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April 21, 1997
They'll be happier campers
By BOB THOMPSON
HOLLYWOOD -- They'll be back. Yes, Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn will return to their Muskoka summer cottage for a second season of fun in the sun. But before they do, Russell wants to clear the air over Hawn's apparent rude Canadian gawkers comment during their first one. "That was just not true," said Russell on the weekend during an interview promoting his film Breakdown, which opens in a few weeks. "That was the press, creating something." That something was a week of sounding off against Hawn, who complained late last August that some tourist boaters "were so rude" to the point of trespassing "and invading our privacy." However, Russell said Hawn never accused Canadians or the locals of being rude. "And by a few, she meant a few were coming into our bay, as we suspected they would, being first-year neighbors." Hawn and Russell were also annoyed that the press never once mentioned that they had provided jobs and a boost to the local economy by constructing their "second home" in the Muskokas. So what's the fall-out from the alleged misunderstanding? "Unfortunately, what it means is, we will have to withdraw," insisted Russell. Not from cottage life, but he said they plan on being more private and less public around their swanky Lake Rosseau cottage. The 46-year-old actor also confirmed that his buddy Tom Hanks has decided to hold off on plans to build a retreat on the shore of nearby Lake Joseph because of the controversy last summer. "For the time being, he's decided to withdraw his idea of going in there," said Russell of Hanks, "for the consideration of the people up there." Russell, who began acting as a child, said he felt sorry for the local Muskoka residents and cottage owners during the media onslaught last August. "For 37 years I have understood what the hassle of publicity can be, but those people don't deserve it," he said of area residents. Russell maintained that he and Hawn will stay put, for now, because the Muskoka Region "is a very special area," which reminds him of where he and his family lived in Maine. So what do Hawn and Russell expect when they arrive at their "summer base of operations." "I hope the press say, 'Enough is enough,' " he said. "I like the area for the same reason that other people like it. So I don't want to see it wrecked for them any more than I want to see it wrecked for me. "And I really detest being a catalyst for any of that, no matter how small my part is. There have been other places where it has happened, and we just pulled out, because we said, 'We're going to wreck this.' " |
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