In her latest starring role--in Cinerama's just-released film How to Seduce a Woman--actress Alexandra Hay plays the sexy proprietor of an art gallery, a part that she explains was a natural for her. "I've always been a great art lover," she says, "although my tastes in art might well be considered conservative. My favorites are Monet and Dürer and I hate cubism and surrealism." The cultivated Miss Hay's tastes extend to other areas as well--notably, classical music (she plays piano) and opera. "I'm quite an opera singer myself," she claims facetiously. "I can sing the arias from La Bohème and Carmen--quite rottenly, in fact."
Alexandra's first feature-length film was Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, in which she played a carhop. Even though it was her first real acting experience and her role was a minor one, she managed to impress the likes of Katharine Hepburn and the late Spencer Tracy. "It was marvelous working with Tracy and Hepburn," she recalls. "I think that was the happiest movie I've ever done." The movies have been good to her, yet deep down, Alexandra misses the glamor of the old Hollywood. In a bit of pictorial wish fulfillment, photographer Mario Casilli has captured the rising star as she might have looked during Hollywood's golden age.
After Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, Alexandra's career accelerated; she's had starring roles in several films, including The Love Machine and How Come Nobody's on Our Side, to be released soon. But her Big Film, she feels, is yet to come. "I'd really love to do a period movie," she muses. "Perhaps a tragic role with lots of period costumes, a film steeped in elegance and grace." Although certain Hollywood prophets have likened her rise to the early careers of Monroe and Harlow, Alexandra prefers to think of herself as the Bette Davis type. "I'm more of a serious actress than a sex symbol," Miss Hay insists. Well, then, she must be a very serious actress.
