What excites Jennifer Lopez since she was a child? It is song and dance. She dreams of being a star, but will have to be patient with getting close to the stars.
Teenager, Jennifer Lopez must first be content with small appearances here and there… At 17, she made a very timid debut in the film My Little Girl, starring James Earl Jones, Geraldine Page and Mary Stuart Masterson. Well, she only does figuration and even image by image, it is difficult, if not impossible, to locate it… But that’s it!
In the early 90s, she made herself a little more visible when she danced for Samantha Fox (in the clip (Hurt Me! Hurt Me!) But the Pants Stay On), Janet Jackson (in the clip That’s the Way Love Goes), where the New Kids on the Block… The top of the top for her at the time was when she joined the sketch show In Living Color. As a dancer in the “Fly Girls” troupe.
Jennifer Lopez: 1993, the year everything changed
The turning point for Jenny from the Block? It was in 1993 that he performed. That’s it, she is (finally) the actress! On November 23, American viewers discovered her as a nurse in a disaster tv movie from CBS, Nurses on the Line: The Crash of Flight 7 (which can be seen in full at Youtube). She gives the answer to the iconic Lindsay “Super Jaimie” Wagner.
Ten days later, we find her on the same channel in the credits of a brand new series, Second Chances. Renamed Mysteries in Santa Rita in VF. Her partners are Connie Sellecca (a star of the small screen!) and Megan Follows. A success, a triumph? Nay!
Jennifer Lopez, flop story
In this soap which wants to be in the vein of Melrose Place – in “everyone has something to hide” mode -, the production plays bad luck. Already, Connie Sellecca and Megan Follows are both pregnant at the same time. Well, that’s manageable. What is less is that on January 17, 1994, an earthquake damaged the sets of the series! Between repairing or rebuilding, CBS does not choose: we cancel everything.
The last episode (the 10th) of the series is broadcast on February 10, 1994, but twist, part of the distribution – among which we find Jennifer! – is transferred to a spin off, Hotel Malibu. It takes place in the summer schedule and in the meantime, JLo plays in 4 episodes of another series, South-Centralquickly canceled too…
And there are no more miracles for Hotel Malibu whose audiences do not take off. The network stops the charges after 6 episodes*. A big disappointment for Jennifer Lopez who, fortunately for her, will not be long in bouncing back to the cinema (Money Train, Anaconda…), on TV (the TV movie Selena)in music…
*The two series were broadcast in 1995 on Série Club then on M6 (under another title: Cadillac Blues).
We want to give thanks to the writer of this post for this remarkable material
Jennifer Lopez’s forgotten debut in a series that could have become cult (but had bad luck) – Grazia