XENITE CON will be held in Paris, France 27/28 October 2012. Thus far, two guests, Ted Raimi and Hudson Leick, have been confirmed. The convention will be located "steps from the Eiffel Tower". A 2-day pass is €169.
Plans are afoot for a 20th Anniversary Xena Convention in Auckland, New Zealand, 6-8 February 2015. It is being planned by Film-Events.com, and at this early date no details are available.
XENA RADIO is now online. The content is a mix of contemporary hits, bits of the soundtrack, original promos, and clips from the show. The DJ is Archangel Ron, "broadcasting Xenite favorites and Xena soundtrack music from the Olympian Studios in sunny Amphipolis!"
Great photo of Renée O'Connor by T.J. Scott (Victoria Pratt's husband) which will be included in his coffee table book to benefit breast cancer research.
O'Connor donated a Kindle Fire containing her 11 favourite books to the 2012 AUSXIP charity auction (which has now ended). It was won by someone named Rosa, and she has revealed the list of books:
For Women's History Month this year, sciencefiction.com published a list of the TOP 10 FEMALE FANTASY CHARACTERS. Gabrielle was #8. Xena was #1.
Exquisite Films and writer/director Jordan Septo have found their Xena and Gabrielle for their upcoming porn flick XENA: Warrior Princess XXX: An Exquisite Films Parody. Phoenix Marie will be Xena, and Gabrielle will be played by Lexi Belle. Other Xena characters depicted will be Autolycus, Cupid, Ares, Aphrodite, Draco, and Alti.
NETFLIX CANADA
now has all six seasons of XENA.
Grit Wheatley is an artist who divides her time between Birmingham Alabama and Nordhausen, Germany. Clearly a Xena fan, she has done paintings of Gabrielle, Xena, Renée O'Connor, and Lucy Lawless. Her paintings can be seen in the restaurant "Alt Ellrich" in Ellrich, Germany or on her YouTube Channel.
The first of May is the birthday of Belinda Bentley. She was one of the townspeople in the first Xena episode and it seems possible that she is related to Anton Bentley who was Perdicas in that episode. She is now known as a "Celebrity Psychic" who offers readings for $70/half hour. (I suggest that you read the disclaimer on her site before purchasing any of her services.)
LUST by Teensy Weensy Women's Fetish Lingerie has named one of their creatiions Xena. The black version is marked down to $25, but the pink is still $76. (Did Xena ever wear anything pink?)
For numerology buffs, there is a website, Celebrities Galore, that will let you know your level of compatability with Renée O'Connor based solely on your name, sex, and date of birth. I am not sure what one's sex has to do with numerology, but there it is. Numerology is a pseudo-science that deals with the occult significance of numbers.
On the AfterEllen.com Hot 100 List for 2011 Renée O'Connor is number 42.
TOTAL SCIFI ONLINE has published a list of the 100 Best Science Fiction and Fantasy TV shows. The list is worth a look, as it includes such worthy entries as SAPPHIRE AND STEEL, and WORLD ON A WIRE (Weldt am Draht). Xena is #35.
In the archives, ROC VIDEO CHANNEL has a two-part interview with Canadian actor Tara Samuel. Samuel has an unspecified part in THE YELLOW WALLPAPER, which was released in January 2011, a film starring Juliet Landau based on Charlotte Perkins Gillman's short story of the same name. Veronica Cartwright, who was Vera Errickson in FALSE IDENTITY with Renée O'Connor, will play Catherine Sayer in the film. The Yellow Wallpaper has had two other film incarnations: the 1977 film starring Sigrid Wurschmidt and Tom Dahlgren, and a 1989 TV movie with Stephen Dillane and Julia Watson.
Renée O'Connor attended the 2010 Freedom Awards in Redondo Beach Performing Arts Center. Among others attending were Demi Moore, Ashton Kutcher, Camilla Belle, Jason Mraz, Free the Slaves co-founder Peggy Callahan, Forest Whitaker, and Free the Slaves President Kevin Bales. The winners were: JEEVIKA (an Indian group that helps slaves understand their rights), Robert Plant, and Anne Keehn.
Obscurus Lupa, whose reviews of the film ALIEN APOCALYPSE and the Xena episode MARRIED WITH FISHSTICKS are on this website, did her review of AMERICAN NINJA 5 sitting in front of a Gabrielle poster.
Renée O'Connor spoke at the LA/Orange County Chapter of Media Communications Association International in April 2011. Videos have been posted at gameiohfreak's YouTube Channel
O'Connor was on the cover of the March 2011 issue of LOTL Magazine.
ROC Pictures was, in 2008, considering doing a film based on the 1996 novel LEANING TOWARD INFINITY, by Sue Woolf. There has been no further word on this project. Woolf has written two other novels and teaches at the University of Sydney.
Renée O'Connor is now an Independent Consultant for ARBONNE. Arbonne's skin and body care products are PETA approved. Their nutritional supplements are vegan.
There is a twitter account @ROCPictures, that claims to be "really Renee' O'Connor. REALLY!". It is fake.
Several former Xena castmembers
were nominees at the
2011 Aotearoa Film and Television Awards
Christie Keith covered the convention for AfterEllen.com. Above are two of her photos.
Moira Sullivan posted the above photos and a few others with her article about the Convention for examiner.com. Paris Jefferson (Athena) was a surprise guest at the con, and joined Musetta Vander (Ilainous, who was Athena's lover) onstage. Hudson Leick's dress was auctioned for $1600 to a woman who will make it her wedding dress.
Creation Entertainment has decided that it will do a Xena Convention in 2013.
William Shatner filmed parts of the Xena Con for a webseries. According to Xena Online, on Friday he was wearing a Xena Movie Campaign bracelet.
Two 2012 Xena Calendars are now available from Creation Entertainment. They are THE JOURNEY CONTINUES PART 4, and FOR THE GREATER GOOD. Those purchasing both calendars will receive a hand-signed photo of a Xena star (unspecified).
Yet another 2012 Xena calendar is available from Calendars.com. It's cheaper than the ones from Creation at $14.
Renee O'Connor and children at the beach.
Lucy Lawless, who is now on Twitter, has a role in TOP OF THE LAKE, a 7-part BBC miniseries to be directed by Jane Campion, and starring Elisabeth Moss. It will eventually air on the Sundance Channel in the US. Shooting has begun in New Zealand, and the film is due out in 2013.
Lawless recently participated in the GREENPEACE occupation of a Shell oil rig, and continues to be active in opposing Arctic drilling. See the AUSXIP page for more details.
Michelle Ang (Akemi) will play Kimmie in 3 episodes. Ang also is Sofia in in the MTV series UNDEREMPLOYED that focuses on a group of friends coping with the realities of the current job market after graduation.
Madeleine Sami (Tyro in one episode of Xena) will reprise her role of Tania in SIONE'S 2:UNFINISHED BUSINESS, (sequel to SIONE'S WEDDING (2006). Trailer on YouTube. Also appearing in SIONE'S 2 is Chris Graham who was Toxeus in three Xena episodes beginning with episode #9, DEATH IN CHAINS.
THE SAMI SISTERS (Madeleine, Anji and Priya Sami) released their first album, HAPPY HEARTBREAK, last year.
Cherami Leigh, Renée O'Connor's daughter in the BEYOND THE FARTHEST STAR, was nominated for Best Supporting Actress in a Drama by the 2011 INDIE INTERTUBE AWARDS for her role in the webseries THROWING STONES.
Leigh also does some of the voices in the new video game THE GUNSTRINGER which is now on sale, and has two other films in the works. Due out later this year is THE HOME, a horror flick set in a nursing home with Michelle Rodriguez, Cloris Leachman, Ed Asner, Barry Corbin (also of BTFS), and others. Leigh is Nurse Patty. And she will voice the character Sandy in the Malaysian animated film RIBBIT, about a frog with an identity crisis, due out later in 2012.
@MusettaVander tweeted that
Uggie, the dog from the Oscar-nominated film THE ARTIST, got his start in WHAT'S UP SCARLET, a film that
starred Vander, Susan Priver, and Sally Kirkland. The film is available for streaming on Netflix.
And on 5 January:
On my way to San Diego. Start rehearsal for my next movie - Five hour friends - tomorrow...:)
There is a trailer on YouTube.
Vander was the only Xena castmember who appeared in both Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Star Trek (Voyager). Musetta Vander was Ilainus in "Amphipolis Under Siege" (Xena episode 104). She was also Derran Tal in "The Disease" (Voyager episode 110), and Natalie French in "Teacher's Pet" (Episode 4 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer).
Jennifer Sky (Amarice) posted a prose poem, GIRRL IN THE BALLET FLATS, online on 30 November. Sky is now editor-in-chief of the 12th Street Literary Journal. Her work is be included in LOVE MAGICK ANTHOLOGY. The book is available now on Amazon in a Kindle edition.
Sky is one of only two actors to have appeared in both Xena and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She was Heidi Barrie in Buffy Season One Episode Six and was possessed by hyenas.
"There are moments when you are acting when you have no separation from the character, and of course the goal is to have that all the time. I think it may be easier on some levels to do the theater because you can sustain this feeling longer without breaking in and out. I love these heightened moments in any capacity I can get them."
Australian actor Holly Brisley, who was Tonya Smith in THE FLOOD:WHO WILL SAVE OUR CHILDREN with O'Connor in 1993, voices the character Hettie in the video game EDGE OF TWILIGHT, which will finally be released for PC and Xbox 360 in March 2012.
Brisley starred as Tara in the SyFy movie SINBAD AND THE MINOTAUR which premiered last May. Her co-star, Manu Bennett, was Marc Antony in one episode of Xena (Caesar and Cleopatra).
Renée Kathleen Zellweger was born 25 April 1969 in Katy, Texas, the same town in which Renée O'Connor was born 661 days later. While Zellweger went to Katy High School, O'Connor travelled 18 miles to attend Taylor High School and a further 9 miles to attend the Houston High School of Visual and Performing Arts. It is unclear if the two knew each other.
Sunny Doench, pictured above, originally of Dayton, Ohio, was the original choice to play Gabrielle, but declined. Her latest role is that of Rona Samms in the film COFFIN, in which Kevin Sorbo co-stars. The film is available from Amazon on DVD.
Renée O'Connor's cat (above) is named Kia Ora, a Maori phrase which translates into English as "shalom".
Remember the story that Gabrielle told to Iolaus when she was nursing his wound in "Prometheus" (Season 1 Episode 8)? Here is how that story went originally:
The poet Agathon held a symposium (later written about by Plato). A discussion on the theme of love ensued. Aristophanes (446-386 BC), the greatest comic poet of Athens, gave an "explanation" of why people in love feel completed by their mate. He said that in ancient times people had double bodies, with faces and limbs turned away from one another, and these original people were very powerful.
There were three sexes: the all male, the all female, and the "androgynous"(half man, half woman).
They became overconfident and conspired to depose the Gods. Zeus thought about blasting them with thunderbolts, but he decided instead to cripple them by chopping them in half. Ever since, people say they are looking for their other half because they are really trying to recover their primal nature. Those who were originally all male, or all female, sought same sex completion. Some people, said Aristophanes, think homosexuals are shameless, but they are the bravest, most manly of all, and he went on to suggest that heterosexuals are more inclined toward unfaithfulness.
Selma Blair, who
starred with Sarah Michelle Gellar in Cruel Intentions,
was the first Cyane, a girl from the 21st century who transported by a shaman to ancient times to rule the
Tretomlec people, a tribe composed entirely of women, in the XWP episode "LIFEBLOOD" (Season 5 Episode 16).
Cyane taught the Tretomlec to ride horses and renamed the tribe Amazons.
In 1989, O'Connor did a WAREHOUSE SAFETY VIDEO for Randall's Food Market, a chain of 116 supermarkets in Texas. That same year, in BLACK SNOW, she wore a sweatshirt emblazoned with the logo of WHOLE FOODS, another Texas-based food chain.
Renée O'Connor has not played the guitar in any of her film or TV appearances. Yet there is evidence that, at least as a teenager, she did have this skill. I cite the photo above, from a Houston newspaper, in which O'Connor is shown with another teen (whose name I cannot make out). The two of them are credited as being named "Most Talented Teens". I presume the guitar is not a prop.
Joseph Loduca wrote the music for Xena, Warrior Princess, Hercules the Legendary Journeys, Boogeyman 2, Alien Apocalypse, Spartacus: Blood and Sand, and Legend of the Seeker. He won an Emmy for the Xena episode "Fallen Angel".
In 2003 O'Connor performed the A.R. Gurney play LOVE LETTERS, an epistolary chronicle of two characters' 50 year relationship, in London opposite Tim Omundson. Omundson was Eli (bringer of Christian Mythology) in XWP.
Thesmophoria was a three-day festival in ancient Greece. Women participating in the autumn sowing (Sporetos) festival had to fast and be chaste for several days. The first day of the Festival was Anodos (the ascent) on which married women took all the supplies they would need for two nights and three days, climbed a hill, and built leafy shelters with couches made of plants and then slept. The second day was the Nesteia or Fast. Besides fasting, they whipped each other with strips of bark. The third day was The Kalligeneia (Fair Offspring) recalling Demeter's torchlight search for her daughter Persephone. There was a torch light ceremony with a feast, and offerings were made to Demeter (usually corn, cakes, and pigs), in the hope of a good harvest.
One halloween in her youth, O'Connor dressed up as what can only be described as Wonder Woman's sidekick (although Wonder Woman had no sidekick). Amazons were very important in the Xenaverse and in Season One of XWP Gabrielle became an Amazon Princess.
Renée O'Connor does not appear on the French DVD covver of Alien Apocalypse. The woman who does appear
is probably Rosi Chernogorova (Bizzi). What I would like to know is who played the astronaut with the
broken leg who gets killed at the beginning of the film. She is not credited at all, and the character is
never addressed by name.
Gabrielle's horse, introduced in season five of Xena, was played by a gelding named Flash. I cannot find a reference to the horse's name in the series, but according to the website ARGO AND FRIENDS, it was named Amber. When she was a child, Gabrielle had a pony named Timpany, whom she could not ride. Timpany died prior to Gabrielle's first encounter with Xena.
It was Susan Wood who did the singing for O'Connor in "The Bitter Suite". Wood also sang the song "Peace In the Valley" in the Season Five episode "Lyre, Lyre, Pants on Fire". Her most recent acting role was as Anchor #2 in the 2006 film THE BLACK HOLE, which starred Kristy Swanson (the original Buffy the Vampire Slayer). The Scotch Plains, NJ newspaper ran an article about Wood in 1998 which describes her career in some detail.
O'Connor has a pierced navel, which is also apparently an "innie". Above is a cropped bikini photo which clearly shows the piercing.
Renée O'Connor was Lady MacBeth in the Shakespeare by the Sea production of William Shakespeare's Macbeth from 27 June to 16 August 2002. It was directed by Anna Andersen (not the one who thought she was Anastasia). Patrick Vest was Macbeth. He also has written and performed a one-man show about Henry David Thoreau, and is now a member of the NEW AMERICAN THEATER Studio Ensemble. Kent Toussaint was Macduff. He was also Kent in ACCIDENTS DON'T HAPPEN, a 2000 film with Renée O'Connor.
The first season and part of the second season of XWP were shot using 16mm film. This explains the graininess of the picture. Other series (most notably Sex and the City) have done this to save money. Some movies have used 16mm film to create an intentional amateurish effect (e.g. CLERKS).
The dubbing of Gabrielle into Portugese (for the Brazilian market) was done by Sylvia Salustti, who also did the dubbing of Sarah Michelle Gellar's character Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
O'Connor's first acting experience was at age eight in Katy, Texas with THEATER ON WHEELS. She played a caterpillar. Even made her own costume. Her first paid acting job, if one can call it that, was, at age 16, portraying Porky Pig at a Six Flags amusement park.
The above graphic shows two examples of Renée O'Connor's autograph. In both instances, he accent mark over the second e in her first name seems to be going the wrong way, like è rather than é. It also appears to be over the second e.
Renée O'Connor's shoe size is 8N. My source for this is an interview she gave some years ago, but in it she also said that her favourite colour was teal, described her eye colour as "green with a hint of blue" and her favourite birds as ducks (from whence the colour teal was named). So she may not have been entirely serious about that interview.
Ms. O'Connor some years ago starred(?) in a movie "eXtreme Reality", which was a mockumentary about a reality dating show. Don't know anything more about this one. Don't know the year or any details.
Of all the names of characters played by ROC, the only name she has had twice is Jessica, although Sue occurs once as a first name and once as a middle name. Laura and Laurie are quite similar. Bettie might be considered a duplication of Elizabeth.
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