Vinessa Shaw at Thanksgiving time. She then landed parts in a handful of television roles. She played a considerably large role in Disney's 1993 Halloween family film "Hocus Pocus" alongside Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker, Kathy Najimy, Omri Katz, and a young Thora Birch. Shaw completed roles in various independent films for the remainder of the 1990s. In 1998, she enrolled at Barnard College in New York City, but dropped out to continue pursuing acting. Shaw was attending the college when she was approached by Stanley Kubrick for her role in "Eyes Wide Shut", playing an HIV-positive prostitute who is encountered by
Bette Midler was released. It reached number 66 on the U.S. "Billboard" 200 chart, and number six in the United Kingdom, where it was certified platinum for sales of over 300,000 copies. As her only film appearance that year, Midler had a small role in Diane English's comedy film "The Women", starring Meg Ryan, Annette Bening and Eva Mendes among others. An updated version of the George Cukor-directed 1939 film of the same name based on a 1936 play by Clare Boothe Luce, the film was widely panned by critics, who found it "...a toothless remake of the 1939 classic, lacking the