The Maryland guy who campaigned for U.S. Senate two years ago wearing a white Colonial-style periwig has found another venue for offbeat political expression.
Daniel "The Wig Man" Vovak is making a movie: The Blue Dress, A Comedy About Bill & Monica.
I had no trouble taking Vovak seriously as a Senate candidate. (He ran against Michael Steele in the GOP primary.) But I'll confess to having doubts about his fitness for movie-making, even though he made some funny campaign videos, including one that showed his wig getting fluffed and sprayed to the strains of Vivaldi.
But Vovak has made some headway with folks in the movie biz, like the Greater Philadelphia Film Office, which lists a casting call for The Blue Dress on its Web site. When the office holds its annual party this weekend for those shooting movies in Philly, Vovak will be there.
"I just ordered a new wig for this event," he said.
Why is he doing casting and filming in Philly?
"I don't want the movie to have a tone of politics because there's not a single political statement in the movie."
One part has already been cast: Paula Jones will play herself.
The former Arkansas state employee who claimed that in 1991, then-Gov. Bill Clinton propositioned her by pulling down his pants, will accompany Vovak to the Philly film shindig.
I thought Vovak was pulling my leg about Jones, but Kirby Middleton, Jones' Dallas-based agent, confirmed that she has agreed to appear in the movie and that she will fly in from Arkansas, where she works as a real estate agent, for the Philadelphia event.
"We haven't signed any contracts," Middleton said. "She's verbally agreed to do it."
Middleton said Jones, who settled her lawsuit against Clinton in November 1998 for $850,000 but lost most of that to legal fees, has pretty much put her encounter with the former president's distinguishing characteristics behind her. But Vovak's movie project appealed to her.
"She's not trying to capitalize on this stuff," Middleton said. "Paula's kind of like, 'I want to be a mom and a wife, and I really don't want to get involved in a bunch of stuff. But at the same time, when something like this comes along, I think, why not?' "
That, and Jones thought that Vovak seemed like an OK guy. Of course, this is a gal who agreed to meet Bill Clinton in a hotel room, so is she a great judge of character?
