Here comes the bride—for real
Television has been marrying off Marla Sokoloff for much of the past decade, her sweet girl-next-door looks having helped land her in a wedding dress in five different acting roles on the small screen. It got so she could try on wedding dresses practically in her sleep.
Forget about always being the bridesmaid. Sokoloff was always the bride. And she gets to be again (walk down the aisle number five) in the Hallmark Channel original movie “Flower Girl,” premiering at 9 p. m. Saturday. The romantic comedy finds Sokoloff (who turns 29 on Dec. 19) playing a florist who always is attracted to the wrong men, but who finally finds true love in the end.
But it turns out that all of Sokoloff’s “altar” egos are going to have a purpose beyond a paycheck for her after all. Six days before her latest TV wedding, you see, she’ll be doing the marital thing for real when the star of “The Practice” exchanges vows with her boyfriend of five years, film and TV composer Alec Puro.
Trying to recall a similar instance of television and life dovetailing with a nuptial twist produces no examples. Perhaps the closest thing would be Lucille Ball’s delivering her actual son on the same night (Jan. 19, 1953) as her TV character Lucy Ricardo gave birth on “I Love Lucy.”
“It’s pretty wild, isn’t it?” gushes Sokoloff of this momentous example of life-imitating-art. Or is it art-imitating-life? “It was pretty exciting to be doing ‘Flower Girl’ at the same time I was actually engaged, which happened just before we started shooting the movie in October of ’08.
“I feel like I’ve had enough practice for this in my career, you know? I’m more than ready for the real thing. Finally! Bring it on.”
The plotline of “Flower Girl” finds Sokoloff portraying a florist named Laurel Haverford, who is losing hope that her prince is ever going to ride up on a white horse after having gone through an assortment of toads. It’s her grandmother, Rose Durham—played by Marion Ross, the legendary star of “Happy Days” and “Brooklyn Bridge” — who keeps fixing her up under the theory that the path to Mr. Right may be littered with potholes but eventually will bear fruit.
Is there any sort of autobiographical element to the story for Sokoloff? She admits to having gone through her share of guys en route to finding The One, including a long-term relationship with actor James Franco.
“It’s never a simple journey,” she admits, “but that just makes it better when you meet the one you want to spend the rest of your life with.”
Born in San Francisco and educated at the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts, Sokoloff is the first to admit she has led something of a charmed life. By the time she was 12, she already had a recurring role on the TV comedy “Full House.” She was still in high school and a mere 17 years old when “The Practice” came calling, casting her as the sassy troublemaker receptionist Lucy Hatcher.
“The whole thing was such a dream,” Sokoloff recalls. “I got a call from my agent that they wanted me to read for this part as a 25-year-old secretary on ‘The Practice.’ I thought, ‘This couldn’t be a bigger waste of time.’ I didn’t think there was any way I would get this.”
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