Sunday, June 20, 2010

Happy Birthday Olympia Dukakis

I first remember seeing her in 1987's Moonstruck, playing the quintessential Italian Mama Rose Castorini* to angsty, surprisingly** goth-like daughter Loretta, played by Cher***...

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at PhotobucketTwo years later, it was her tartly angelic Clairee Belcher in Steel Magnolias - a role also played on stage by the likes of Kate Wilkinson, Stephanie Cole, and Frances Sternhagen, but preserved by her as the performance of record thanks to the magic of film - that touched my heart...

The apex of fabulous, though, was her evocation of Anna Madrigal, a fictional character so lovingly drawn by author Armistead Maupin that she often seems real - and yet just one of the star turns in the Tales of the City saga...

In other words: pop culture hat trick!

*
For which she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.
**Or not, depending on how much you know about Cher...

***For which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress.
*

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