The Ascension of Mark Wahlberg
Amid an elite ensemble in 'The Departed,' Oscar nominee Mark Wahlberg lit up the screen. Now the former street tough treks back to Boston to reflect on his life, then and now.
By Holly Millea
Beautiful, ethereal, childlike, the sunny yellow outline of a smiling girl floats dreamily against a sky blue background. Here and there, brilliant oils thin and thicken on the canvas. Up close, you can see the hair strokes of the brush Chagall held while creating this little masterpiece, "Portrait of Elise B. Goulandris." Normally, a guard would ask you to "step back, please." But the only one watching is a chubby, multicolored Chihuahua named Bogey who is parked in the sunlight streaming across the Egyptian silk rug. He yawns.
The Mediterranean manse near the top of Benedict Canyon sits so secluded you can be smack in front of it and still have to call for directions. That's when the Jamaican-accented assistant on the other end of the cell phone appears and waves a weary arm, saving another lost soul searching for Mark Wahlberg. His kind features framed in shoulder-length dreads, Russell Culpepper leads you with a lackadaisical grace into the house, motioning to a chair in the entryway. "Sit and wait here." But the painting — seductive in its innocence or innocently seductive — had pulled you further in. "All colors," Chagall said, "are the friends of their neighbors and the lovers of their opposites."
"Hey!" Wahlberg says, entering the living room. "Come in! I want you to meet Rhea and the kids. Can I get you something to drink first?" He walks toward the vast kitchen and pulls two bottles of water from the refrigerator. Heading downstairs, Wahlberg points out different areas of the house. Over there is his office, where the walls are decorated with framed candids of the 35-year-old actor with his favorite directors — Scott Kalvert (The Basketball Diaries), James Foley (Fear), P.T. Anderson (Boogie Nights), David O. Russell (Three Kings), Martin Scorsese (The Departed) — and with former presidents Bill Clinton and George Bush, both taken at the White House. Just outside is his putting green with two sand traps. And the pool and the gym house and the home he built for just his mother, Alma. She earned it. Like Chagall's mother, she gave birth to nine children. Mark's her baby.
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Martin Sheen and Wahlberg in The Departed
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