecognizable. We’re starting a new chapter.”
Meanwhile, Hutchence is in the market for a film role to fill his time. “I just missed out on being one of the leads in Priscilla: Queen of the Desert, and it really annoyed me,” he says. He adds, “It’s hard to schedule movies in between doing records and touring. I don’t think rock ‘n’ roll and film make very good bed partners.”
