Kate Vernon

Kate Vernon is a fan of Spike Lee's films. "They stimulate people," said the Canadian-born actress, who appeared in "Pretty in Pink" and the TV series "Falcon Crest." "I think he is helping people wake up to their own prejudices. I think that's important," she said. But Vernon found working with Lee to be a different matter. In Lee's "Malcolm X," Vernon plays Sophia, Malcolm's white girlfriend during his hustler days in Boston in the 1940s.

Like a veteran of the witness protection program, actress Kate Vernon picked a secluded corner table of a very public restaurant for the meeting. She studied the tape recorder sitting next to her teacup on the table and then glanced around the Studio City bistro to see if anyone was eavesdropping. "Forgive me if I'm a little awkward talking about it," Vernon said during an interview earlier this week.

In reference to "It Was Much Too Quiet on 'Malcolm X' Set for Kate Vernon," by Susan King (Off-Centerpiece, Nov. 22): Vernon whines over the way Lee supposedly ostracized her on the set of 'Malcolm X' and how she "never felt part of the process" and couldn't "figure out the psychology of Spike." Welcome to the club! I am sure that African-Americans involved in the business and dealing with white directors and producers go through this humiliation on a much broader scale. This is not to justify prejudices in any way but to make the point that African-Americans are the No. 1 victims of ostracism, and we have never been able to figure out the psychology of white America.

In reference to "It Was Much Too Quiet on 'Malcolm X' Set for Kate Vernon," by Susan King (Off-Centerpiece, Nov. 22): Vernon whines over the way Lee supposedly ostracized her on the set of 'Malcolm X' and how she "never felt part of the process" and couldn't "figure out the psychology of Spike." Welcome to the club! I am sure that African-Americans involved in the business and dealing with white directors and producers go through this humiliation on a much broader scale. This is not to justify prejudices in any way but to make the point that African-Americans are the No. 1 victims of ostracism, and we have never been able to figure out the psychology of white America.

Like a veteran of the witness protection program, actress Kate Vernon picked a secluded corner table of a very public restaurant for the meeting. She studied the tape recorder sitting next to her teacup on the table and then glanced around the Studio City bistro to see if anyone was eavesdropping. "Forgive me if I'm a little awkward talking about it," Vernon said during an interview earlier this week.

For those in need of a post-Halloween cure, "House of Secrets" (at 9 tonight on NBC, Channels 4 and 36) is a tremulous, moody thriller with a Gothic touch. Under Mimi Leder's direction, style overwhelms content, which is decidedly derivative. Set in New Orleans at Mardi Gras time, the movie shamelessly lifts key scenes from two famous films of the 1950s: the French horror classic "Diabolique" and the Brazilian "Black Orpheus."

A girl vampire pouts to a boy vampire: "This is your vengeance against me, served as cold as your heart." Vampire prose, vampire chompers, vampire glowing eyes, vampire murder, vampire sex, voluptuous vampires cavorting in their underwear. If the slow, somber, anemic, pugnaciously absurd premiere of Fox's new "Kindred: The Embraced" were a theatrical movie instead of a series, you wouldn't walk out. You'd run.

Kate Vernon is a fan of Spike Lee's films. "They stimulate people," said the Canadian-born actress, who appeared in "Pretty in Pink" and the TV series "Falcon Crest." "I think he is helping people wake up to their own prejudices. I think that's important," she said. But Vernon found working with Lee to be a different matter. In Lee's "Malcolm X," Vernon plays Sophia, Malcolm's white girlfriend during his hustler days in Boston in the 1940s.

Ask about hairstyles and most American women will subscribe to the big bang theory: Bangs make you look younger, perkier, sexier. And with celebrities Demi Moore, Cher, Barbra Streisand and Shannen Doherty wearing them this fall, it is no wonder bangs are making a comeback. The newest variations are wispy, veiling the forehead rather than cloaking it. Streisand carries off the effect in her latest film, "The Prince of Tides." Already it's the new "power look" among women execs in Hollywood.

John Hughes is one of the few film makers in Hollywood who remembers high school. It's not the noisy dump we've seen in all too many teen movies, jammed with horny, brassiere-waving party animals and scantily clad wind-up dolls. Hughes' version, which serves as the setting for the delightful new comedy "Pretty in Pink" (citywide), offers us a school-locker point of view, not raucous high jinks suggested by some studio marketing survey.