The Star-Telegram (Fort Worth/Dallas) has an article about the devoted following of Colin Firth, which the reporter claims is mostly due to Mr. Firth’s turns as Darcy, both Fitzwilliam and Mark:

Instead of Miami tan, Firth is London pasty. Instead of driving a race car in his spare time, he writes short stories. Instead of cozying up to fashion models, he’s happily married.

To top it off, Firth’s breakout role came in a six-hour television adaptation of a 19th-century novel, which ran on the A&E network. It required the actor to wear what Jerry Seinfeld would definitely classify as a “puffy shirt.” There were no sex scenes, no swear words and only one chaste kiss.

But in the end, the BBC production of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, which aired here in January 1996, turned out to be one of A&E’s most popular presentations ever. And for women whose tastes run more toward subtle, fully clothed eroticism than hot-tub make-out scenes, P and P became the ultimate in fantasy entertainment and Mr. Darcy the ultimate fantasy man.

The article includes a complete rundown of Firth films.

P.S. As promised, sort of a good review for BJD:EOR.

P.P.S. Ebert liked it, for what that’s worth. So does E!Online.

We feel that we should point out that the IMDB listing for P&P3 seems to be incorrect (not to mention incomplete). They have Peter Wright listed as playing Mr. Gardiner. Our contact at Focus Features, the U.S. distributor of the film, told us that Peter Wight will be playing Mr. Gardiner. It could be a typo as we received the info via e-mail, but since Mr. Wight (no R) was in another film directed by Joe Wright, the director of P&P3, we are confident that our information is correct. But then Peter Wright could be related to Joe Wright, which certainly gets one an “in” with the director. We will, of course, post a correction should we receive it.

Also, our contact told us that Claudie Blakley is playing Charlotte Lucas and that Penelope Wilton is playing Mrs. Gardiner, just to complete the cast list.

There are so many rumors STILL going around about this film, and one of the reasons that the distributors were so approachable and willing to share information with us was to dispel some of those rumors. Disseminating solid information to the Jane Austen online fandom is one of the main reasons we created AustenBlog, so it is truly annoying to see the rumors continue (though we suspect most of them come from outside the Jane Austen fandom). One of the main rumors, which we get hits on DAILY here at AustenBlog and which was flatly denied by our contact, is that Samantha Bloom is in the film. It’s a persistent rumor. Maybe she has a very small part or is an extra. We only know that we were told that she is not in the film.

EDIT, 4 Feb. 2005: We received word that Samantha Bloom is indeed in the film, as “The Rosings Governess,” we presume to mean as Miss DeBourgh’s companion.