Allegra Cole

image I just got an email from Bob Pagani (aka Cranky Media Guy) pointing out that one of the female characters in Will Smith's new movie Hitch is named Allegra Cole. This sounds as if it's a homage to Allegra Coleman, who was a hoax movie star created by Esquire back in 1996. Not having seen Hitch yet, I have no idea why its creator would have wanted to include this allusion to a hoax from the 1990s. Is the Allegra Cole character fake or artificial in some way? Looking at my page about Allegra Coleman, I also noticed an eerie similarity between her and the girl from the Dusty ads. Just a coincidence, or does this have some kind of deeper meaning?

Entertainment

Posted on Mon Feb 14, 2005



Comments

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Posted by Winona  on  Mon Feb 14, 2005  at  09:27 AM
So what have you guys been up to that you wouldn't want Dusty, or the man or whoever, to know about??? 😉 Actually back to the question, upon seeing that movie this past weekend the exact same question came to mind. I remember the whole Esquire thing quite well and was wondering if it would come up here... unfortunately I have nothing to add on the subject. Just knew you guys would catch it and probably discuss...
Posted by Mark in Cincy  on  Mon Feb 14, 2005  at  12:05 PM
Holy Moley. Alex gave out Cranky Media Guy's real name. Is this a trend? Who's next? Will The Council be alerted? Will it come to the attention of... "Raoul"? Tell me. I must know.
Posted by Hairy Houdini  on  Mon Feb 14, 2005  at  12:23 PM
As the eldest of my parents four children, all boys, I must ask that you stop making comments about my baby sister Allegra. By the way, there's a over-the-counter medicine named Allegra, I wonder if there's a connection there?
Posted by Christopher Cole  on  Mon Feb 14, 2005  at  07:33 PM
Hairy Houdini said:

"Holy Moley. Alex gave out Cranky Media Guy's real name. Is this a trend? Who's next? Will The Council be alerted? Will it come to the attention of... "Raoul"? Tell me. I must know."

Sheesh, would Alex give out my REAL name? Duh, of course not! My REAL name is Jeff Gannon! Oops, I shouldn't have said that, should I?
Posted by Cranky Media Guy  on  Tue Feb 15, 2005  at  04:08 AM
Christopher... that's actually the first thing I thought of... maybe it's a product tie-in causing the name...
Posted by Drunk Stepdad  on  Tue Feb 15, 2005  at  05:41 AM
Names in movies are trendy. Allegra is trendy. Isn't it also the name of a character of a kid's show? Allegra's house, or Allegra's room...something like that. Cole seems normal, without making anyone think about it. Christopher, if you are the oldest of your parents children, ALL boys...how do you have a baby sis?? And...I don't really get the connection here. It's not the actress' name. It's the character's name. If it were an homage to the 'fake' actress a few years ago, wouldn't they just have called her Allegra Coleman?
Posted by Maegan  on  Tue Feb 15, 2005  at  07:50 AM
Calling the character Allegra Coleman would be too obvious a reference. Calling her Allegra Cole is more subtle. But I'm guessing that the scriptwriter just thought it was a cool sounding name.
Posted by The Curator  in  San Diego  on  Tue Feb 15, 2005  at  08:01 AM
...I'm stuck on this "too obvious" thing. Mostly, b/c I was...maybe 12 when this would have been in Esquire. Did people make a really big deal about this? Or was it just Esquire readers?? There are things that happened when I was 12 that I DO remember...but this isn't one of them. Was I just an oblivious naive kid? How big was this thing?!? P.S. I'm not even sure who Esquire's target audience is, but I can guess...so chances are I wouldn't even have noticed this if it was right on the top rack in the grocery store.
Posted by Maegan  on  Tue Feb 15, 2005  at  08:40 AM
The Allegra Coleman thing wasn't a big deal at all. Most people have never heard of it. But Hollywood insiders would likely know about it since it was a joke about how Hollywood manufactures celebrities. Therefore, it seems unlikely that a presumably Hollywood-savvy writer could have written a script including a character named 'Allegra Cole' just by accident.
Posted by The Curator  in  San Diego  on  Tue Feb 15, 2005  at  08:55 AM
Maegan, think about it. Putting it the way I did should have tipped you off that I was making a joke. I flaunt the fact that my sense of humor is bad, but most people get my jokes - especially when they are as obvious as that one was.
Posted by Christopher Cole  on  Tue Feb 15, 2005  at  12:41 PM
Alex said:

"The Allegra Coleman thing wasn't a big deal at all. Most people have never heard of it. But Hollywood insiders would likely know about it since it was a joke about how Hollywood manufactures celebrities. Therefore, it seems unlikely that a presumably Hollywood-savvy writer could have written a script including a character named 'Allegra Cole' just by accident."

Alex is right. The Esquire thing was cute, but it wasn't a big deal. It's probably just us hoax-types who remember it.

I don't know if "Hollywood insiders" in general would know about it, but it seems as if the scriptwriter did. The name's just too close. I mean, it isn't impossible that it's a coincidence or that the writer sort of half-remembered the name without realizing where it came from, but it seems to me that it's probably a deliberate reference. Why he didn't just use "Coleman" as the last name I have no idea.
Posted by crankymediaguy  on  Tue Feb 15, 2005  at  02:44 PM
Okay, I think I have the whole Allegra Cole/Allegra Coleman thing worked out. It turns out that the screenwriter, Kevin Bisch, used to be a magazine writer in New York City. Check out this article about him:
http://www.wga.org/craft/interviews/bisch.html

He moved to New York and became a magazine writer in 1996, just when the Allegra Coleman hoax happened. But in 2000 he took a serious look at where he was going in life and realized that the magazine he was writing for was "not Esquire and I may not be Tom Wolfe."

So he quit his job and wrote the Hitch screenplay, and while he may not have been working for Esquire, he was able to slip an allusion to Esquire into the script. In other words, the use of that name is just a sly reference to his roots in the New York magazine industry.
Posted by The Curator  in  San Diego  on  Tue Feb 15, 2005  at  05:00 PM
Alex said:

"So he quit his job and wrote the Hitch screenplay, and while he may not have been working for Esquire, he was able to slip an allusion to Esquire into the script. In other words, the use of that name is just a sly reference to his roots in the New York magazine industry."

Nice detective work there, Alex. Yeah, it sounds as if this guy kind of pines for the glory days at Esquire. It was a pretty big deal, magazine-wise, back in the late 60's-early 70's. Lots of attention-getting and/or controversial covers, including one with the infamous Lt. Calley holding a Vietnamese kid. The days of glory at Esquire are WAY behind it now, however.
Posted by Cranky Media Guy  on  Tue Feb 15, 2005  at  08:03 PM
Alex, you're not saying the Dusty girl is fictitious, are you?
Keep this up and she'll never earn enough to buy herself some jeans.
Posted by Big Gary  on  Tue Feb 15, 2005  at  10:14 PM
Big Gary C said:

"Alex, you're not saying the Dusty girl is fictitious, are you?
Keep this up and she'll never earn enough to buy herself some jeans."

God, we wouldn't want THAT, would we? The poor girl is obviously poverty-stricken. I mean, just LOOK how she's bursting out of that hand-me-down T-shirt she's forced to wear!
Posted by crankymediaguy  on  Wed Feb 16, 2005  at  01:16 AM
Christopher, your joke doesn't make sense because it isn't funny. I had to assume it was an OBVIOUS play on the topic, b/c 1: YOUR name being Christopher Cole wouldn't make you related to Allegra Cole, she's a character...not a real person. 2: you were in a family of all boys. I did 'get' that you couldn't be serious...but to be FUNNY, it would need to make obvious sense. Sorry it seemed so damn obtuse! P.S. I wish I could portray disdain simply by typing.
Posted by Maegan  on  Wed Feb 16, 2005  at  05:02 AM
So is Maegan the humor police for the world or just MOH? Granted the joke was bad, he even stated his sense of humor blows, but it was a joke (obvious to most) that you didn't get before you posted (I'm guessing) We all know that humor and the sense of varies WIDELY... wouldn't you agree to that Meg? Give him a break... he cracked a joke you didn't like (or get?) but you don't have to get SO upset about it all. 😊

PS - I think you can portray disdain by simply typing... try d-i-s-d-a-i-n. 😊 Of course, that's probably not funny either...
Posted by ???  on  Wed Feb 16, 2005  at  11:15 AM
:roll:
...Sorry. I only realized later how harshly I'd judged. Can I blame it on antibiotics??
Posted by Maegan  on  Wed Feb 16, 2005  at  11:30 AM
I am quite used to bad reviews of my alleged sense of humor. When I was on active duty many years ago I engaged in a bad joke compition with another guy in my shop. I quit when I discovered he was cheating, his wife and kids were sending him jokes to use. It was 1 against 6 if I remember correctly. My philosophy on jokes is: if you tell a good joke good, everyone laughs; if you tell a good joke bad, everyone still laughs although maybe not as much; if you tell a bad joke bad, everyone groans; if you tell a bad joke good, everyone groans but laughs as well. I meet with a group of my friends every week and I have yet to get them to throw things at me.
Posted by Christopher Cole  on  Wed Feb 16, 2005  at  11:59 AM
Knock knock
Posted by Chadds Ford Prefect  on  Wed Feb 16, 2005  at  01:09 PM
Of course you can blame it on antibiotics Maegan... we all have those days. Anybody who says they don't must be joking...
Posted by Mark-N-Jen  on  Wed Feb 16, 2005  at  01:31 PM
hey i really liked that movie hitch me and my friend were crying at the end because will smith and that other girl. also you and albert. okay i just wanted to tell you this and can you tell will smith that he fine for me thank you.
Posted by ciara jessica  on  Sun Feb 20, 2005  at  08:52 PM
ciara jessica said:

"hey i really liked that movie hitch me and my friend were crying at the end because will smith and that other girl. also you and albert. okay i just wanted to tell you this and can you tell will smith that he fine for me thank you."

Ciara, if you are over the age of 10, please tell your parents to immediately sue your school district for taking money under false pretenses.
Posted by crankymediaguy  on  Mon Feb 21, 2005  at  12:34 AM
Hello... I'm alive & well, notwithstanding the rumors of my alleged demise and/or non-existance. (Didn't Mark Twain once say something along those lines when a pre-written obituary was run prematurely by a newspaper or such?)

I still have an agent, and I'm working steadily (if only in small parts and some commercials). That's more than many actresses can claim. 💋
Posted by Allegra Coleman  on  Wed Feb 23, 2005  at  04:46 AM
http://www.sociopranos.com/GTS/alilarter.html

Birth name: Alison Gertrude Larter
Date of birth: 28 February 1976
Los Angeles, California, USA


Mini biography:
A native of Cherry Hill, New Jersey, Ali began modeling at age 13 and traveled the world before moving to Los Angeles to study acting. Her first professional acting job was a role on the television series "Chicago Sons" (1997).
Nickname
Allegra Coleman
Height
5' 8"
Posted by joey77241105  on  Mon Feb 28, 2005  at  04:22 PM
you does the move hitch went will smit
Posted by ligia elena estrada casta  on  Wed Mar 30, 2005  at  02:08 PM
I don't know about the whole Allegra Coleman thing, but the whole way through the movie I kept laughing every time they said , "Allegra Cole? Not Allegra Cole". (Allegra Cole is my name..)

Allegra.... Cole
Posted by Allegra Cole  on  Wed Apr 06, 2005  at  03:29 PM
I think you guys have it all wrong. I think there is a much deeper, much more sinister story behind this. I think it is a very clever, very subtle plug for the allergy medicine Allegra. As a doctor, when they first introduced the character named after an expensive medication, I wondered if it was product placement (of sorts), but then I reassured myself that I'm just being cynical and it's just coincidence. However, later on in the movie, when another character develops an allergic reaction, for which he takes Benadryl (with a large, conspicious label on the bottle) my ears really perked up. Then, when this character began acting goofy, sedated, and drunk from taking Benadryl, thus revealing several secrets and ruining people's lives, I couldn't believe it. The major difference between Benadryl and Allegra is that Allegra does not cause drowsiness or sedation--and the pharmaceutical companies REALLY emphasize this as a plug for Allegra. Well, it sounds like a not-so-subtle advertisement for Allegra. I just wonder how much the writers got paid for this 2 hours commercial for their medication.

Doc
Posted by Doc  on  Fri Jul 08, 2005  at  06:20 PM
I contacted kevin and the name Allegra came from Kevin's father who's friend's daughter is named Allegra. That it. Nothing more than coincidence.
Posted by C  on  Tue Aug 30, 2005  at  02:57 PM
Am I the only person who googled 'allegra cole' just casue I saw 'Hitch' do it in the movie?


just woundering...
Posted by Dan  on  Wed Sep 07, 2005  at  02:23 PM
No ur not the only one to google. I did too! after readidng all that i came to realise that all you guys seem to have too much time on your hands?
Posted by Clit Eastwood  on  Wed Oct 19, 2005  at  01:16 AM
You guys are so sad.
Posted by %$%  on  Sun Nov 06, 2005  at  09:26 AM
Can't anybody spell properly in this goddamn world!
Casue
Woundering...
Readidng
I mean what on earth do they mean!
Posted by %$%  on  Sun Nov 06, 2005  at  09:30 AM
hi im searchin for ligia elena estrada casta
Posted by Daniel  on  Thu Dec 29, 2005  at  11:50 AM
💋 i saw you on hitch and i have that you wre really good
Posted by mara  on  Wed Jan 04, 2006  at  11:15 AM
HAHA :D
Posted by mir  on  Wed Mar 15, 2006  at  11:41 AM
my friend did not believe that was u on hitch
Posted by amy  on  Tue Mar 28, 2006  at  10:24 PM
OMFG people get a life, if u lack this much of a social life to be blogging about a FAKE movie character, then u should die! Maybe there is an allusion to Allegra Coleman from the Esquire thing, but that was like 10 years ago. GET OVER IT!
Posted by Blogging is for fags and im just doing this to mak  on  Sun Feb 25, 2007  at  03:14 PM
OK, I'M NOT FAKE.

😛 LoL. My name is Allegra A. Cole. This is irritating me. Maybe they just got the idea to randomly name her Allegra Cole. (Like my mother did.)

Well actually that's not random, Allegra is an older name, and is in quite a few older poems. Relates to the word Allegro.

Allegra D, or whatever the stupid Drug is, should be paying me royalties. (I wish.)

I'm serious, it's on my drivers license and my birth certificate.

- Allegra Cole
Posted by Allegra Cole  on  Tue Apr 10, 2007  at  03:21 PM
Allegra, I'm surprised that, if that really is your name, that you never heard about either the Esquire cover story or the Will Smith movie until now.
Posted by Cranky Media Guy  on  Wed Apr 11, 2007  at  01:09 AM
im inlove with a stripper :p
Posted by BooM ;D  on  Tue Apr 17, 2007  at  12:23 PM
That is super film,i never saw that super film:D:D
Posted by lOL  on  Mon Feb 04, 2008  at  09:20 AM
:coolmad: so this means that either there is a hologram or not?
Posted by marry  on  Fri Oct 09, 2009  at  07:33 PM
Firset
Posted by عبدالله_1  on  Sun Jan 16, 2011  at  05:16 AM
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