Celebrating Streep At Sixty
With the start of her film career and eventual stardom all occurring during my pivotal college years, the work of actress Meryl Streep is so embedded in my consciousness that it feels as if I should measure my own milestones by hers.
This week, our most distinguished screen actress turns sixty, and looking back on her legacy, we find one of those rare, happy stories of a person with blazing talent setting a high but worthy goal for herself, and fulfilling it.
That goal was to create a body of work whose quality would stand (she unquestionably has), without resorting to roles designed to exploit her beauty or sex (she didn't). Even when her films fell short (as they frequently did in the '90s, when Hollywood had no clue what to do with her) her presence always counted for something. She was never a decorative accompaniment or support to a leading man; she always held her own, by virtue of her performances, but also the parts she took.
And we, her fans, know Meryl Streep primarily from the emotions and intelligence emanating from those roles, not via sensationalistic stories in the National Enquirer. There is a grounded, decidedly normal quality to the woman that makes the actress seem all the more extraordinary.
Off the set, she eschews the spotlight, and has raised four kids, now grown, in a happy marriage to sculptor Don Gummer. By all accounts, that very private, stable part of her life has kept her clear-eyed and put her success in healthy perspective over the years. One wonders, why can't more stars follow her example? Or let's just clone her.
Mary Louise Streep grew up in New Jersey, the daughter of a pharmaceutical executive and an artist turned homemaker. A self-professed child of the sixties, at first she couldn't take acting seriously in the midst of all the social foment. But she knew it was fun, and that she had a knack for it.
So, as a young adult in the early seventies she enrolled in the Yale School of Drama after graduating from Vassar...and never looked back.
Her first film is a personal favorite of mine- Fred Zinnemann's "Julia" (1977), starring Jane Fonda, Vanessa Redgrave, and Jason Robards. The movie is drenched in romance and nostalgia, all about Lillian Hellman's close childhood friend (Redgrave) battling the Nazis. And there, playing an insufferable society girl distracting the noble Lillian from going to her friend's aid, is Meryl. Seen today, she's almost unrecognizable. Here was a part even most good actresses would render forgettable, but there was something about Streep that reached out and grabbed you.
The Meryl we would first come to know and love appears in her very next movie, "The Deer Hunter" (1978), a male-oriented picture if there ever was one. Yet again, Streep's sheer virtuosity as Linda, who seems to embody every young woman left behind in war, registers. (This also marked her only film with the man she was first engaged to, actor John Cazale, who had played Fredo in "The Godfather". Tragically, Cazale was dying of bone cancer during production, and his loss soon after would be a bitter blow for Streep.)
Still the roles would keep coming, and as the eighties arrived, Meryl Streep was- unavoidably and inevitably- a star.
Viewed from a perspective of thirty years, Streep's painstaking discipline and sense of craft have never wavered, but the years have relaxed her to the extent that she will eagerly do comedies. Though some of these pictures are not entirely successful, her presence goes a long way towards redeeming them- and she is in fact a deft comedienne.
As Meryl turns sixty, here's my own list of top Streep titles I'd want with me on most any deserted island:
Kramer Versus Kramer (1979)- On the brink of a big promotion, pre-occupied ad-man Ted Kramer (Dustin Hoffman) gets the wind knocked out of him when wife Joanna (Streep) leaves him and their young son, Billy (Justin Henry). Balancing career demands with caring for a young son he barely knows, Ted makes the hard choices necessary to be there for Billy. But when Joanna returns unexpectedly, a nasty custody battle ensues. Here Meryl teams with Hoffmann at the peak of his career and director Robert Benton for a near-flawless marital drama, depicting the dissolution of a marriage with unerring sensitivity. Touching performances from all three leads help bring an insightful script to heart-wrenching life. At Oscar time, "Kramer" won Best Picture, Benton took the honors for both direction and screenplay, Hoffman got the nod for Best Actor- and after just two years in film, Meryl walked away with the statuette for Best Supporting Actress.
The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981)- Disgraced by her affair with a French lieutenant, Sara Woodruff (Streep) is regarded as a woman of ill repute in her South Britain seaside village. But Charles Smithson (Jeremy Irons) finds himself irresistibly drawn to this mysterious and guarded Victorian lady, even though he's engaged. As their story plays out, so too does the tale of modern-day actors Anna and Mike, who're playing the doomed lovers in a film, and tumbling into their own conflicted affair. In choosing to adapt John Fowles's complex and epic romance novel, British filmmaker Karel Reisz enlisted the help of dramatist Harold Pinter, who framed the sorrow-laden, 19th-century tale of sexual repression with an intriguing modern story, creating a film-within-a-film structure that reflects the early '80s milieu. Irons is perfectly cast as the love-bitten English gentleman, and the Oscar-nominated Streep is magnificent in her double role--oozing passion as Sara, and cool precision as Anna. Here's a love story like no other.
Sophie's Choice (1982)- Based on William Styron's book, title character Sophie (Streep) is a lovely, mysterious Polish émigré who settles in Brooklyn right after World War II, starting a new life with her brilliant but erratic lover, Nathan (Kevin Kline). Stingo, a naïve aspiring writer from the South (Peter MacNicol), becomes their neighbor and falls under the spell of this magnetic pair. Yet Sophie carries traumas from the recent war which she can't shake and this, combined with Nathan's own inner demons, threatens their future. With this picture, director Alan J. Pakula exposed the full breadth of Streep's prodigious talent when he cast her as Sophie. Beyond her astonishing turn, the film itself packs an emotional wallop- it's at once extremely literate, highly atmospheric and emotionally intense. Also, be warned - it does include some disturbing flashback sequences. Above all, it's a Streep tour-de-force, netting her a Best Actress Oscar. Kline is also solid as the tragic Nathan. This devastating film will stay with you long after the lights come up.
Silkwood (1983)- On her way to meet a journalist in 1974, Karen Silkwood (Streep), a plutonium-plant employee outraged at her management's disregard for safety procedures, vanished, never to be seen again. In this film, we follow Karen's attempts to obtain proof that her company is engineering a cover-up, despite threats, intimidation, and the disastrous effect it has on her relationship with boyfriend Drew (Kurt Russell). Mike Nichols brings a chilling true story to life with this suspenseful, engrossing exposé. Streep's nuanced portrayal shows an ordinary woman who, through fate, circumstance and a streak of raw defiance, risks her life for a cause bigger than herself. Russell executes one of his more interesting roles as Karen's beau, and the talented Cher sheds all her glamour to play Karen's lesbian friend Dolly. Director Nichols builds a gradual sense of dread, culminating in a nerve-jangling conclusion. Don't miss this blistering cautionary tale.
A Cry In The Dark (1988)- In 1980, while camping with her husband Michael (Sam Neill) in the Australian Outback, young mother Lindy Chamberlain (Streep) discovers her baby daughter missing. Anguished but oddly reserved, she maintains to authorities that a dingo (Australian wild dog) dragged off the child from their tent as she was momentarily distracted. Prosecutors are not convinced, however, and Lindy suddenly finds herself the target of a vicious public who believes she is a murderess. Based on the shocking true story of a Seventh Day Adventist and his wife's personal and legal ordeal, Fred Schepisi's poignant, gut-wrenching drama builds on the astonishing performance of Streep, barely recognizable as the timid, aggrieved victim of near-daily assaults in the press. Schepisi builds suspense in the tense courtroom scenes, which are intercut with flashbacks to the camping trip, and never recoils from the lurid aspects of the Lindy witch hunt. With its sympathy for a minority faith and contempt for tabloid excess, "Dark" feels more relevant than ever.
The Hours (2001)- The plotline of this fascinating film moves seamlessly among three different time periods and women: the fragile existence of gifted but disturbed writer Virginia Woolf (Nicole Kidman) as she starts writing "Mrs. Dalloway"; the claustrophobic life of Laura (Julianne Moore) a housewife and mother in late 1940s L.A. whose reading of Woolf's book causes a numbing depression to surface; and the predicament of Clarissa (Streep) a modern-day, Dalloway-like book editor, whose lifetime project, a dying author played by Ed Harris, is receding before her eyes. Each interwoven tale plays out a variation on Woolf's own isolation and sense of futility. Don't miss this subtle, insightful meditation on life's hidden detours which direct us away from self-knowledge and fulfillment. Director Stephen Daldry's ambitious piece resonates as a disturbing and profound drama, showcasing the prodigious talents of Streep, Moore, and Kidman (who won an Oscar). Ed Harris, Toni Collette, and John C. Reilly also shine in this haunting and memorable film.
Adaptation (2002)- Sad-sack, self-doubting Hollywood screenwriter Charlie Kaufman (Nicolas Cage) is hired to script "The Orchid Thief" by New Yorker scribe Susan Orlean (Streep). Obsessed with the foxy author, and struggling with how to faithfully adapt the tale of Orleans's intriguing friendship with a renegade rare-flower expert John Laroche (Chris Cooper), Kaufman becomes increasingly stressed, unhinged, and of course, innovative in his approach. A brilliant meta-narrative and hilarious spoof of Hollywood's formulaic approach to telling stories, "Adaptation" is the brainchild of director Spike Jonze and real-life writer Kaufman, who teamed earlier on "Being John Malkovich." In fact, Kaufman really was hired to adapt the Orleans book, and took a chance writing a fun, zany, highly inventive script about his neurotic inability to wedge it into a conventional plot structure. He also invented a fictitious alter ego, twin brother Donald, who despite being a noodle-brained philistine, knows how to write a crack blockbuster. Cage's balding, uncomfortable turn in both roles is angst-filled genius, and Meryl, predictably, also delivers the goods.
Angels In America (2003)- This dramatic adaptation of Tony Kushner's award-winning play tracks several characters at the height of the AIDS crisis in mid-80s New York City, including Prior Walter (Justin Kirk), a young HIV+ man who begins to have visions of an angel (Emma Thompson) telling him he's a prophet, and gay-bashing conservative lawyer Roy Cohn (Al Pacino), whose underling Joe Pitt (Patrick Wilson) is a closeted Mormon having an affair with Prior's ex-boyfriend.Tackling the AIDS panic, religious intolerance, and Reagan-era conservative politics, Nichols's six-hour miniseries brings to the big screen everything that made Kushner's original play a Broadway smash in 1993, including the caliber of his actors: Pacino plays real-life, rock-ribbed conservative lawyer Cohn with despicable malice, while Thompson and Streep thoroughly enjoy showier roles as supernatural visitors. (Streep also plays Joe's straitlaced Mormon mother- and the tragic Ethel Rosenberg- to chilling perfection.) With its poetically inflected dialogue and dreamy special effects, "Angels" is a vibrant, pop-political melodrama for any age.
And so, this venerable phenomenon we call Meryl Streep greets her milestone with engines on full throttle, having just received her (gasp!) fifteenth Oscar nod for her superb work in last year's screen adaptation of John Patrick Shanley's "Doubt". In career terms, it seems many more roles lie in store for her, of which we will become glad and grateful beneficiaries.
Happy Birthday and thanks, Meryl Streep.
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Meryl's greatest role so far, is that of Mother. She has figured out a way to balance it all, and her children and husband give her balance. After that, I would say her work in "Angel's In America" was the best....in
Meryl Streep is an absolutely brilliant actress, the only current actress that comes close these days is Cate Blanchett (in my opinion). It's hard to believe she is sixty, I saw her recent work (Mama Mia and Doubt) and you could have fooled me! Although, like the poster says below, 60 is the new 40. (Or as I like to keep telling myself for my own age group, 40 is the new 29, ha ha!) She is an incredibly talented performer at any age, and I predict she'll be doing Academy Award worthy work for many years to come.
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isn't that weird? blanchett seems incredibly mannered to me if she isn't in just the right role-like "elizabeth".
Um, have to disagree about Cate Blanchett coming close. She done some decent jobs but is not comparable in depth and scope - at all. Streep could and still can do it all - all her characters have so many layers, its really unprecedented.
I really cant think of any younger actress (lets say in her 30s) who even comes close. No, not Winslet, not Blanchett (besides, I saw Elizabeth last night.....
any suggestions? Someone Ive missed?
I don't know, I have a hard time thinking of anyone remotely close, Blanchett was the first one that came to mind - or possibly Jodie Foster? I like Winslet and Kristin Scott Thomas (and many others), but Streep is in a league of her own.
Even though it's considered a "chick flick" my favorite Streep film is "The Devil Wears Prada" - you usually don't see her playing a bitchy character but she nailed this one while being hilarious at the same time.
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agree-she can really sink her teeth into a bitchy part.
nothin wrong with a good chick flick.....
My favorite Meryl scene is from "Sophie's Choice," when she enters the library in search of Emily Dickinson's poem, "Ample make this bed..." Kevin Kline is simply mesmerizing. What an immensely gifted actor! Where is he these days?
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he's still around...d
Lucky Phoebe! Well, I tend to see mostly Brodway musicals these days..and not enough of those, for sure. I will have to keep a keen eye out for Kevin. What a joy he is! (I won't carry on as it's Ms. Streep's celebratio
I agree, Lillibelle, Streep and KIine were terrific in that heartbreaking film.
What a story, Tigerseye!
Prairie Home Companion, Lemony Snickets, and Marvin's Room. She was very funny in all three of these movies. She is also a great comic actress.
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and she loves doing comedies.
Meryl Streep---60??? How is it possible?
Funny this should come up this week: Just last week in London, I was interviewed by English Actor Simon Callow who is finishing up the third and concluding volume of his huge definitive biography of Orson Welles.
I was recalling a one-of event I was producing on Broadway which Orson Welles had flown in for. Meryl Streep had just finished "Kramer vs Kramer" (this was early 80's) and was just beginning her stardom.
I recalled the backstage scenerio in which Welles was fairly advertising his disinterest in the rest of the starry cast....wi
She was all bashfull schoolgirl, blushing, hands-behi
I wondered as the moment passed what peach of a role Welles had in mind for her in some film of his mind that her casting could help the financing for????? Never know......
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What a delightful story.
It does not surprise me that Welles would have spotted her outstanding talent fairly quickly.
After all, it takes one to know one.
and oh yes....I prefer your Julia Child to Meryl's.
John,
You pick the BEST topics.. frequently, even a post that should not encourage rage or whatever..
Odd..I've not seen Doubt...fo
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who can forget that SNL skit?
I used to imitate Julia, and got to do it with Dan Aykroyd...
I would encourage anyone to see Doubt, not only for Meryl's fantastic performance but Philip Seymour Hoffman is excellent as well. Great acting by the entire cast, I highly recommend it.
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agree, one of last year's best.
Filmed at my old school, with my former teachers, it was like watching my former life. A most surreal experience.
Her body of work is amazing. One of my favorites has always been "Defending your Life". She is so funny and vibrant in that film!
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with albert brooks right? that was a good one.
Another film Streep did years ago was a TV mini-series--"The Holocaust". It got a lot of flack due to charges of exploitation but it showed less of the horrors of the the Holocaust than what actually happened and Streep of couse was Streep--ma
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wonder if I can find this on dvd?
John: It's available at Amazon. $19.95 new and starting at $18.99 used. Here's justpart of the review:
"The 30th anniversary edition of Holocaust marks the first time this remarkable, nine-and-a
It's well worth it too.
That was one of the best performances I've seen. She was amazing.
Happy Birthday, Meryl. Remember, 60 is the new 40. ;)
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amen to that!
I watch Streep even in films that weren't so good but "Sophie's Choice" is one of my favorites. Her portray, along with ne of her famous accents, is subtle and disarming. The deception both her and Klein's character pull off has to do with the story of course but also to their terrific performances. It's a hard film to watch so it's not something I watch several times but it's one of those films that you cherish and put in your DVD palyer on a rainy Sunday afternoon when it seems gloom is all there is.
I finally saw "Doubt" the other night and again I was amazed by Streep's fierce portrayal. She always surprises and has never become a characterature of herself like so many famous actresses have after years on the screen
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I agree. she resists that and the force of her talent allows her to succeed.
I got to see Ms. Streep fresh out of Yale as Alice in Wonderland in an original musical at The Public Theatre in NYC. She was already sending out sparks then. She is my example of a true artist.
I would love to see her do May Sarton's The Magnificent Spinster at some point.
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I hope she does more theatre as well.
Happy Birthday Meryl!!!
I have not seen all her movies but I saw a lot of her interviews and she is HILARIOUS!! Like really funny.
Here is my favorite "Meryl" interview for the CBC (As best as I can remember it). She was refering to a conversation she was having with an another interviewer who was asking her details about a film she starred in (Adaptation I believe) The interviewer was probing for insight into the creative process of the script writing. Apparently, she felt she couldn't really answer that so she said since she wasn'tt he writer. So apparently said to the interviewer:
" I don't know, It's not my sh*t."
She told the story on CBC including that line. The she realized: "Oops! I said sh*t on Canadian TV." And she was laughing.
I spit my coffee all over my table.
Meryl , that was some the funniest sh*t that ever was on Canadian TV.
I'll never forget it! :)
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I love that...wha
I know that is one film often regarded as minor, but I have a really soft spot for Falling in love. It was a sweet picture and she clearly brought something new in De Niro's acting.
And even if it isn't for the big screen, her part as Inga in Holocaust remains unforgettable.
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DeNiro's on record saynig she is his favorite actress to work with.
Happy birthday Meryl Streep, it was very strange, but last night I had a dream and she was in it, I woke up thinking, why did I have a dream about Meryl Streep, weird. She was very nice in my dream, very down to earth, we just sat on a bed and talked. So this morning I wake up and see this, well, happy birthday Meryl.
But did she speak to you in a broken english accent? :)
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my blog is powerful enough to penetrate your dreams!
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