Strength was not just an act for Dukakis
Olympia Dukakis, the Academy Awardwinning stage and screen actress who died Saturday, May 1, less than two months before her 90th birthday, projected warmth, sparkle and intellectual curiosity in everything she did. With her silver hair and fierce eyes, she was an embodiment of strength, authenticity and clarity.
Dukakis became famous at 56, when she starred as Cher’s mother in “Moonstruck.” Like Gene Hackman, she had an aura of maturity and it took years for her to age into her natural terrain as a screen actress — that of a matriarch. Once she reached that ideal age — somewhere around 60 — she seemed to magically stay there for at least three decades.
Even before “Moonstruck,” she was well known as a stage actress in New York and in regional theaters throughout the country. After her screen success and her supporting actress Oscar for “Moonstruck,” she continued her stage career between movie assignments. This included forging a formidable sisterhood with Carey Perloff, thenartistic director of San Francisco’s American Conservatory Theater, who directed Dukakis in a number of shows.
“I cannot imagine a world without Olympia Dukakis,” Perloff told The Chronicle on Saturday. “She was my muse, my confidante, my friend, my mentor and my guide.”
During Perloff ’s first season as artistic director, she commissioned Timberlake Wertenbaker to create a translation of Euripides’ “Hecuba” specifically for Dukakis.
“Hers is a sinewy, muscular queen and mother, bare arms raised in an agonized rictus, spine hunched, eyes staring deeply inward,” thenChronicle critic Steven Winn said of Dukakis’ performance in the 1998 production. “Dukakis sends a purposeful chill through the house.”
Years later, during ACT’s production of the twoperson play “Vigil,” by Morris Panychl, Marco Barricelli starred opposite Dukakis.
“I would go into her dressing room before the show, and we’d sit and talk,” Barricelli told The Chronicle. “One day she said that, after all the years of acting, all the awards, all the accolades and success, she still feels at the beginning of every process that she has to start back at square one — as if she never did it before.
“She wasn’t saying this as a testament to her work habits. She was lamenting the fact that no matter where one is in this particular profession, one never feels like, ‘Oh, I’ve got this, no problem,’ ” he said. “The fear, the striving, the inse