Ian McElhinney (born 1948) is a Northern Irish actor. He has a long list of TV and film credits, including roles in Hornblower, Cold Feet, Queer as Folk and The Tudors.
Some of the actors on the TV series prefer to learn about the story through the script, one season at a time. For exampleJulian Glover, who plays Pycelle, has made it a point in his career that when he is filming literary adaptations, it is the task of the writers to translate the story from page to screen, and he doesn’t want to second guess them. In contrast, Ian McElhinney has thoroughly read through the book series and is quite familiar with its internal history – which is entirely fitting, given that Ser Barristan is one of the older characters in the story and spent over forty years at the royal court, and personally experienced many of the major political events of the past half-century. For example when Barristan is recalling Daenerys’s dead older brother Rhaegar Targaryen (in Season 3 episode 3 “Walk of Punishment“), “Rhaegar” was more than just a name to McElhinney: he knew from the books just how well Barristan knew Prince Rhaegar, and how earnestly reverent he was of the man. He is married to playwright Marie Jones.
The above “Games of Thrones” Wiki article can be accessed online here.
Rugged, hirsutely handsome Corbin Bernsen blazed to TV stardom in 1986 on L.A. Law(1986) as opportunistic divorce lawyer “Arnie Becker”, whose blond and brash good looks, impish grin and aggressive courting style proved a wild sex magnet to not only the beautiful female clients desirous of his “services”, but his own lovelorn secretary who frequently bailed him out of trouble. Bernsen invested the Becker character with a likable “bad boy” charm that made him a favorite among the tight ensemble for eight solid seasons. In the process, he earned multiple Emmy and Golden Globe nominations. He also proved the role was no flash-in-the-pan or dead-end stereotype, maintaining a steady career over the course of three decades now with no signs of let up. Moreover, his deep love for acting and intent devotion to his career recently impelled him to climb into the producer/director’s chair.
Born in North Hollywood, California, on September 7, 1954, Corbin was raised around the glitz of the entertainment business. The eldest of three children born to 70s film/TV producer Harry Bernsen and veteran grande dame soap star Jeanne Cooper (the couple divorced in 1977), he graduated from Beverly Hills High School and attended UCLA with the intention of pursuing law. Instead, he went on to receive a BFA in Theatre Arts and MFA in Playwriting. He worked on the Equity-waiver L.A. stage circuit as both actor and set designer, making his film debut as a bit player in his father’s picture Three the Hard Way (1974). Appearing unobtrusively in a couple of other films, he set his sights on New York in the late 70s. During his salad days, he eeked out a living as a carpenter and roofer while sidelining as a model. His first big break came in 1983 with the role of “Ken Graham” on daytime’s Ryan’s Hope (1975). During this time, he also met and married TV costumer designer Brenda Cooper, who later worked on The Nanny (1993) sitcom. They divorced four years later. This break led to an exclusive deal by NBC and eventually the TV role of a lifetime. The perks of his newly-found stardom on L.A. Law (1986) included a hosting stint on Saturday Night Live (1975) and the covers of numerous major magazines. Wasting no time, he parlayed his sudden small screen success into a major movie career, usually playing charmingly unsympathetic characters. He co-starred asShelley Long‘s egotistical husband in the lightweight reincarnation comedy Hello Again(1987); played an equally vain Hollywood star in the musical comedy Bert Rigby, You’re a Fool (1989); and starred as a disorganized ringleader of a band of crooks in the bank caper Disorganized Crime (1989). He capped the 1980s decade opposite Charlie Sheenand Tom Berenger in the box office hit Major League (1989), which took advantage of his natural athleticism, playing ballplayer-cum-owner “Roger Dorn”. Two sequels followed.
Corbin’s career has merrily rolled along ever since – active in lowbudgets as well as pricier film fare portraying both anti-heroes and villains. On the TV homefront, he has appeared in a slew of mini-movie vehicles, including Line of Fire: The Morris Dees Story(1991) as the famed civil rights attorney, and has ventured on in an assortment film genres – the mystery thriller Shattered (1991), which re-teamed him with Tom Berenger; the romantic comedy Frozen Assets (1992), again with Shelley Long; the war horror taleGrey Knight (1993); the slapstick farce Radioland Murders (1994); the melodramatic An American Affair (1997), and the fantasy adventure Beings (2002). Topping it off, Corbin’s title role in the expert thriller The Dentist (1996) had audiences excogitating a similar paranoia of tooth doctors as Anthony Perkins had decades before with motel clerks. As spurned husband-turned-crazed ivory hunter “Dr. Alan Feinstone”, Corbin reached cult horror status. The movie spawned a sequel in which he also served as associate producer.
Into the millennium, Corbin returned to his daytime roots with a recurring role on motherJeanne Cooper‘s popular serial The Young and the Restless (1973), and is currently seen as “John Durant” on General Hospital (1963), a role he’s played since 2004. A game and excitable player on reality shows, he added immeasurable fun to the “Celebrity Mole” series, and has enjoyed recurring roles on the more current and trendy The West Wing(1999), JAG (1995), Cuts (2005) and Psych (2006).
Of late, Corbin has decided to tackle the business end of show biz. In 2004, he formed Public Media Works, a film/TV production company in order to exert more creative control over his projects. On top of the list is the loopy film comedy Carpool Guy (2005), which he directed, produced and co-starred in. It features more than 10 of the currently reigning soap opera stars, including a wildly eccentric Anthony Geary in the title role, and, of course, his irrepressible real-life mom, Jeanne Cooper.
Obviously, his errant on-camera antics does not reflect a similar personal lifestyle for Corbin as he has been happily married (since 1988) to lovely British actress Amanda Pays. They have appeared together in the sci-fi film Spacejacked (1997) and the TV-movies Dead on the Money (1991) and The Santa Trap (2002), among others. The couple have four children, including twin boys. Just a few years ago, they relocated to Los Angeles after living in England for some time. In between, he still shows off as a master carpenter at home and continues to dabble in writing. Perseverance and dedication has played a large part in the acting success of Corbin Bernsen. Gleaning a savvy, take-charge approach hasn’t hurt either — characteristics worthy of many of the sharpies he’s played on screen.
– IMDb Mini Biography By: Gary Brumburgh / gr-home@pacbell.net
Corbin Bernsen stars as Henry Spencer in the sixth season of the USA Network original series PSYCH, also starring James Roday and Dule Hill.
Bernsen is also forging ahead as a prolific writer, producer and director, creating films for his Home Theater Films production and distribution banner.
As an actor, Bernsen recently completed a role as actress Rebecca Hall’s father in the indie comedy Lay The Favorite starring Bruce Willis, Vince Vaughn and Catherine Zeta Jones, directed by Stephen Frears. He also appears in the comedy The Big Year, directed by David Frankel for Fox 2000, starring Owen Wilson, Jack Black and Steve Martin.
For his Home Theater Films distribution banner, Bernsen recently completed writing, producing, directing and starring in the All-American Soap Box Derby film, 25 Hill which also stars Nathan Gamble (Dolphin Tale), Rolonda Watts (Days of Our Lives), Bailee Madison (Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark), Tim Omundson (Psych, Mission Impossible III), Maureen Flannigan (7th Heaven, A Day Without A Mexican), Ralph Waite (The Bodyguard), Meg Foster (They Live) and Michael Tucker (LA Law, D2: The Mighty Ducks) which he shot on location in Akron, Ohio.
Bernsen also just completed starring, writing and directing Barlowe Mann, an inspirational family drama. The film is a co-production between Home Theater Films and the small town of Provost, Alberta, Canada (Population: 2000) which helped finance the film, which stars Bernsen, Nathan Gamble (Dolphin Tale, Batman Returns), Dendrie Taylor (The Fighter ) and Bruce Davison (X-Men).
Previously, Bernsen starred in, wrote, produced and directed the drama Rust, for his production company in which Bernsen plays a minister who returns to his hometown to make sense of the aftermath of a local tragedy. The film, shot in the small town of Kipling, Canada, was released by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment in October 2010. Bernsen earned his Master’s in Playwriting from UCLA’s Theater Arts Department, later receiving a Drama-Logue Award for his scenic design of the Pilot Theater production of American Buffalo. After moving to New York and appearing in the off-Broadway production of Lone Star and a touring company of Plaza Suite, he became a regular for two years on the daytime drama Ryan’s Hope.
Roles in Blake Edwards’ S.O.B., King Kong and Eat My Dust, in addition to guest starring credits on a number of episodic mainstays, prompted an exclusive deal with NBC, which led to his role as Arnie Becker, the shrewd and handsome divorce attorney on the long-running L.A. Law series.
L.A. Law catapulted Bernsen to overnight stardom. During the late 80’s and early 90’s, he appeared on over 50 magazine covers and earned both Emmy and Golden Globe nominations, hosted Saturday Night Live, and appeared on Seinfeld and The Larry Sanders Show. In the feature film arena, he starred in the motion picture comedy Hello Again, followed by other critically acclaimed roles in Disorganized Crime, Wolfgang Peterson’s Shattered, and as Cleveland Indians third baseman-turned-owner Roger Dorn in the extremely popular Major League series of films. Other film credits include Tales From the Hood and Great White Hype and he starred opposite Robert Downey Jr. and Val Kilmer in the Warner Brothers feature Kiss, Kiss Bang Bang, written and directed by Shane Black (“Lethal Weapon”).
Bernsen has also starred in an impressive string of films for television including the romance western Love Comes Softly for The Hallmark Channel with Katherine Heigl, Right To Die, a film in the Showtime series Masters Of Horror; Line of Fire: The Morris Dees Story, in which he portrayed the role of civil rights lawyer Morris Dees; and Love Can Be Murder, as a gumshoe ghost in the lighthearted NBC mystery romance with Jaclyn Smith. Other telefilm roles include Full Circle, Riddler’s Moon, The Dentist, The Dentist II, Two of Hearts and USA Network’s Call Me: The Rise and Fall of Heidi Fleiss. guest star roles on the primetime series Law And Order: Criminal Intent, NYPD Blue, West Wing, Boston Legal, The New Adventures Of Old Christine, Criminal Minds and Castle.
In addition to his acting, producing, writing and directing chores, Corbin has one of the largest snow globe collections in the world, in excess of over 8000, which he keeps displayed at his production company.
The eldest of three children, Bernsen was born in North Hollywood to a producer father and his mother, actress Jeanne Cooper who has starred as Katherine Chancellor on the CBS soap The Young And The Restless for over 38 years who he continues to draw inspiration from.
Bernsen makes his home in Los Angeles with his wife, actress Amanda Pays and their four sons.
– IMDb Mini Biography By: Charles Sherman
The above IMDB entry can also be accessed online here.
Richard Coyle was born in 1972 in Sheffield to Irish parents. In 1998 he was featured with Patricia Routledge in “Hetty Wainthorp Investigates”. His movies include “Human Traffic”, “Young Blades” and “Happy Now”.
It was surely in the stars that Natasha Richardson, who has died aged 45 after suffering head injuries in a skiing accident near Montreal, would become a member of the theatrical profession. The daughter of the actorVanessa Redgrave and the director-producer Tony Richardson, she was among the third generation of a family steeped in the performing arts, her maternal grandparents being the actors Sir Michael Redgrave and Rachel Kempson.
But while she remained close to her family, it was at the professional distance of her choosing: she settled in New York, took US citizenship, deployed a flawless American accent as necessary, and enjoyed her finest cinematic moment as the kidnapped California media heiress Patty Hearst.
Natasha’s career in film started at the age of four, when she and her younger sister, Joely, figured as extras in their father’s film The Charge of the Light Brigade. Joely also went on to a successful acting career, as did their cousin Jemma, daughter of the actor Corin Redgrave, in recent years an admired King Lear.
Born in London, Natasha studied at the Lycée Français and St Paul’s girls school, Hammersmith. Her parents divorced when she was three. Her mother was much involved in campaigning for the Workers Revolutionary party and fundraising for refugees, and to see their father the two girls went to France and California. Natasha felt strongly loved and supported by both parents, but grew up fast: when she came to have her own children, she was keen for them to have a rather more orderly upbringing.
A determined teenager, she decided to take a hold on her future by leaving St Paul’s at 16, so that she could take her A-levels in one year rather than two. When she auditioned at the Central School of Speech and Drama, London, she kept quiet about being a Redgrave.
However, she soon gained a reputation in her own right in the theatre, in particular from a 1985 staging of Chekhov’s The Seagull alongside her mother.
Natasha’s first film role was in the low-budget Every Picture Tells a Story (1984), and two years later she reached a wider audience in the guise of Mary Shelley as perceived by Ken Russell in his extravagant Gothic. This was a gruelling experience in which she was at one point required to be covered from head to foot in spinach as a practical substitute for primeval slime. On location, made up with huge dark circles under her eyes, she cheerfully confided to me: “I’d probably look a lot worse if I had really been through all this.”
Her next screen appearance was in distinct contrast, as the wife of a rural Yorkshire clergyman in A Month in the Country (1987), an adaptation of JL Carr’s novel. Although the film was set in the 1920s, Richardson imported an almost pre-Raphaelite quality of the ethereal.
Ordeal, however, was again the keynote of her next film, which marked her arrival in international cinema with the title role in Paul Schrader’s Patty Hearst (1988). This was a dramatisation of near-expressionist intensity of how William Randolph Hearst’s granddaughter was kidnapped by, and then became an adherent of, the Symbionese Liberation Army. The film inevitably rested to a considerable degree on the quality of its central performance: this was a tour de force, making it all the sadder that its harrowing quality denied the film acceptance by a wide audience.
In Shadow Makers (1989), Richardson took the less central but elegiac role of the suicidal lover of the US nuclear physicist and father of the atom bomb Robert Oppenheimer. Then she was reunited with Schrader for a film in a very different register, The Comfort of Strangers (1990). Derived from Ian McEwan’s novel and set in Venice, it is a chilly chamber drama, with Richardson conveying suitable presence as one half of an English couple caught up in a strange erotic imbroglio.
This film, and the screen version of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (1990), may have had an art-house stamp, but in the US, where she went to live in the early 1990s, Richardson was seen by a larger television audience. This came about through two acclaimed 1993 TV films, in roles of a matchingly febrile kind, as the victimised heroine of Tennessee Williams’s Suddenly Last Summer and as Zelda Fitzgerald, disturbed wife of the novelist F Scott Fitzgerald, in Zelda.
From her early 20s, Richardson had been the partner of Robert Fox, a theatre and film producer 11 years older than her, and she took charge of his three children. Fox also came from a theatre family, as the younger brother of Edward and James. They married in 1990.
The following year, her father Tony died of an HIV-related illness, and Natasha invited the Irish actor Liam Neeson to co-star with her in a much-lauded Broadway revival of Eugene O’Neill’s Anna Christie. In 1994, Richardson and Fox were divorced, and Neeson, also 11 years her senior, became her second husband. That year, too, they appeared together on screen in the psychological melodrama Nell.
In 1995, she ventured into the more lighthearted, and commercially safer, reaches of family comedy by acting in the Disney remake of The Parent Trap, achieving the feat of not being upstaged in what is essentially a vehicle for a juvenile performer, with Lindsay Lohan in the role that in 1961 had been taken by Hayley Mills. Richardson revisited the territory of glossy comedy to engaging effect with Jennifer Lopez in Maid in Manhattan (2002).
By this time, Richardson had already expended considerable effort on trying to get Asylum, Patrick McGrath’s novel about events in a psychiatric hospital modelled on Broadmoor in the 1950s, translated to the cinema screen. When the project was finally realised, in 2005, it provided her with the sexually charged role of a neglected psychiatrist’s wife who starts an affair with one of her husband’s patients, incarcerated for beheading his former wife.
The same year saw The White Countess, the final collaboration by producer Ismail Merchant and director James Ivory – Merchant died during production – exchanging the British in India for displaced Russian aristocrats in the Shanghai of 1936. Richardson took the title role of Countess Sofiya Belinskaya, still glamorous despite her straitened circumstances. For only the second time in her career, she joined her mother and aunt Lynn, with Ralph Fiennes playing a US diplomat in an oblique screenplay by Kazuo Ishiguro.
Despite a strong lineup of female stars including Richardson, with the central figure played by Claire Danes in youth and Vanessa Redgrave 50 years later, Evening (2007) made little impact. Richardson’s last film appearance came as the English headteacher with the task of instilling a sense of proper, old-world discipline into exiled American schoolgirl Emma Roberts in the teen comedy Wild Child (2008).
Stage work continued to be important to Richardson. Her repertoire of strong characters continued with Ibsen’s obsessive Ellida Wangel, The Lady from the Sea, reopening the Almeida Theatre, north London, in 2003, and on Broadway with Blanche DuBois in Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire two years later. Her range was considerable: in 1998, she won a Tony award for her playing of Sally Bowles in a new Broadway production of the musical Cabaret, and at the time of her death was preparing to co-star with her mother in a Broadway revival of Stephen Sondheim’s A Little Night Music.
While that link persisted – Richardson’s first childhood appearance in The Charge of the Light Brigade had been as Vanessa’s bridesmaid – there is every reason to suppose that she would have continued to demonstrate her versatility in the years ahead.
She is survived by her husband Liam Neeson, their two sons, Micheál and Daniel, her mother Vanessa and the other acting Redgraves of their two generations.
Natasha Jane Richardson, actor, born 11 May 1963; died 18 March 2009
• This article was amended on Saturday 28 March 2009. In the obituary of Natasha Richardson above we said she gained a reputation in the theatre from a performance alongside her mother and aunt in Chekhov’s Three Sisters in 1985. She appeared with her mother in Chekhov’s The Seagull that year. Vanessa and Lynn Redgrave appeared with their niece Jemma Redgrave in Three Sisters in 1990. This has been corrected.
The above “Guardian” obituary can also be accessed online here.
Lynn Farleigh was born in 1942 in Bristol. She featured in two very popular TV series “Bill Brand” in 1976 and “Wycliffe”in 1996. Her movies include “The Ice House” in 1997 and “Blind Flight” in 2003.
It is terrific to see Meryl Streep in her 60’s in major leading roles. She has starred in leading roles since the 1970’s. She was born in 1949 in New Jersey. She began her career on the NY stage and acted with Joseph Papps Theatre. Her film debut was in 1977 in “Julia” with Jane Fonda and Vanessa Redgrave. Her films include “The Deer Hunter” in 1978 with Robert De Niro and Christopher Walken, “Kramer Verus Kramer” with Dustin Hoffman, “Manhattan” with Woody Allen, “The French Lieutenant’s Woman” with Jeremy Irons, “Ironweed” with Jack Nicholson,”Silkwood”, “Out of Africa” with Robert Redford, “Mamma Mia” with Pierce Brosnan and “The Iron Lady”.
TCM overview:
Meryl Streep began her acting career with a level of worship typically reserved for seasoned veterans. From her early work in “The Deer Hunter” (1978) and “Kramer vs. Kramer” (1979), it quickly became apparent to the sharpest of critics – even the most casual of moviegoers – that the chameleon-like Streep was an unparalleled master of character, accents and genres. The benchmark was set for every working actress with Streep’s work as a Polish Nazi camp survivor, damaged by the unthinkable decision she was once forced to make in her Oscar-winning performance in “Sophie’s Choice” (1982). Through “Silkwood” (1983), “Out of Africa” (1985) and “A Cry in the Dark” (1988) Streep continued to set a standard few could hope to achieve, primarily with her mastery of accents that included Polish, Danish and Australian, among others. After her peak in the early 1980s, the multi-Oscar winner spent the subsequent decades maintaining her brilliance, showcasing yet another of her talents – singing competently – in “Postcards from the Edge” (1990) and “Mamma Mia” (2008), capturing the aching desire of an aging woman in “The Bridges of Madison County” (1995), and proving she could draw laughter as well as tears in “The Devil Wears Prada (2006). Simply put, Streep could do it all, and generations of actresses coming up behind her often cited her work as the reason they pursued the craft in the first place.
Mary Louise Streep was born on June 22, 1949 in Summit, NJ and raised in Bernardsville, the oldest sibling ahead of two older brothers, Harry and Dana. Her mother was a commercial artist; her father, an executive at a pharmaceutical company. Streep was extremely serious about music as a child, taking opera singing lessons from renowned coach, Estelle Liebling. By high school, shedding her braces and bespectacled appearance, she willed herself into a dynamic, blonde-haired social butterfly, cheerleading and swimming on the Bernards High School squads and ultimately becoming its homecoming queen. Her mother devised the shortened version of her name, and “Meryl” was christened. Streep also took acting classes in school, which became the dominant interest, leading her to Vassar College and an exchange program for one semester of playwriting and set design at Dartmouth. After earning her acting degree at Vassar in 1971, she headed to the prestigious Yale School of Drama, where her classmates and friends included actress Sigourney Weaver and playwright Wendy Wasserstein. Streep performed in over 40 plays, including “The Father” with Rip Torn, before obtaining her master’s degree in 1975.
Right out of Vassar, Streep had hit the New York stage and made her professional stage debut with “The Playboy of Seville” in 1971, with her Broadway debut coming years later at Lincoln Center in 1975, just out of Yale with “Trelawney of the Wells,” directed by Joseph Papp as part of the New York Shakespeare Festival. Streep would return over the coming few years to the festival to appear in several plays, including Shakespeare works like “Henry V,” “Measure for Measure” and “The Taming of the Shrew,” but in 1976, earned a Tony Award nomination for Tennessee Williams’ “27 Wagons Full of Cotton,” which she had doubled up alongside Arthur Miller’s “A Memory of Two Mondays.” Streep edged into both television and film by 1977, earning the media’s top honors after only a couple of projects under her belt. She burst onto television screens with CBS’ “The Deadliest Season” (1977) as the wife of a hockey player accused of murdering another player during game play. That year, she also made waves in her feature film debut, “Julia,” starring as the high society friend of Jane Fonda’s Lillian Hellman. Streep was considered for the title character, a WWII resistance member, but her lack of recognition led director Fred Zinnemann to cast Vanessa Redgrave instead.
Streep remained in the World War II period, starring opposite James Woods as Inga, a well-to-do German woman attempting to save her Jewish husband from the Nazi concentration camps in the epic NBC miniseries “Holocaust” (1978), for which she won a leading actress Emmy. Streep’s capacity for playing characters of exceptional depth already seemed vast as she closed the year in another big screen period piece, giving a tour de force performance as Linda, the wife of a Vietnam War soldier forced to cope with the war’s devastating effects and toll on her husband in Michael Cimino’s “The Deer Hunter” (1978). Streep had entered into her first serious romance with the film’s co-star, John Cazale, but was soon living in a hospital room, forced to watch bedside as he slowly succumbed to bone cancer. Six months later, she met a Yale-bred sculptor named Donald Gummer, who was asked by Streep’s brother, Harry to do some work on her Manhattan loft. The two became roommates and then fell in love, marrying in September of 1978.
After Tony and Emmy wins and just shy of her 30th birthday, Streep solidified her early reign over stage and screen with a supporting actress Oscar nomination for the five-time Oscar-winning “Deer Hunter.” Streep’s nod came on the heels of a small, but pivotal role opposite Woody Allen in his sweetly comical “Manhattan” (1979), with her character Jill, as Allen’s former wife, now living with a woman and writing a tell-all book about their love life. Heading into a new chapter of career and life, she was cultivating an audience of fans eager to watch the rising young star’s increasingly staggering command of craft. She wrapped up the decade with Robert Benton’s adaptation of “Kramer vs. Kramer” (1979). Streep won raves opposite Dustin Hoffman, as Joanna Kramer, an unhappy woman who leaves her husband and son, only to return to claim the child in a messy divorce case. Streep’s real life was quite the opposite, as she and Gummer blissfully welcomed a son, Henry, into the fold, with the couple vacating New York to raise their family in northern Connecticut.
At turns sympathetic and icy, Streep’s role in “Kramer” won her an Academy Award in 1980, and the film made winners out of Hoffman, Benton and a nominee out of eight-year-old Justin Henry. Her reputation for immersing herself in character and accents served her well as she donned an impeccable English accent to play both a modern actress and a destitute Victorian woman engaged in parallel love affairs in the Harold Pinter-adapted movie-in-a-movie, “The French Lieutenant’s Woman” (1981), bringing her back for a third Oscar nomination. Then came the part by which all others would be measured. Easing flawlessly into a Polish accent with “Sophie’s Choice” (1982), Streep played Sophie Zawistowski, a Brooklyn-based concentration camp survivor living with her schizophrenic lover whose past, as told to their neighbor, reveals her torment from an unthinkable, life-changing decision. Streep’s seamless technique made for one of cinema’s finest and most heartbreaking performances, garnering her a well-earned second Oscar in 1983, a prize rivaled only by that year’s birth of her first daughter, Mary Willa.
She continued to seek out characters with dramatic urgency, and Streep’s instincts proved to be rock solid, as evidenced in “Silkwood” (1983), an account of the doomed, feisty real-life factory whistleblower Karen Silkwood, which netted her another Oscar nomination. Streep lightened things up with the sentimental drama “Falling in Love” (1984), re-teaming with Robert De Niro in a tale of attraction between two modern-day married people, before returning to her trademark sweeping films with Sydney Pollack’s “Out of Africa” (1985). In the grand epic, she gave yet another Oscar-nominated turn as Karen Blixen, a Danish plantation owner embarking on a love affair with a hunter, Denys Finch Hatton (Robert Redford), amidst an unhappy politically motivated marriage. Following “Africa,” Streep and Gummer took time out to add to their family with a second daughter, Grace.
Looking to reach outside the dramatic confines of her career thus far, Streep inserted a touch of humor into her work with Nora Ephron’s fictionalized account of her failed marriage to Washington reporter Carl Bernstein, trading both loving glances and daggers with Hollywood’s requisite rogue charmer, Jack Nicholson, in “Heartburn” (1986). She and Nicholson played a more desperate pair in their follow-up together, “Ironweed” (1987), a former singer and major league ball player living drink-fueled homeless existences in depression-era America, which brought them both Oscar nominations in 1988. Expertly donning an Australian accent, she also went on to add yet another nomination to her impressive count with that year’s “A Cry in the Dark” (1988), which focused on the country’s infamous Lindy Chamberlain case. In the film, the black-wigged Streep played the pariah Chamberlain, who was accused of coldly murdering her baby despite her insistence that it was eaten by a dingo during a camping trip.
Amazingly, “Silkwood,” “Out of Africa,” “Ironweed” and “A Cry in the Dark” brought her an astounding four Oscar nominations in only five years, for a total of eight. Whatever the roles required and in whichever time or place they required her to be, Streep seemed capable of always finding the center. Still, when it came to comedy, despite inching closer, the weight of her dramatic work was often a liability toward her entry into other genres she was eager to tackle. As the 1980s came to a close, Streep started off her forties intent on indulging those interests. She got off to a rocky start with the ill-fitting “She-Devil” (1989), a dismal comedy vehicle for budding TV star Roseanne Barr which cast Streep as an icy, pulp romance novelist stalked by Barr for the crime of husband theft. Streep found a more suitable vessel channeling novelist/screenwriter Carrie Fisher’s loosely-based life with real-life mom, actress Debbie Fisher, in Mike Nichols’ adaptation of her book “Postcards from the Edge” (1990). In the critical hit, Streep’s actress and recovering addict Suzanne Vale tries to rebuild a bridge to the world by moving in with her alcoholic former actress mother, deftly portrayed by Shirley MacLaine, who managed to steal the scenes from her younger co-star, except when Streep was called on to sing. Not only did she have peerless acting ability, it turned out that had she also possessed surprisingly good pipes, bringing down the house with the film’s finale number, “I’m Checking Out.”
By the time another Oscar nomination came around for “Postcards,” an almost glowing Streep had found her comic groove, signing on to help veteran comic filmmaker Albert Brooks find love in the white-robed hereafter with the charming fantasy “Defending Your Life” (1991). She and Gummer had recently relocated to Brentwood, CA for her work, where Streep gave birth to one more daughter, Louisa. She took one more pass at outrageous humor with “Death Becomes Her” (1992). After finishing up with the Robert Zemeckis comedy, a macabre outing about dueling, immortal Hollywood vixens, she tried her hand at action movies with 1994’s “The River Wild,” starring as a matriarch forced into protector mode on a dangerous rafting excursion. Streep also gave animation voiceovers a try that year, lending her voice to the role of Bart Simpson’s brief church-defying girlfriend on Fox’s “The Simpsons” (1989- ).
In 1995, Streep was back in Connecticut and returned to the hallmark dramas of her early days, appearing with Clint Eastwood in his adaptation of the popular Robert Waller novel “The Bridges of Madison County” (1995), a flashback story of a daydreaming, Iowa-based, Italian-born housewife Francesca and her brief, passionate love affair with the photographer sent to take pictures of her town’s famed bridges. Eastwood and Streep displayed a palpable chemistry, with the actor-director putting Streep’s Academy Award-nominated role center stage. She then reunited with De Niro and along with co-stars Hume Cronyn, Diane Keaton and Leonardo DiCaprio, opened the door to “Marvin’s Room” (1996), playing Lee, a single mother of two, attempting to reconcile with her estranged Leukemia-ridden sister while looking out for their sickly father, Marvin. After a long absence from television, she racked up an Emmy nomination for ABC’s ” First Do No Harm” (1997), a telefilm focusing on the true story of Lori Reimuller, who took on the stubborn healthcare and medical industry in order to get her epileptic son an alternative method of treatment.
Approaching 50 years of age, Streep still had a luminosity that shined through even as she took on the role of the sick patient herself, the cancer-stricken matriarch Kate Gulden of “One True Thing” (1998), based on Anna Quindlen’s book. The film gave Streep her eleventh Oscar nomination in 1999. Before the end of that year, she was back on screens in “Music of the Heart” (1999), earning her 12th Oscar nomination. Madonna eventually landed the role Streep badly wanted – that of Eva Peron in “Evita” (1996) – but this time, Streep replaced Madonna in “Music” and its account of the real Roberta Guaspari, an inspirational Harlem music teacher responsible for initiating a violin program for underprivileged students. Streep’s exacting preparation methods led her to practice the violin for six hours a day for two straight months. In 2001, Streep who had only intermittently returned to the stage since taking up films, appeared as Arkadina alongside her son Henry in Chekov’s “The Seagull” at both New York’s Delacorte and Public Theater, her first appearance since workshopping Wendy Wasserstein’s “An American Daughter” in Seattle back in 1996.
Over the years, Streep actively drew meaning to her life beyond the screen. She was as tireless with her charitable campaigns for children and adults as she was with acting and her family life. The actress often lent her name and time to assisting the efforts of organizations working on the issues of AIDS research, arts and literacy issues, poverty and human rights among others. Not one to merely grandstand, however, Streep co-founded an organization of her own in Connecticut called Mothers & Others in 1989 which educated parents about the dangerous of pesticides in foods. The organization led a fight against the use of Alar, a pesticide used on various common foods such as apples and helped spearhead several government mandates, including the 1996 Food Quality Protection Act regulating pesticides on food before ceasing to exist in 2001.
The holiday season of 2002 brought two unique films for Streep. She was playing Clarissa Vaughan, a woman unraveling in the “Mrs. Dalloway”-inspired world of Michael Cunningham’s “The Hours” at the same time she could be seen playing Susan Orlean, the real author of The Orchid Thief, in “Adaptation,” a film comically documenting idiosyncratic screenwriter Charlie Kaufman’s nightmarish real-life attempts to adapt Orlean’s book about orchid poaching. With her 13th Oscar nomination arriving in 2003 for “Adaptation,” she also netted her a second Emmy Award by disappearing into the roles of a ghost, a mother and an old, male rabbi in Mike Nichols’ miniseries version of Tony Kushner’s play about the AIDS crisis, HBO’s “Angels in America” (2003).
The breathing room in Streep’s later career stage was evident, and with much more room to branch out, she seemed more vivacious than ever. In the era of Hollywood remakes, Streep took charge in “The Manchurian Candidate” (2004) as the cunning and ruthless Eleanor Shaw, a woman of political influence masterminding her meek, war veteran son’s vice-presidential nomination. Under the disguise of heavy makeup, she took to a small role in the dark children’s fable “Lemony Snicket: A Series of Unfortunate Events” (2004), for which she provided some comic relief as Josephine Anwhistle, a grammar-conscious, obsessively protective aunt of two orphans. “Lemony Snicket” was met with a mixed reception, but Streep fared slightly better in the comedy “Prime” (2005), as a meddling Jewish therapist trying to navigate her son’s interfaith romance with a woman who just happens to be her patient.
Streep’s prominence as an ensemble player was further displayed in Robert Altman’s meditative swan song, “A Prairie Home Companion” (2006), a funny and somber account of the fictitious last show of Garrison Keillor’s long-running radio program. As Yolanda, one of the country-flavored Johnson Sisters along with co-star Lily Tomlin, Streep acted and served up her robust singing voice yet again. At the same time, Yolanda was as warm as Miranda Priestly, the career-driven fashion editor of “The Devil Wears Prada” (2006), was cold. Her record 14th Oscar nomination showed Streep could even be good by being bad. With a Golden Globe Award for the role as well, she now laid claim to a record six Globe wins. In 2007, Streep also celebrated her first onscreen teaming with her oldest daughter, “Mamie” Gummer in “Evening,” with Gummer subbing for a young Streep as the 1950s Rhode Island bride Lila Wittenborn of Susan Minot’s adapted novel.
Through 2008, she had lined up a variety of projects that would see her slide easily from period pieces like the drama “Doubt” to a musical based on the music of ABBA, “Mamma Mia!” – both of which would garner her Golden Globe nominations for Best Actress in their respective genres. But it was her portrayal of the stern headmistress Sister Aloysius in “Doubt” that earned the decorated actress yet another Academy Award nomination for Best Actress, which was followed by a surprise win for Outstanding Female Actress at the 15th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards. Streep had yet another banner year in 2009, starting with her dead-on portrayal of cooking maven and popular television personality, Julia Child, in Nora Ephron’s winning romantic comedy, “Julie & Julia.” For her portrayal of the famous chef, she earned a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy as well as an Oscar nod for Best Actress. After providing the voice for the animated Mrs. Fox in “Fantastic Mr. Fox” (2009), directed by Wes Anderson, she delivered another winning performance in the romantic comedy, “It’s Complicated” (2009). Streep was a well-adjusted divorceé who finds herself in a state of complicated affairs with her ex-husband (Alec Baldwin) and his much-younger wife (Lake Bell). The role earned Streep a second Golden Globe nomination that year in the same category.
She went on to earn considerable acclaim for her leading role in the biopic “The Iron Lady” (2011), in which she delivered an essence-capturing performance of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Despite some misgivings from Thatcher’s real-life family about her portrayal, the role earned Streep widespread critical acclaim at home and in England, and nabbed her a Golden Globe and an Oscar for Best Actress. Fresh off her latest Oscar win, Streep clearly had a bit of fun when she guest starred on the second season of the cable comedy “Web Therapy” (Showtime, 2011- ) as the founder of a sexual orientation camp endeavoring to help pioneering “web therapist” Fiona Wallice’s (Lisa Kudrow) husband with his sexual confusion. Predictably, the results were both painfully awkward and uproariously funny. For her next film project, she played one-half of a middle-aged couple looking to revitalize their marriage, both in and out of the bedroom, in “Hope Springs” (2012). Streep’s perfectly realized performance alongside Tommy Lee Jones in romantic comedy earned her yet another in a long line of Golden Globe nominations for Best Actress
The above TCM overview can also be accessed online here.
