amylocane.ew.comEntertainment Weekly: Amy Locane Wrong Turn

Wrong TURN AMY LOCANE starred opposite Johnny Depp in Cry-Baby and was part of the original Melrose Place cast. But the former Hollywood It girl achieved infamy for something far more serious—and deadly. By lynette rice @ lynetterice Amy Locane (bottom right) was in the original 1992 cast of Melrose Place , which debuted 25 years ago this month, along with (clockwise, from left) Vanessa Williams, Josie Bissett, Thomas Calabro, Andrew Shue, Courtney Thorne-Smith, Grant Show, and Doug Savant. MELROSE PLACE: ANDREW SEMEL/FOX Locane with costars in Melrose Place ; Locane’s 2010 mug shot after her arrest MELROSE PLACE: ANDREW SEMEL/FOX; MUGSHOT: KYPROS/REX/SHUTTERSTOCK It started out as just another ordinary day. Whenever Amy Locane speaks to students about the night she drove drunk and killed a 60-year-old wife and mother of two, the former actress of Cry-Baby and Melrose Place fame likes to preface it by sharing the rather humdrum events that led up to it: On June 27, 2010, Locane woke up in her Hopewell, N.J., home, jogged with her young girls in a double stroller, then drove to a nearby theater to participate in the closing of a community play. After celebrating at a wrap party with the cast and crew, Locane met up with her then husband, Mark, and their two young daughters at a friends’ barbecue. “I try to tell the students that it was pretty normal,” explains Locane, 45. “I try to ground [the kids] with the details of anybody’s day, how it seems pretty mundane, but that something intense, larger than life, can happen.” (above) Locane with her costars from Melrose Place; Locane’s 2010 mug shot after her arrest MELROSE PLACE: ANDREW SEMEL/FOX; MUGSHOT: KYPROS/REX/SHUTTERSTOCK Locane with costar Johnny Depp in Cry-Baby; Locane’s 2010 mug shot after her arrest Cry-Baby : Universal Pictures/Photofest; Mugshot: Kypros/Rex/Shutterstock Then she gets to the part that typically makes her audience gasp: After drinking alcohol as a way to “cope with her problems,” Locane drove home alone in her SUV and broadsided a Mercury Milan driven by Fred Seeman, who was making a left turn into his driveway. His wife and front-seat passenger, Helene—a New York University adjunct professor and fixture in the contemporary art world—died at the scene. Locane had a blood alcohol level of .26—more than three times the legal limit. Police would later testify that she was found in a ditch, giggling, after the collision. Though a jury would convict Locane of second-degree vehicular homicide and assault by an auto, Somerset County Superior Court presiding judge Robert B. Reed sentenced the actress to three out of a maximum 15 years in prison. He cited how unlikely it was that she’d ever drive drunk again and showed special concern for her daughters, the younger of whom suffers from an intestinal bowel disorder. Now Locane—who is in the process of a divorce from her husband, Mark, after seven years of marriage—is back in Hopewell, working a retail job in a home-and-garden store, living in a two-bedroom apartment, and trying to carve out a new life. “Some of the college kids I speak to are like, it’s not fair because someone died,” says Locane, who says she joined Alcoholics Anonymous after the collision and has been sober ever since. “I get that. It was the biggest mistake I ever made in my life. I understand how people would feel animosity toward me. It’s not an easy thing to go out and talk to these kids. But they say if you reach just one person, then you have tried to make the situation a little better. I mean, it will always be a horrible situation.” “This is awkward...” Locane declares as she settles into a chair inside a New York City hotel lobby. She’s ready to talk about the past seven years of her life but wants to make sure her motive for granting her first full-fledged interview is not misunderstood. “I’m not looking for this as a way to get back into the business,” insists Locane, who is accompanied by her current lawyer James Wronko. “We are talking about something that’s incredibly sad and tragic. I think it would be sleazy to stage some sort of comeback.” While she walks and works in anonymity today, 27 years ago Locane was a promising young actress who missed her high school prom to star in a movie opposite Johnny Depp. She had already been modeling and making commercials since the age of 10, but Cry-Baby—a 1990 musical comedy about a teen rebel who falls for a rich and beautiful good girl—was the game changer that she and her stage mom, Helen, had been looking for. “The very first day, she came to rehearsal in my living room,” recalls director John Waters. “She had to make out with Johnny Depp with her mother sitting there. And she fainted! I do not blame her. She was a child and we had this cast that was probably the most insane group of people ever gathered to make one movie. We had Patty Hearst, David Nelson, Traci Lords. But Amy was great, a pro through the whole thing.” Critics agreed. The New York Times said the “sweet-faced” Locane was “perfectly cast as a nice girl named Allison who’s just dying to turn naughty,” while EW dubbed her a “baby Ann-Margret.” Other film jobs followed, including a big role as Brendan Fraser’s love interest in the star-studded 1992 film School Ties, along with playing Jessica Lange and Tommy Lee Jones’ daughter in 1994’s Blue Sky . But trouble began creeping in as well, with Locane adding some off-camera drama to the highly anticipated Beverly Hills, 90210 spin-off Melrose Place . Locane was part of the original 1992 cast, nabbing the part of a Southern waitress named Sandy Louise Harling on Fox’s prime-time soap, but brought an attitude to the set that did not match her résumé. “She was a sweet young girl, but she overestimated her position in the business,” recalls her costar Doug Savant, who played Matt Fielding. “She had an immature outlook on how the progression of her career was going to go.” BEFORE THE CRASH Amy locane was poised for stardom after appearing in these buzzy projects. by lynette rice Cry-Baby 1990 While still in high school, Locane landed her first major role as pretty-but-square Allison Vernon-Williams, who romances a sexy teen rebel dubbed Cry-Baby (Johnny Depp) in John Waters’ musical-comedy cult classic. School Ties 1992 In this all-star period drama, Locane played a high school rich girl who falls for—but ultimately breaks the heart of—a handsome Jewish jock (Brendan Fraser) dealing with discrimination at a New England boarding school. Melrose Place 1992 Locane was part of the original cast but only appeared in the first 13 episodes of the prime-time soap as Southern waitress Sandy Louise Harling before she parted ways with producers. Her TV career later faltered. Blue Sky 1994 Locane played the daughter of a mentally unhinged mom (Jessica Lange, who won an Oscar) and a nuclear-engineer dad (Tommy Lee Jones) in this critically acclaimed drama that was delayed three years due to a studio bankruptcy. Prefontaine 1997 Another girlfriend role, this time in the true story of charismatic long-distance runner Steve Prefontaine (Jared Leto), who was killed in a car accident at the age of 24. Locane played his love interest, Nancy Alleman. Cry-Baby : Universal Pictures/Photofest; School Ties: Paramount Pictures/Photofest; Melrose Place : Fox/Photofest; Blue Sky : Orion Pictures/Everett Collection; Prefontaine : Hollywood Pictures/Everett Collection Fred Seeman in court holding a family photo The Star-Ledger /AP Images Producers ended up dropping Locane after 13 episodes and brought on Daphne Zuniga (as photographer Jo Reynolds) to fill the void. The series lasted seven seasons and became a cultural phenomenon. “I came off as immature,” Locane says now. “I went to an all-girls school, then I was on movie sets. So my socialization skills weren’t up to par.” She also believes her reputation in the industry took a hit as a result of being written off Melrose . “Things got a lot tougher after that whole debacle. I ne...