The name Rose McGowan calls many things to mind—red lips, curves, porcelain skin, Charmed, Scream, Grindhouse or that unforgettable barely-there chain-mail dress she wore to the 1998 MTV Video Music Awards with then-boyfriend Marilyn Manson. But old movie buff … who knew?

Starting this month, the 34-year-old beauty is taking on the role of co-host, with beloved white-haired film historian Robert Osborne, of Turner Classic Movies’ series The Essentials. “I’m not just a complete movie geek, I’m actually a total weirdo,” Ms. McGowan said via phone from Los Angeles (where she had just returned from her brother’s Las Vegas wedding. “At a gay chapel. He’s not gay. It was awesome.”). “I’ll read someone’s out-of-print autobiography, and then I’ll go and read two more biographies about them just so I can cross-reference them. That is what I do in my spare time,” she laughed. “I don’t really like to boast about such things, and I can’t tell you what I did yesterday, but I have a strange encyclopedic knowledge and savant-esque memory of random things. Like, I can tell you all about the fantastic character actors in Shirley Temple movies, or who and how someone is related to Norma Shearer. That’s the kind of thing I love discussing.”  read more »

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