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Date: Thursday, July 8, 1999
Source: Jean Patteson of the Sentinel Staff
Section: LIVING
Column: Personal style
Copyright THE ORLANDO SENTINEL

FASHION STATEMENT: HANDKERCHIEF TOPS
A QUICK LOOK AT THE LATEST TRENDS

WHAT'S NEW: Shoulder-baring tops that look like little more than large handkerchiefs, folded over diagonally, wrapped around the chest and tied in the back.

WHAT'S NOT: Sleeveless mock turtlenecks.

WHAT'S NEXT: Blanket skirts. They employ the same wrap-and-tie technique as handkerchief tops, but they're longer and warmer - and so more suitable for the fall and winter months.

WHAT'S WHAT: The beach crowd has been wrapping and tying pareos over their bikinis in this fashion for decades. And the handkerchief top - made from a square of batik fabric - was a favorite with the Haight-Ashbury crowd in the '60s. But the new incarnation - inspired by a collection that Armani designed to go with his long, hand-beaded skirts - is far dressier.
Hollywood's hip young things - Drew Barrymore, Keri Russell, Melissa Joan Hart, et al - have been snapped by the paparazzi wearing the triangular tops with their shiny hip-huggers and high-slit column skirts to award shows.
Designers are fashioning the tops out of a variety of novelty fabrics, such as antique silk scarves. These are then teamed with everything from taffeta ball gowns to khaki capri pants.

Date: Thursday, July 15, 1999
Source: By Jean Patteson of The Sentinel Staff
Section: LIVING
Copyright THE ORLANDO SENTINEL

SNAP TO IT
GLITTERY HAIR ORNAMENTS CATCH HOLLYWOOD'S EYE

Those sparkly barrettes, headbands and hair snaps that Sabrina, the Teenage Witch star Melissa Joan Hart wears on almost every show were made by Orlando radio personality Andrea Lively of the recently defunct 105.9 FM (WOCL).

In fact, the station's switch from '60s to '70s music in April, and the concurrent laying-off of the old Cool 105 team, is what prompted Lively to seriously consider becoming a hair-accessories designer.

``Suddenly I found myself with no job, no income,'' said Lively, 36.

``I'd been making barrettes and headbands, sitting on my patio in the afternoons when I came home from the radio station. I had a few on consignment at Victorian Joy and Tuni's on Park Avenue [in Winter Park). And my friend Colleen LaBaff, who does hair for Sabrina, had asked me to make some for the show. But that was just for fun.

``Not anymore. Now I'm crunching the numbers and trying to figure out if I can make this a business, a living.''

She thinks she can. After all, her designs were a big hit with the actresses on the various shows where LaBaff was the hairstylist and used Lively's barrettes and headbands. In addition to Sabrina, these shows include Everybody Loves Raymond; Oh, Baby!; and the short-lived Florida farce Maximum Bob.

Increasingly, what Hollywood actresses wear one season, women all across America want to wear the next - especially when it's an eye-catching but affordable item like a rhinestone-studded barrette that sells for under $20.

So Lively is laying in a stock of Swarovski crystals in 14 different colors, along with tubes of industrial-strength glue and the bases for her various creations.

The newest of these are hair snaps - ordinary metal clothing snaps to which she glues flowerlike arrangements of crystals. The ornaments are snapped into the hair - singly, in clusters or rows. They remain securely in place until they are slid out or unsnapped.

``Colleen gave me the idea. She said they're the latest craze in L.A. She asked if I could make some for the Sabrina Down Under movie, which they've been filming in Australia,'' Lively said.

``I experimented a little and came up with the flower snaps. Colleen loved them.''

LaBaff was so taken with the snaps, in fact, that she sprinkled them all over Hart's hair for the opening shot in Sabrina Down Under. It shows the star stepping out of a helicopter, the brilliant Australian sun causing the snaps to shine like a halo in her blonde hair. (The film is scheduled to debut as an ABC Movie of the Week during the upcoming holiday season.)

Determined to be at the head of the hair-snaps trend, Lively is spending long hours every day at her workbench, an antique drafting table that she bought for $15 at an estate sale and refinished. She is an avid collector, and her Orlando duplex is stuffed with an ever-expanding collection of auction-mart finds.

At present, Lively's hair snaps are available at Tuni's, Victorian Joy and Cruz & Crew, an Orlando hairstyling salon. They are sold in sets of three for about $18. They also can be mail-ordered by contacting Lively by e-mail at lively clip@aol.com

After August, however, Lively hopes her snaps will be in dozens of hair salons all across the country. That's because she plans to show her designs at the Premiere Beauty Show, a huge trade show for salon operators, to be held at the Orange County Convention Center at the end of August.

She also is working with the new Cosmo Girl magazine, which debuted in late June with Melissa Joan Hart on the cover, to feature the hair snaps in an accessories layout.

``I've always had these creative ideas,'' Lively said. ``Necessity is making me follow up on this one.''

Date: Tuesday, May 4, 1999
Source: By David Kronke, New York Times
Section: LIVING
Copyright THE ORLANDO SENTINEL

`SABRINA' HAS HART IN HIGH SPIRITS MELISSA JOAN HART'S GOOD-WITCH ROLE SERVES AS AN UPBEAT ANCHOR FOR ABC'S FAMILY NIGHT ON FRIDAY.

Forget about black cats, bats and bubbling cauldrons.

Sabrina, The Teen-age Witch is the sunniest show about the black arts ever, thanks to Melissa Joan Hart, the high-spirited young actress who provides a dependably upbeat tone to the show's supernatural goings-on.

Whether floundering with a boyfriend or conspiring with the animatronic feline, Salem - Hart swears it's ``a drunken rabbit with a hairpiece'' - she serves as the popular anchor to ABC's Friday family programming.

Recently we sat down with Hart - as well as Beth Broderick and Caroline Rhea, who play her aunts Hilda and Zelda - for some Mexican food on the show's school-cafeteria set, along with a chat about almost anything concerning the show, from learning lines to facing fans.

Hart's first starring experience was with the cable series Clarissa Explains It All, which is still airing in reruns.

In retrospect, she says, it's remarkable that she made it through alive.

``Those were my high-school days,'' the actress says. ``I was kind of young to have that much responsibility. I wouldn't recommend it to any teenagers.

``People come down on people my age for playing teenagers,'' the 22-year-old actress adds, ``but I think it's so much better to have older people playing teenagers than to have teenagers playing teenagers and missing out on things like high school.''

Rhea laughs.

``When I saw Clarissa last summer,'' she says, ``I couldn't believe what a baby she was. My nephew, who is 4, loves Melissa, whom he calls `Bobrina.' He also loves `Larissa,' but refuses to accept that it's the same person.''

Her eccentric role doesn't win her that kind of passionate devotion, Rhea adds.

``I was going through customs in Canada at Christmas, and I had tons of presents,'' she recalls.

``I walked to customs, and the guy goes, `Don't worry, I recognize you, you're that girl from TV.' And I go, `Oh, well, thanks.'

``And he says, ``You're on Third Rock from the Sun''

All three women laugh.

``I go, ``OK,''' Rhea says. ``Alien, witch - close enough. I'm not paying duty, that's the bottom line!''

It tortures Rhea and Broderick that Hart is growing up. ``We all want to give her advice and she doesn't want to take it. Completely, exactly like the show,'' says Broderick.

``I take it a lot, though,'' Hart says defensively. ``I ask for it a lot.... I'll ask mainly about boys. Boys, career, anything.''

Rhea and Broderick are united in their praise for Hart's talent.

``She has the most unbelievable, uncanny ability to memorize dialogue,'' Rhea says, ``like no one I've ever seen.''

``Really?'' Hart says, clearly pleased. ``A lot of it comes from Clarissa, which I did for four years. There was tons of dialogue in that. I had monologues, two-page monologues, three times a show. So it's easier for me to memorize scene by scene here, because I have a few lines per scene.''

Hart says she thinks of Rhea and Broderick as sisters: ``They have taught me so much. Beth is very into old-school training techniques, so she keeps me professional, she keeps me in check.

All three get bags and bags of fan mail, they report. Surprisingly, however - given the show's genesis in a children's comic book - they rarely hear from young people.

``Mine is all from adults,'' Broderick says. ``Mostly men.''

``Mine is virtually 90 percent from men,'' Rhea agrees.

``Apparently, only three little girls watch this show.''

``I do get a couple of girls,'' Broderick says, ``and I try to answer them when I get them. I get girls that say, `Aunt Zelda, you're the only one who'll understand - my mom works all the time and I have this problem and I think you can understand me.''

``When I get those, I do write back.''

Of all their viewers, the three women agree that it's the children, and especially little girls, that they're the happiest to reach.

``I get little girls, little boys, college kids,'' Hart says.

``The show is meaningful to kids, and I think it does have a great message,'' Broderick says.

``I mean, I wish when I was a kid that I'd been watching a show where women were so clever and so forthright and powerful. I love the way Sabrina deals with boys, I love the equality in her relationships.''

These are all thanks to Donald Ferry

From Hollywood Reporter:

TV REVIEWS (Hollywood Reporter - 487 words - Thurs., Sept. 2, 1999)

SABRINA, THE ANIMATED SERIES

(UPN) 7:30 a.m. Monday

Sabrina is here, there, everywhere -- and it probably has less to do with her powers of witchery than network decisions to cash in on the popularity of the ABC primetime series with Melissa Joan Hart. Now there's a new Sabrina for the kids, Disney's "Sabrina, the Animated Series." Although it's a family affair, the apple sometimes does fall far from the tree. The latest witch formation is pretty ordinary stuff.

The new "Sabrina" showcases Hart's younger sister, 13-year-old Emily Hart, who voices the part-witch, part-human Sabrina (Melissa lends a hand, voicing both of the animated Sabrina's aunts, Hilda and Zelda).

While the younger Hart is a lively presence, judging from the several episodes viewed, her character and friends live in a world void of charm. Sabrina and company are flippant and competitive (though in one episode, Sabrina helps a friend whose dance steps prove deadly to all those around him).

The once-clever witch is now an earthbound animated creature, living in a television world where action over thought equals kids' entertainment.

The series is co-produced by DIC Entertainment and Hartbreak Films. Producers are Dianne Dixon, Steve Granat & Cynde Clark and Kevin Murphy. Directors are Peter Ferk and Karen Hyden.

"Sabrina" airs weekday mornings at 7:30 a.m. and Sundays at 10 a.m. as part of UPN's "Disney's One Too" and Saturdays at 9:30 a.m. on ABC as part of its Disney's "One Saturday Morning."

China Jesusita Shavers will join ABC's "Sabrina, the Teenage Witch," which begins its fourth season this fall. She'll play a witch named Dreama who befriends Sabrina (Melissa Joan Hart) and tries to persuade everyone to practice magic.

Shavers' recent credits include guest-starring roles on "Felicity," "Beverly Hills 90210" and "Any Day Now." She's repped by Leslie Allan-Rice Management and Abrams' Wendi Green.

Michelle Trachtenberg has been cast in CBS telefilm "Cowboy Dad" opposite Peter Strauss and Mary McDonald. She'll play Kelly, an L.A. girl with an upscale lifestyle whose life is turned upside down when her mother and soon-to-be stepfather are killed and she is sent to live with her father (Strauss) in the country.

Trachtenberg is best-known for her starring role in Nickelodeon's "Harriet the Spy" and stars in Disney's "Inspector Gadget" opposite Matthew Broderick. Her TV credits include a role as autistic Lily Montgomery on ABC's "All My Children."

Trachtenberg is repped by Mark Schumacher of the Gersh Agency.

From here:

Thursday, August 19, 1999
The new, animated Sabrina is out to bewitch young viewers

By Billie Rae Bates / The Detroit News

Emily Hart actually began researching her role in Sabrina, the Animated Series years ago, when older sister Melissa Joan Hart first got her own role in ABC's live-action Sabrina series.

It was then that their mom started buying the popular Archie comics featuring the teenage witch (who first cast her spell on us, incidentally, in the October 1962 issue of Archie's Madhouse). Emily started reading the comics, and she went on to do some guest shots on big sis' show.

"I've got shelves of them in my room," Emily says of the Sabrina title.. "I'm a big reader."

Now, her reading pays off big-time, because she's got her own gig: She voices Sabrina as a preteen witch on the animated series, debuting Sept. 6 as part of Disney's new One Too programing block. The series comes from DiC Entertainment, which also produced a series on preteen Archies in the late '80s.

The show, airing Sunday through Friday on UPN and in syndication, then on ABC Saturday as part of Disney's One Saturday Morning, casts Emily as the wily witch before she gets her full witching powers, at age 12. It's a new twist on the comic book and the show, which focus on Sabrina as a high-schooler.

"She gets to experiment more with her magic, now that she's younger, and she's got a different attitude," says Emily, who's 13. "She's more adventurous. ... In the live-action show, she's more conservative."

Oh boy -- look out, mortals.

Savage Steve Holland, executive producer for the show along with the Harts' mom, Paula Hart, is happy to oblige: Hilda and Zelda are being punished by the witches council, sentenced to hard time as teens before they can go back to being ugly and ancient (they don't really like being young and cute, you know).

"They're older and sisterly," Holland says. "The kids just love that idea, of having these hip sisters."

He says the show tested very highly for Disney among young viewers.

Melissa Joan Hart voices the aunts, and Nick Bakay reprises his role in the live-action series as Salem, that darn talking cat  "Kids love Salem, so I said if we're going to animate Salem, we're going to have him do the wildest things imaginable," Holland says. "He goes everywhere and does everything." And in live action, such an amazing, oh-so verbal feline is rather ... restricted.

New for the cartoon are Uncle Quigley, the obligatory adult to keep all those witches in line, and Gemini, the perhaps-just-as-obligatory preteen snot who gives Sabrina grief.

Uncle Quigley is the uncle of Sabrina's mortal mom (an archeologist traveling the world), Holland explains. "Uncle Quigley was left to take care of them and make sure they don't use magic. He's a retired scientist and genius who's reduced now to wearing an apron, and being humiliated by girls," he jokes.

The series also introduces the concept of the Spookie Jar, which sits  Though the series targets youngsters, Holland expects to reel in some teens, too, just as with the popular live-action series. "The way that the Friday-night show doesn't condescend to kids, we're going that route, too," he says. "There are a lot of adult references."

Holland is a veteran of television for kids, working on PBS' Sesame Street, as well as crafting Fox Kids' Eek the Cat and The Terrible Thunder Lizards shows, and HBO's Encyclopedia Brown.

Meanwhile, Emily Hart has collected her own TV credits, such as a recurring role in CBS' daytime drama Guiding Light, and she played the young Tommy in the Broadway musical, The Who's Tommy. But she prefers animation work to live-action, actually.

"I like that you don't have to go through all the preparations," she says, noting the time-consuming processes of hair and makeup and the like. "You don't have to be all worrying about where the camera is, whether you hit the mark or not. ... You don't have to worry about memorizing your lines."

The actress, born in Long Island, says she hopes the voicework doesn't end with this Sabrina series.

"I'm very much enjoying this. I'd like to do another, if possible. I don't in particular like going in front of the camera." She says she doesn't think she's that good

Her ultimate job, though, would be a marine biologist. Summers spent with her father in Long Island, admiring and studying sea creatures like lobsters and eel, cultivated that interest.

"Ever since I can remember, it's been something I've really liked to do," she says. "I've always enjoyed being near the water."

From here:

MELISSA JOAN HART: MOVIES & MORE.

Look for Melissa to expand beyond her witchy role in the upcoming movies, "The Specials" and "Next to You." Ever the busy one, she's also starring in "Jacob's Hands," a TV movie about a healer who is able to cure people's physical ailments. And she will also lend her voice to "Sabrina: The Animated Series," but not as Sabrina. Her sister, Emily, will be the voice of the title character, while Melissa will portray Hilda/Zelda.

In other Hart news, Melissa's sisters, the aforementioned EMILY HART and ALEXANDRA HART-GILLIAMS, will star in their own "Sabrina" spin-off, entitled "Spells Trouble." "Spells Trouble" will premiere next fall, and was created by the same mastermind behind "Sabrina." It's no coincidence that mastermind also happens to be the mom of all three girls, PAULA HART

From here:

-- NBC's "Freaks and Geeks." One of the few teen shows whose stars mostly look like teen-agers, "Freaks and Geeks" is set in 1980. John Daley was still 13 when he was cast as Sam Weir, a 103-pound high school freshman whose older sister, Lindsay (Linda Cardellini), sometimes has to scare away bullies for him. Lindsay, a smart girl who's not sure what she wants, is trying to cross the line between the geeks and the freaks and doesn't really fit in with either. Worth noting: A much older-looking Cardellini recently played the '30s-era ingenue-turned-diva in AMC's "The Lot." Extra credit: Creator Paul Feig, a comic and actor, used to play a high school teacher on "Sabrina the Teenage Witch." 8 p.m. Saturdays, starting Sept.