The poster for Cameron Crowe’s rock-band-on-the-road odyssey Almost Famous, which turned 25 this week, depicts an extreme close-up of the actor Kate Hudson, in character as the ambiguously aged muse and groupie Penny Lane. Her eyes are hidden by reflective shades, and her face is framed by tight blonde curls. But despite being the face of the film’s advertising campaign, Hudson isn’t the star of Almost Famous. In reality it is Patrick Fugit’s bright eyed and bushy tailed music journalist, William Miller. She is, though, the film’s heart and soul.
Crowe wrote Almost Famous based on his own experiences touring across the US with rock bands throughout the Seventies. He was just 15 when he began writing cover stories for Rolling Stone magazine – profiling acts such as The Allman Brothers Band, Led Zeppelin and Lynyrd Skynyrd. He remains the youngest journalist to ever do it. The film is vaguely autobiographical in nature, with the frontman of the movie’s fictional central rock group Stillwater inspired by Glen Frey of The Eagles. “Just make us look cool,” Frey once told Crowe – the line made it into the movie, inserted into the mouth of Stillwater’s lead singer Jeff Bebe (played by actor Jason Lee).
