Deep in the heart of Texas, a galaxy's worth of stars are taking up residence. Join this one for a tour of the capital city hot spots.
Deep in the heart of Texas, a galaxy's worth of stars are taking up residence. Join this one for a tour of the capital city hot spots.

Madeleine Stowe has a fantasy about her newly acquired fiddle: "To go into one of the clubs in Austin and play backup," she says. "Wouldn't that be something, to walk into the Broken Spoke and play with Don Walser? I would love to have the ability to just riff. That would be the greatest." Don't count her out. The half-Costa Rican actress from Los Angeles already presides over her own working Texas cattle ranch between Austin and Fredericksburg, where she lives with her husband, Brian Benben, an upstate-New York-bred actor, and their 4-year-old daughter May. Conquering the fiddle is just another goal for this actress who handles Texas steers while starring in Hollywood films. Stowe attended UCLA to study journalism, but switched to acting after working as a volunteer in a Beverly Hills theater. First, she tried made-for-TV movies, then major motion pictures. She broke out of the pack in Stakeout, burning up the screen as a sexy temptress observed from afar by detective Richard Dreyfuss. She also starred with Jack Nicholson in The Two Jakes, with Kevin Costner in Revenge, with Daniel Day-Lewis in The Last of the Mohicans, with Brad Pitt in 12 Monkeys, and with John Travolta in The General's Daughter. This month, she stars with Gary Sinise in Imposter, a futuristic film about a war between two planets. But she remains firmly planted deep in the heart of Texas. Here's a weekend in and around Austin with Madeleine Stowe.
FRIDAY
LODING