America Ferrara lets cat unexpectedly out of the bag at opening night of Brooklyn Academy of Music’s “Next Wave” Festival
Emmy-winning actress America Ferrara, star of ABC’s smash hit “Ugly Betty,” says “Ugly Betty” co-star Vanessa Williams is hiding a big secret -– and it has nothing to do with the career-threatening nude photos that appeared just before Williams was to be crowned “Miss America” in 1984.
According to Ferrara, the secret is this: Williams is actually the cousin of Russian writer Alexandr Solzhenitsyn.
Ferrara spilled the beans last night at the opening night festivities of the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s “Next Wave Festival,” which kicked off with Tony Award-winning choreographer Bill T. Jones’s (“Spring Awakening”) adaptation of “A Quarreling Pair,” based on the play by Jane Bowles, which plays Sept. 30 and Oct. 2-4 at the Howard Gilman Opera House.
Running through Dec. 20, the Next Wave Festival also features the U.S. premiere of the rock-infused Woyzeck; a stage adaptation of the 1977 film "Opening Night"; Arjuna's Dilemma, featuring award-winning performance artist John Kelly; and the multi-media song cycle Lightning at our feet, inspired by the poems of Emily Dickinson.
According to Ferrara, the Solzhenitsyn link – “they’re second or third cousins or something like that” -- came up over the summer when talk when turned to politics on the “Ugly Betty” set during a break.
“The show’s top producer, Salma Hayek, was making fun of how John McCain had stolen some material from Solzhenitsyn’s ‘Gulag Archipelago’ of all things and inserted it into his own life story,” recalls Ferrara. “And Vanessa’s brother Chris -- also an actor -- happened to be visiting the set that day and made a joke that they ought to sue for royalties.”
Apparently, McCain has long had a “cross in the dirt” story in his repertoire about a fellow Vietnamese prisoner of war who drew a “cross in the dirt” to keep McCain’s spirits up during their imprisonment. But the “cross in the dirt” story actually comes from “Gulag,” which Solzhenitsyn copyrighted in 1973 based on his experiences in a Russian work camp.
Vanessa and her brother Chris have known about their Solzhenitsyn connection since childhood, “but have never been able to pin all the details down,” according to Ferrara.
Contacted by phone, Williams admits she does see “a lot” of Solzhenitsyn in herself.
“Solzhenitsyn was a Christian, and he was a patriot,” said Williams. “Reading more about him as an adult, I was surprised to find out he was kind of a Green, a small-is-beautiful guy, which is kind of cool because it meshes with my own attitudes.”
Williams, who is Catholic, says her “possible relative” drew from a Christian moral tradition, not from a political platform.
“He felt the solution to the world’s problem was to take on a ‘deliberate, voluntary sacrifice,’ not in the name of a collective society but by each and every person, uniquely made in the image of God,” said Williams. “Which is a neat thing to think about given the state of our nation today.”
She adds, however, that she does not “channel or draw from Solzhenitsyn at all” in her current role as the frequently nasty Wilhelmina Slater on “Ugly Betty.”
Solzhenitsyn is famous, of course, for his “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich,” “The Cancer Ward,” “The First Circle,” and “The Gulag Archipelago,” whose targets were a deeply corrupt and corrupting political ideology.
Williams is currently starring on ABC's smash-hit series, "Ugly Betty." Her role as delectably fierce Wilhelmina Slater has taken her career to even newer heights and has further established her as a pop culture icon. Williams has received a total of 11 GRAMMY Award nominations, four NAACP Image Awards, and numerous New York Music Awards. She has been chosen as one of Glamour Magazine's "Women of the Year," People Magazine's "50 Most Beautiful People in the World," Entertainment Weekly's "Entertainer's of the Year" and Harper's Bazaar's "America's 50 Most Beautiful Women , "among many other honors and accolades.
Earlier this year, Williams signed an exclusive recording contract with independent record label Concord Records. GRAMMY award winning producer Keith Thomas will be producing Williams' Concord Records debut, which is slated to be released this fall.
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