On Olympian Heights: Remembering Olympia Dukakis

Through most of my moviegoing life, I’d never heard of Olympia Dukakis.  But the New York stage veteran, born in 1931,  made her first film in 1964. It was called Twice a Man, and she appeared in the credits as “Young mother.” It seems to have been her fate to play mother roles. In the course of a long career that ended with her recent death at age 89, she was credited as  “John’s mother” in John and Mary, “Gig’s mother” in Made for Each Other, and “Joey’s mom” in The Wanderers. She also often showed up in authority roles, as judges, doctors, and a Mother Superior, as well as a high school principal in Mr. Holland’s Opus. But of course the role that made her, belatedly, a star was that of Cher’s feisty Italian mother in 1987’s Moonstruck. Rose Castorini is a nurturer, a pragmatist, and a philosopher, one who knows what it’s like to be hurt by love. She’s memorably relieved when daughter Loretta announces she’s about to marry a man she doesn’t love. Says Rose, glaring at her straying husband Cosmo: “When you love them they drive you crazy because they know they can.” Fortunately for Dukakis, she herself had a long-lasting marriage with a fellow actor, Louis Zorich, that produced three children and four grandchildren. So she came by her mom-credentials honestly indeed.

 One of the things I most appreciate about Olympia Dukakis is that she always played intelligent women. Some of them might have done foolish things from time to time, but they were never dumb. Another thing I savor is the fact that she happily took on ethnic roles, giving them spirit and authenticity. As in Moonstruck, she made a great Italian mama, which was doubtless why she was cast as the unstoppable Dolly Sinatra in a 1992 miniseries about son Frank. And she was a convincing Jewish widow in The Cemetery Club. Curiously, despite her very Greek name and heritage, she rarely got the chance to portray her own ethnicity. She’s nowhere to be found in the cast list of My Big Fat Greek Wedding, the semi-autobiographical 2002 film by Nia Vardalos that found much of its initial popularity in Greek-American communities. She does, however, have the classical role of Jocasta in Woody Allen’s comic take on Greek mythology, Mighty Aphrodite.

 In her later years, Dukakis took on challenging roles (like that of a trans landlady in the TV series Tales of the City and a so-called “butch lesbian” in Cloudburst). She was outspoken in promoting women’s rights and LGBTQ rights, and also stayed active as a well-loved drama teacher, both at NYU and in other theatre programs across the nation. A 2018 documentary film, called simply Olympia, chronicled her eventful life, including her growing-up years in a Massachusetts immigrant household, facing anti-Greek prejudice and a patriarchal family structure. Her parents certainly had a flair for names: her younger brother, Apollo Dukakis, is an actor I’ve enjoyed often on California stages.

 Once I’d fallen in love with Dukakis in the delightful yet poignant Moonstruck, I was rooting for her to take home the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. And she did. When the elegantly clad Dukakis mounted the stage, I was rather surprised that her speech was gracious but also somewhat sedate. I’d expected something more rambunctious from her, especially since it was well known that her cousin, Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis, was the Democratic candidate for President. But once she’d finished with her thank-yous, she confirmed my expectations by letting out a rip-roaring yell: “OK, Michael, let’s go!”   

 

In the Family Way: “Moonstruck”

I wonder what genuine Italian-Americans think of Moonstruck, which in 1987 was a huge critical and popular hit. Do they consider it a charming, heartwarming representation of a vanishing way of life? Or do they cringe at the clichés, annoyed at being presented to the world as superstitious, hyperemotional, in love with food, sex, and opera? Maybe they’re just glad that this fanciful version of life in an Italian section of Brooklyn--while it may boast some (offscreen) lusty coupling and a smidgeon of adultery—contains nary a single Mafioso. Not being of Italian descent myself, I am free to enjoy this fairytale (which, I should note, is based on an Oscar-winning original screenplay by John Patrick Shanley, who is no more Italian than I am).

There is, I should note, a mostly Italian-American cast, featuring Vincent Gardenia as a philandering papa, Broadway avant-garde specialist Julie Bovasso as a lusty aunt, and the late Danny Aiello as a hapless suitor. The leading man is Nicolas Cage, who is actually a Coppola with a name change. But the film’s two performance Oscars were won by women whose kinfolk came from other locales. Cher (born Cherilyn Sarkisian) can claim Armenian descent, and Olympia Dukakis is Greek-American. Well, I guess their Mediterranean roots make them close enough for Hollywood.

At any rate, their characters are definitely people with a well-defined outlook. They strongly believe in luck, mostly bad. (Cher’s Loretta started off her marriage on the wrong foot because there was no church wedding. As a direct consequence, her husband was hit by a bus and died.) Whatever their behavior during the week, these women go to confession on Sunday. They crave romantic rapture, but remain highly suspicious of it: to marry for love is to invite disappointment. Still, there’s always room for the occasional miracle, like the one in faraway Palermo that solves everyone’s problems at the film’s end. So long as that huge round moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie (as in the Dean Martin musical oldie that opens and closes the film), everything will turn out as it should.

You can call this movie a watered-down form of grand opera: the snippet of Puccini’s La Bohème we hear in Moonstruck captures something of the characters’ baroque emotional journeys. Though the operatic performance that’s a key part of the plot takes place at WASP-y Lincoln Center, it tugs directly at the heartstrings of the blue-collar Italians in attendance. (There’s a key moment when Loretta, overcome by her first taste of opera, breaks down her emotional barriers. Her eyes moisten, and suddenly this self-sufficient woman is ready to clutch the proffered hand of someone who loves her This night-at-the-opera trope was stolen, I suspect, by the writers of Pretty Woman, who created a similarly transformative moment for Julia Roberts, in the company of Richard Gere, three years later.) 

More than anything, though, Moonstruck is a movie about the unbreakable bonds of family. To cast off (or cast out) a family member is to invite disaster. On the other hand, to bring family together (especially around a dinner table stocked with plenty of pasta and wine) is to usher in God’s grace. At a time when most of us are stuck in self-isolation, sometimes separated by great distances from loved ones, it sounds like a dream come true to be crowded around a table groaning with the weight of good food. Would that this year’s Easter and Passover celebrations could allow for that “all in the family” kind of joy.