People‘s Julie Jordan and Karen Snyder had obviously heard that relations between the engaged Robert Rodriguez and Rose McGowan weren’t all that smooth, which is why they called around before the July 4th holiday. “Sources” told them the director and actress are still together, and McGowan’s rep said her client will star in three of her fiance’s upcoming projects — Barbarella, Red Sonja and Woman in Chains! — “despite reports to the contrary.”

It is written on stone tablets that a lovestruck director will hold on to his actress girlfriend/wife as long as he “does” for her. If the projects they team on don’t happen or don’t make money, sooner or later she’ll push on to the next guy. It’s that simple. Fiercely ambitious, marginally talented actresses are not human, of course, and I’m not the only one to have detected the whiff of an idea over the years that McGowan is a bit of a Jezebel. So it’s really just a matter of fate and time. Life is hard then you die.
That said, the project I’d most like to see is the chicks-behind-bars movie. As long as there’s a little lezbo action and as long as McGowan and a couple of fellow prisoners escape at the end of Act Two. Barbarella could be cool, but some studio suits reportedly don’t believe that McGowan is enough of a star to justify a big special-effects budget. Red Sonja didn’t work the first time around so why go there?