Wednesday, May 14, 2008 **** It looks like Beyonce's not the only star whose mom has an eye for fashion. While Tina Knowles is famous for designing her daughter's costumes, actress Jennifer Ehle credits her mother with her finished look for the movie "Before the Rains," which opens Friday. The romantic drama, set in 1937, takes place in India just as the sun was setting on the British Empire. Ehle, who plays a betrayed colonial wife, had a special connection to the country. "What intrigued me was that my grandmother was in India just before this time. My grandfather was in the RAF (the Royal Air Force) and my mother actually spent her first six years in India." Ehle's mother is the award-winning Rosemary Harris, best known to audiences today as Spider-Man's Aunt May Parker. Harris joined her daughter, son-in-law Michael Ryan and 4-year-old grandson, George, on location. "It was the first time that she'd been back to India since she was 6. So it was very exciting, and since I never knew my grandmother it was wonderful to be able to ask my mother questions." Ehle, 38, had been given costume sketches that looked like proper dress for London ladies, not colonial wives in a steamy climate. So Ehle asked her mother what her grandmother wore then. Harris drew "A little picture of the dresses that used to be made by Indian tailors for the British women there. These were dresses that had to laundered." One picture stood out. Her mother described the fabric in detail, then Ehle photographed it and e-mailed the sketch to her producer. "When I arrived there were these three dresses that were made of the exact fabric that my grandmother's dresses used to be made from. It's still the fabric that they would use. So those are the dresses that I wear in the film." **** http://news.bostonherald.com/entertainment/movies/general/view.bg?articleid=1093814&srvc=home&position=recent Also see: http://www.eastbayexpress.com/movies/just_passing_through/Content?oid=726336 ----- Harshawardhan_Bosham Nimkhedkar Nagpur, India