My Biggest Fan (ATOM Study Guide)

My Biggest Fan is the story of what happens when Tara Morice, star of Strictly Ballroom (Baz Luhrmann, 1992), meets her biggest fan, Mildred Levine, a 75-year-old, lip-synching great grandmother from Coconut Creek, Florida.

Tara played Fran in Strictly Ballroom. The film became a classic and inspired a number of television shows about ballroom dancing. Tara was thrust into the whirlwind of celebrity. She rubbed shoulders with big stars and received hundreds of fan letters.

On 11 September 2001, Mildred had organized a screening of Strictly Ballroom for the residents of her retirement community. When the film finished, the audience rose to their feet, as best they could, and cheered for the first time that terrible day. Mildred sat down and wrote her first ever fan letter. She now has Tara's photograph on her living room wall and has been in contact ever since.

Inspired by Mildred's videotapes of her favourite films and her productions with the Wynmoor Entertainers, Tara decided it would be fun to meet Mildred and be present for the opening night of her variety show Follies.

My Biggest Fan documents the unlikely friendship of two women from very different worlds. The story affirms the power of a movie to bring people together and broadens the audience's perspective of the talents and aspirations of the elderly. It is also a personal and revealing account of what fame is like and what happens when the excitement suddenly stops.