Local actress to appear in TV movie on Jan. 30

Date: 1/24/2011

Jan. 24, 2011

By Debbie Gardner

Assistant Managing Editor

LONGMEADOW — You might remember her from her time with the Dan Kane singers. Or perhaps you caught her in the role of Dorothy in Long-meadow High School's senior class production of "The Wizard of Oz" in 2008.

Twenty-year-old Meghann Fahy hasn't rested on those local performing laurels. Heading to New York City the summer after graduation, the talented young woman has already won accolades for her role as Natalie in the Pulitzer Prize winning musical "Next to Normal," which recently closed on Broad-way and has a fan club for her recurring role as Hannah O'Connor on the ABC soap opera, "One Life to Live." She's also appeared on the CW's "Gossip Girl."

On Jan. 30, local friends and fans will be able to see her in her first movie role, as she plays the 1940s, newly wed version of Betty White's character, Caroline, in the Hallmark Hall of Fame made-for-TV movie, "The Lost Valentine."

The movie is slated to air at 9 p.m. on CBS.

"I play a younger version of [the Betty White character]," Fahy said in a telephone interview between auditions in New York City. "In flashbacks, she tells the story of herself and her husband, a Navy pilot in [World War II]."

In the plot of the movie, Carolyn's husband parts from her at the train station in Los Angeles with the promise to return to her, safe, by their next anniversary. A cynical journalist, played by Jennifer Love Hewitt, learns Carolyn has been returning to the station on their wedding anniversary every year for 60 years, and a story lost love and commitment ensues.

Fahy said she didn't actually get to work with White during the filming, which took place last summer in Georgia, but did meet her.

"She might be the most down to earth person you will ever meet," Fahy said of White. "And the least entitled, even after all she has done. She loves animals and talks to everybody. You couldn't believe you're talking to Betty White and she's a normal person."

Fahy didn't work with Love Hewitt either, but also got the opportunity to meet her during her two weeks on the set.

"She was the executive producer on the film," Fahy said. "She reviewed my [audition] films. She was so complimentary and so supportive."

Fahy said she doesn't know how many other actresses auditioned for the young Caroline role, but that she received three callback notices, the last of which was a "chemistry reading" with Billy Magnussen, who plays Carolyn's young Navy pilot husband.

"I already had the part, which I didn't know, when I read the scene with Billy and another actor to see which [one] I had more chemistry with," she said.

In talking about her rapid success as an actress, Fahy readily credits her mother, Tammy, with launching a career that, to date, has been "extraordinary and unexpected, but in the best possible way."

"She found out about an open call [in New York City] and actually had to do a lot of convincing to get me to go," Fahy said of her trip to the Big Apple just after high school graduation. "I wasn't really sure because I had never done anything like that before, but I decided to chock it up to experience.

"Obviously, it was a good thing," she continued, adding that it landed her the understudy role in "Next to Normal," which eventually led to her taking over the role of Natalie in the play.