The Surprising Tie Between Ally and Pocahontas

What do Ally McBeal and Pocahontas have in common? Would you believe bulimia? Calista Flockhart, who plays the lithe lawyer, and Broadway baby Judy Kuhn, the singing voice of Pocahontas, costarred in the 1993 HBO family special The Secret Life of Mary-Margaret: Portrait of a Bulimic.

"I run into Calista every now and then," Kuhn tells Dish, "but we don't keep in touch. We had fun, though. It was such a little project at the time, but people still come up to me and say, 'Judy, did I see you in something about bulimia on HBO?' So I'm sure people stop Calista and ask her about it." (Ironically, right after Kuhn filmed Mary-Margaret, she appeared in the Broadway musical She Loves Me, playing a heroine who binges on vanilla ice cream.)

In Mary-Margaret, Kuhn plays an advanced bulimic who is a bad influence on college roommate Flockhart, who is trying to recover from her eating disorder. The material is a far cry from Ally's comedic angst and Kuhn's myriad Broadway roles, and Kuhn stresses she doesn't look for heavy roles. "There are issues in everything, whether they're emotional, personal or political, so I can't say that I set out to do 'issues-oriented' projects," she says.

Kuhn is currently lending her voice to the Walt Disney Home Video Pocahontas II: Journey to a New World, scheduled to hit stores tomorrow. "Pocahontas is a great heroine for our time," Kuhn adds. "She saves the day and doesn't wait for the knight in shining armor to rescue her, and she still gets the guy!"

Since Pocahontas spawned a sequel, should viewers expect to see Mary-Margaret II? Well, Kuhn's character dies in the first flick, but maybe Flockhart could be persuaded to re-up. — Jonathan Reiner