Nikole Hannah-Jones on Anne of Green Gables

I’m always intrigued by how many people around the world have been touched in various ways by Anne Shirley of Anne of Green Gables.

Nikole Hannah-Jones is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist. She led and developed The 1619 Project for The New York Times Magazine, which re-frames and re-examines the legacy of slavery in the United States. The project was initially published in 2019 on the 400th anniversary of the 1619 arrival of the first enslaved African people in Virginia. For her work, Hannah-Jones was named one of The 100 Most Influential People of 2021 by Time Magazine. That same year, Nikole Hannah-Jones published a book with her colleagues titled, The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story. She’s currently a professor at Howard University.

Last fall, prior to the publication of her book, the L.A. Times Book Club interviewed Nikole Hannah-Jones. She was asked her about her favorite books, music, movies, and TV shows for the book club’s newsletter, which was published in the Los Angeles Times by the book club editor Donna Wares on November 6, 2021.

Among Nikole Hannah-Jones’s answers was this gem mentioning Anne of Green Gables:

TV that got me through the pandemic: "Tiger King," of course. My daughter and I spent many nights watching "Anne of Green Gables" together, "Law & Order" reruns, "Dateline" murder mysteries, "Living Single" reruns. I am obsessed with "Dopesick," "Snowfall" and "Impeached."

Like Nikole Hannah-Jones and her daughter, watching Anne of Green Gables has helped me during the pandemic too.

Reference:
Wares, Donna. (2021, November 6). Book club: Get to know Nikole Hannah-Jones and ‘The 1619 Project.’ Los Angeles Times. Retrieved from: https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/books/newsletter/2021-11-06/book-club-newsletter-nikole-hannah-jones-the-1619-project-book-club

Image credits:
Left: Photograph of Nikole Hannah-Jones by Levi Walton in The 100 Most Influential People of 2021 issue of Time Magazine published September 15, 2021.
Right: Screen capture of Megan Follows as Anne Shirley in Anne of Green Gables © Sullivan Entertainment.

Created September 30, 2022.

Christina Hendricks on Anne of Green Gables

I love finding mentions of Anne Shirley and L.M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables in interviews. Here’s my most recent find.

Christina Hendricks is an actress and model who stars as Joan Holloway on the television series Mad Men. The show is a period drama about a fictional advertising agency set in the 1960s. Christina Hendricks’s talent and striking beauty have made Joan Holloway a favorite on the show. In May of this year, in a poll of female readers, Hendricks was named Esquire’s sexist woman of the year.

This July, prior to the debut of the fourth season of Mad Men, Leslie Gornstein interviewed Christina Hendricks for the Los Angeles Times Magazine. It was a great interview, in which Gornstein asked Hendricks about Joan and Mad Men, her playing the accordion, her seeing Tom Waits perform and once dining with him and his wife, her three-episode role on Firefly, and her appearances in several music videos. She also spoke about finding red carpet gowns, dressing in retro costumes, and the Joan Holloway Barbie doll.

Best of all (for me, at least), Leslie Gornstein asked Christina Hendricks about how she began dying her hair red:

You’ve said you started dying your blond hair red at age 10. How exactly did you sell that choice to your folks?
They did it to me! I was obsessed with the Canadian novel Anne of Green Gables. I decided I was Anne of Green Gables. There was something that spoke to me about her, and I wanted to have her beautiful red hair. So my mother said, “Let’s just go to the drugstore and get one of those cover-the-gray rinses!” My hair was very blond at the time, but it went carrot red. And I was over the moon. I went to school the next day and felt like myself. And then I went back [to that color] over and over again. What a cool mom, right?

I think we can all agree that Christina Hendricks’s Mom was super cool for supporting her daughter’s obsession with Anne of Green Gables. And I adore Christina Hendricks’s red hair.

Reference:
Gornstein, Leslie. (2010, July) Past Perfect Christina Hendricks. Los Angeles Times Magazine. Originally retrieved from: https://www.latimesmagazine.com/2010/07/christina-hendricks.html (presently, dead link). Archived at: https://web.archive.org/web/20101227122133/https://www.latimesmagazine.com/2010/07/christina-hendricks.html

Image credits:
Left: Photograph of Christina Hendricks by Joshua Jordan with styling by Hayley Atkin from "Past Perfect Christina Hendricks", Los Angeles Times Magazine, published July 2010.
Right: Screen capture of Megan Follows as Anne Shirley in Anne of Green Gables: The Sequel © Sullivan Entertainment.

Created July 6, 2010.  Re-posted online October 8, 2022. Last updated October 8, 2022.