February 8 . . .
Has any contemporary American actress aged as well as Mary Steenburgen? Happy 57th birthday today to Mary Steenburgen, one of the most underated actresses of the past 30 years. If anyone has aged more gracefully than Ms. Steenburgen, I don’t know who it is.
She shows up these days mostly in supporting roles, but she came out of the gate as a leading lady in 1978’s ‘Goin’ South’. Director and star Jack Nicholson recognized her unique qualities and cast her as the feisty frontier feminist who saves Nicholson’s rascally outlaw from the gallows by marrying him. The movie was ragged but did have a certain no’oblese oblige charm to it – thanks mostly to the screwy chemistry between Steenburgen and Nicholson. Steenburgen projected the qualities which would become her calling card – independence, eccentricity, resolve, vulnerability, and a certain quirky humor. Diminunative but commanding, she stole the spotlight out from under Nicholson – no small feat for such small feet.
She went on to cover a diverse spectrum of roles – as author Marjorie Kinnin Rawlins in ‘Cross Creek’ (boasting a great supporting turn from Rip Torn), as Paul LeMat’s disenchanted wife in ‘Melvin and Howard’, . But my favorite Steenburgen performance is her turn in the wonderful low budget, hi-concept sci-fi romance, ‘Time After Time’, where she first met future husband (or future ex-husband) Malcolm McDowell.
McDowell plays author H.G. Wells, who finds himself transported from Victorian London via his own time machine to contemporary San Francisco, in search of Jack the Ripper, whom he’s inadvertently set loose in the 20th Century. The out-of-time-and-place Wells meets up with Steenburgen’s feminist bank teller, who is immediately attracted to his little-boy-lost vulnerability, and sparks fly.
The sparks are quite palpable on the screen. Steenburgen later confessed that the restaurant scene where the two are getting acquainted was when McDowell announced his real-life love for her, and her awkward nervousness in the scene is genuine. The two actors possess a wonderful chemistry and rapport, exuding vulnerability and mutual attraction, and their romance is funny, touching and affecting.
In the intervening years Steenburgen has evolved from waifish to regal, but has never lost her ability to command the camera’s attention by seemingly shying away from it. Check out her coquettish charm in this clip from ‘Time After Time’ . . .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zD39rK1uSww
Has any contemporary American actress aged as well as Mary Steenburgen? Happy 57th birthday today to Mary Steenburgen, one of the most underated actresses of the past 30 years. If anyone has aged more gracefully than Ms. Steenburgen, I don’t know who it is.
She shows up these days mostly in supporting roles, but she came out of the gate as a leading lady in 1978’s ‘Goin’ South’. Director and star Jack Nicholson recognized her unique qualities and cast her as the feisty frontier feminist who saves Nicholson’s rascally outlaw from the gallows by marrying him. The movie was ragged but did have a certain no’oblese oblige charm to it – thanks mostly to the screwy chemistry between Steenburgen and Nicholson. Steenburgen projected the qualities which would become her calling card – independence, eccentricity, resolve, vulnerability, and a certain quirky humor. Diminunative but commanding, she stole the spotlight out from under Nicholson – no small feat for such small feet.
She went on to cover a diverse spectrum of roles – as author Marjorie Kinnin Rawlins in ‘Cross Creek’ (boasting a great supporting turn from Rip Torn), as Paul LeMat’s disenchanted wife in ‘Melvin and Howard’, . But my favorite Steenburgen performance is her turn in the wonderful low budget, hi-concept sci-fi romance, ‘Time After Time’, where she first met future husband (or future ex-husband) Malcolm McDowell.
McDowell plays author H.G. Wells, who finds himself transported from Victorian London via his own time machine to contemporary San Francisco, in search of Jack the Ripper, whom he’s inadvertently set loose in the 20th Century. The out-of-time-and-place Wells meets up with Steenburgen’s feminist bank teller, who is immediately attracted to his little-boy-lost vulnerability, and sparks fly.
The sparks are quite palpable on the screen. Steenburgen later confessed that the restaurant scene where the two are getting acquainted was when McDowell announced his real-life love for her, and her awkward nervousness in the scene is genuine. The two actors possess a wonderful chemistry and rapport, exuding vulnerability and mutual attraction, and their romance is funny, touching and affecting.
In the intervening years Steenburgen has evolved from waifish to regal, but has never lost her ability to command the camera’s attention by seemingly shying away from it. Check out her coquettish charm in this clip from ‘Time After Time’ . . .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zD39rK1uSww
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