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Home , Annette Bening, Carol Haney, Conrad Bain, Elaine May, Estelle Reiner, Heartburn (novel)

October 31, 2017 (XXXV:10) (1990), 101 min.

(The online version of this handout has color images.)

DIRECTED BY Mike Nichols WRITTEN BY (book & screenplay) PRODUCED BY John Calley, Robert Greenhut, Neil A. Machlis, Susan MacNair, Mike Nichols MUSIC Carly Simon CINEMATOGRAPHY FILM EDITING Sam O'Steen

CAST …Suzanne Vale Shirley MacLaine…Doris Mann Dennis Quaid…Jack Faulkner …Lowell Kolchek …Doctor Frankenthal …Joe Pierce …Grandma Conrad Bain…Grandpa …Evelyn Ames English” and “Please, do not kiss me.” Back in , , Simon Callow…Simon Asquith Nichols’ father had been part of a young intellectual circle that Gary Morton…Marty Wiener included Russian immigrants such as Vladimir Nabokov’s sister CCH Pounder…Julie Marsden and Boris Pasternak’s parents. Nichols became a naturalized US Sidney Armus…Sid Roth citizen in 1944. He was told as a child that he was a cousin of Robin Bartlett…Aretha Albert Einstein, and although he never quite believed it, he Barbara Garrick …Carol repeated it to friends as he was growing up. While doing Finding Anthony Heald…George Lazan Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (2012) he found out that Dana Ivey…Wardrobe Mistress it was true. They would have been 3rd or 4th cousins several Oliver Platt…Neil Bleene times removed. An immigrant whose work was marked by Michael Ontkean…Robert Munch trenchant perceptions of American culture, he achieved — in Pepe Serna…Raoul films like “,” “Who’s Afraid of ?” Mark Lowenthal…Bart and “Carnal Knowledge” and in comedies and dramas on stage Michael Byers…Allen — what and but few if any other JD Souther…Ted directors have: popular and artistic success in both film and George Wallace …Carl theater. The director’s first attempt behind the camera was to Peter Onorati…Cameraman direct and in an adaptation of Edward Albee’s scabrous stage portrayal of a marriage, Who’s MIKE NICHOLS (b. November 6, 1931 in Berlin, Germany—d. Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966). The film was nominated for 13 November 19, 2014, age 83, in , New York) is one of , including one for best director. Though he ’s most celebrated directors, whose work earned him didn’t win, the film won five. Nichols did win an Oscar for his adulation both on Broadway and in . In 1939, Nichols second film, The Graduate (1967). A social that and his family fled Nazi Germany. In an interview with The New lampooned the Eisenhower-era mind-set of the West Coast York Times the director said that when he came to the U.S. at age affluent and defined the uncertainty of adulthood for the 7, he could speak only two English sentences: “I do not speak generation that came of age in the , the film anticipated the Nichols—POSTCARDS FOM THE EDGE—2

anti-heroism of many future films. Especially consistent was his However, Fisher was much more than a fictional space feminist: wry and savvy sensibility regarding human behavior, derived in She was a real-life champion for women who was also a talented part from his early success in nightclubs and on television with writer and satirist. The daughter of showbiz vets Debbie . Their program of satirical sketches depicting one- Reynolds and Eddie Fisher, her father left her mother when on-one moments of social interaction reached Broadway, where Carrie was just two for Reynold’s best friend Elizabeth Taylor. An Evening with Mike Nichols and Elaine May opened in Any semblance of a normal childhood was impossible for Fisher. October 1960 and ran for more than 300 performances; the At 15, she played a debutante in the Broadway musical Irene, recording of their show won a Grammy Award. Their act, as which starred her mother, and appeared in her mother’s Las described by as “developed through Vegas nightclub act. While the fraught mother-daughter improvisation, written with sly verbal dexterity and performed relationship is humorously featured in tonight’s film, in fact, with cannily calibrated comic timing.” Their best-known routines Fisher lived next door to Reynolds for her entire life. Whatever became classics of male-female miscommunication and social resentment Fisher felt in her younger years, the pair’s haplessness: a mother haranguing her scientist son for not calling relationship healed over time with Reynolds often accompanying her; teenagers on a date in the front seat of a car; an injured man Fisher in interviews and in her one-woman show. At 17, Fisher and a doltish emergency room nurse; a telephone operator and a made her movie debut in ’s Shampoo (1975). She desperate caller in a phone booth. Nichols is one of the only 12 auditioned for the lead role in Carrie (1976), while people who are an EGOT, which means that he won at least one auditioned for Princess Leia in Star Wars (1977), as George of all of the four major entertainment awards: Emmy, Grammy, Lucas and Brian De Palma were holding joint auditions. They Oscar and Tony. His career encompassed an entire era of screen ultimately swapped roles. Fisher has been open about her and stage entertainment. On Broadway, where he won an struggles with substance abuse, acknowledged taking drugs like astonishing nine Tonys (including two as a producer), he once LSD and Percodan throughout the and ’80s and later said had four shows running simultaneously. Won more that she was using cocaine while making The Empire Strikes for Best Direction of a Play than any other individual. He won Back (thinly referenced in Postcards). In 1985, after filming a for Barefoot in the Park (1964); and The Odd Couple role in ’s , she had a nearly (1965); Plaza Suite (1968); The Prisoner of Second Avenue fatal drug overdose. She checked herself into a 30-day rehab (1972); The Real Thing (1984); and 's Death of a Salesman (2012). He also won best direction of a musical for Monty Python's Spamalot (2005); and as producer for Annie (1977) and The Real Thing (1984). In 1984, as a producer, Mr. Nichols brought a talented monologuist to Broadway, supervising the one-woman show — it was called, simply, “” — that propelled her to fame. Not every project was a winner; he had a number of duds, and for periods — part of the 1970s, when he made the science-fiction thriller The Day of the Dolphin and a comedy about bumbling hustlers, ; and the late ’80s and early ’90s, when his work included and Wolf, the macabre tale of a book editor () who turns into a werewolf — his career lost a bit of luster. While paying tribute to Nichols during his program in . Those experiences later became grist 2003 , Meryl Streep and Candace Bergen for her caustic, comic novel Postcards From the Edge, whose read Nichols' “Five Rules for Filmmaking”: 1: The careful chapters are variously presented as letters, diary entries, application of terror is an important form of communication. 2: monologues and third-person narratives. She was, at one point, Anything worth fighting for is worth fighting dirty for. 3: There's one of Hollywood’s most sought-after script doctors, using her absolutely no substitute for genuine lack of preparation. 4: If you signature wit to punch up everything from (1992) to, think there's good in everybody, you haven't met everybody. 5: yes, Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999). Friends may come and go, but enemies will certainly become Primarily a writer later in life, Fisher’s voice is known for her studio heads. Some of his other directorial credits include unmistakable self-deprecating humor. Consider her self-written Charlie Wilson's War (2007), Closer (2004), Angels in America obituary, which described in her one-woman show Wishful (2003, TV Mini-Series), Wit (2001,TV Movie), What Planet Are Drinking: You From? (2000), Primary Colors (1998), (1996), Wolf (1994), Regarding Henry (1991), (1988), George comes up to me the first day of filming and he takes one Biloxi Blues (1988), Heartburn (1986), (1983), The look at the dress and says, “You can't wear a bra under that Fortune (1975), The Day of the Dolphin (1973), Carnal dress.” Knowledge (1971), Catch-22 (1970), The Graduate (1967) and So, I say, “Okay, I'll bite. Why?” Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966). And he says, “Because. . . there's no underwear in space.” Right! Of course! There are, however, gold bikinis in space; CARRIE FISHER (b. October 21, 1956 in Burbank, — everyone knows that. d. December 27, 2016, age 60, in Los Angeles, California) will forever be known Princess Leia in the Star Wars franchise. Nichols—POSTCARDS FOM THE EDGE—3

What happens is you go to space and you become weightless. So foundering on infidelity, ego and drug use. Taylor would far so good, right? But then your body expands?? But your bra eventually kick his heroin habit, but not before their relationship doesn't—so you get strangled by your own bra. crumbled. In the 1970s Carly was a household name with multi- Now I think that this would make for a fantastic obit—so I tell platinum albums such as Playing Possum (1975) and her my younger friends that no matter how I go, I want it reported Grammy-winning debut No Secrets (1972), by the 1980s she was that I drowned in moonlight, strangled by my own bra. heavily in-demand for her soundtrack work. Her first movie- theme song was “Nobody Does It Better” for The Spy Who Loved Fisher appeared in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (2001), which Me (1977), followed by success with a pair of Mike Nichols’ also starred Mark Hamill. It was the first time the two had projects: “Coming Round Again” from Heartburn (1987) and appeared in the same film since Return of the Jedi. Neither of “Let the River Run” in Working Girl (1988), which earned her an them knew the other was involved in the project until shortly Oscar. The dedication of Simon’s most famous hit, “Your So after filming had been completed. They would later reunite again Vain” (1972) was one of rock and roll’s greatest mysteries for in Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015). A consummate mental decades. Names such as Nicholson, Beatty (most people’s first health advocate who spoke bravely and publicly about her choice and even the actor is convinced he is the subject) or Mick struggles with bipolar disorder, she was also known for taking Jaggar (who sung uncredited backing vocals) were all bandied her therapy French bulldog Gary everywhere, even onto TV talk about. During the promotion for her 2015 memoir, Simon show sets whenever she was a guest. Her final acting project was admitted that that song was a composite of many men. the third season of Catastrophe. She was the only cast member allowed to improvise and Gary portrays her dog on the show. She passed away a week after finishing work on the show. Gary now resides with Fisher’s daughter, , an actress known for her work in the TV show Scream Queens. At the time of her death last year, Fisher had shot scenes for this year’s Star Wars: The Last Jedi, and they will be included in the final film.

CARLY SIMON (b. June 25, 1945 in Bronx, , New York) was the daughter of Richard L. Simon, the co- founder of the publishing house Simon & Schuster, and she grew up splitting her time between a townhouse and a rambling estate in Stamford, Connecticut, surrounded by celebrity guests such as Albert Einstein, Eleanor Roosevelt and MERYL STREEP (b. June 22, 1949, Summit, NJ) is considered Charles Addams. The Simon household wasn’t all glamour —her by many critics to be the greatest living actress, Meryl Streep has father was strong-armed out of the company he founded and died been nominated for the Academy Award an astonishing 20 times, young. Simon’s first musical success came with the Simon and has won it three times. Meryl's early performing ambitions Sisters, a singing duo with her older sister Lucy. Traveling home leaned toward the opera. She became interested in acting while a from in 1965, they discovered they were on the same student at Vassar and upon graduation she enrolled in the Yale ship as , already famous as James Bond. Carly School of Drama. She gave an outstanding performance in her wrote him a cheeky letter, and the three of them ended up first film role, Julia (1977), and the next year she was nominated spending most of the trip together. On the last night, Lucy for her first Oscar for her role in The Deer Hunter (1978). She successfully made her move with Connery — which Carly took went on to win the Academy Award for her performances in as a sign that it was time to break up the sister act. In 1966, the Kramer vs. Kramer (1979) and Sophie's Choice (1982), in which day before Simon turned 21, Bob Dylan called her up, trying to she gave a heart-wrenching portrayal of an inmate mother in a recruit her to his management company. He wanted her to record Nazi death camp. A perfectionist in her craft and meticulous and “Baby, Let Me Follow You Down," and was even willing to painstaking in her preparation for her roles, Meryl turned out a rewrite some of the lyrics for her. Ultimately Simon passed. string of highly acclaimed performances over the next decade in When Jack Nicholson was making Carnal Knowledge with great films like Silkwood (1983); Out of Africa (1985); Ironweed "Bugs, Artie the Garf, and Mike the Nick," as he called them (1987); and A Cry in the Dark (1988). Her career declined (, , and Mike Nichols), he spent a slightly in the early 1990s as a result of her inability to find couple of nights at Simon's New York apartment. The first night, suitable parts, but she shot back to the top in 1995 with her he showed off his seduction technique after she made a pot of performance as 's married lover in The Bridges of coffee: “We chatted for a few moments and then he said, Madison County (1995) and as the prodigal daughter in Marvin's offhandedly, 'Do you ever drink coffee in your bedroom?'” While Room (1996). Known to be a perfectionist in researching roles, also bedding Beatty at the time, it was in 1977 that Simon met for Music of the Heart (1999) she learned to play the violin, by the love of her life, . The two had met briefly as practicing six hours a day for eight weeks. In 2003 Streep children on Martha’s Vineyard and after their reunion (and received an unprecedented 13th Academy Award nomination— Taylor dumped his then-girlfriend Joni Mitchell) the two were for best supporting actress in Adaptation (2002); Katharine inseparable for a nearly a decade. Simon and Taylor had two Hepburn originally held the record with 12 nominations. Streep children and many happy years together, but their relationship earned another Oscar nomination (for best actress) for her would end up seesawing between ecstasy and agony, and portrayal of an overbearing fashion magazine editor in The Devil Nichols—POSTCARDS FOM THE EDGE—4

Wears Prada (2006). In 2008 she played a middle-aged woman note: At one point during the start of his career, reunited with three of her former lovers in the musical Mamma got so fed up of people pronouncing his name incorrectly that he Mia! and later that year starred with Philip Seymour Hoffman in changed it by deed poll. Although the spelling change did not Doubt, about a nun who suspects a priest of having inappropriate help with the pronunciation, he preferred the look of it. By relationships with children at a Catholic school; her performance adding an extra ‘T,’ his first name and his surname had the same in the latter film earned Streep another Academy Award number of letters in them. Beatty also loved the idea that his nomination. She also garnered critical acclaim for her portrayal names would require the same amount of lights when they were of famed American chef Julia Child in Julie & Julia (2009), a adorned in front of movie theaters.] MacLaine later had a role in role for which she received a Golden Globe Award and her 16th , as a member of the chorus and to Oscar nomination. She then stepped into the role of Margaret . A few months into the run, MacLaine was going to Thatcher in The Iron Lady (2011), a portrait of the former British leave the show for the lead role in CanCan but ended up filling prime minister. For her performance, Streep earned her eighth in for Haney, who had broken her ankle and could not perform. Golden Globe Award and third Oscar. She next evinced a razor- Following another injury, MacLaine would once again fill in for tongued matriarch whose husband has committed suicide in Haney the very night that movie producer Hal B. Wallis was in August: Osage County (2013), adapted from ’s play; the audience. Wallis signed MacLaine to a five-year contract to for her performance, Streep earned her 18th Oscar nomination. (a bit Eve Harrington, perhaps). With Streep put her opera training to use (somewhat) in the title role of Shirley's career on track, she played one of her most challenging Florence Foster Jenkins (2016). For her work in the film, Streep roles in (1958), for which she received her received her 20th Oscar nomination. In addition to her numerous first Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. She went on acting awards, Streep was made Commander in the Order of Arts to do (1958) and (1958). In and Letters (the highest cultural award presented by the French 1960, she got her second Oscar nomination in ’s The government) in 2002. In 2010 she was elected an honorary Apartment (1960). Three years later, she received a third member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. The nomination for (1963). In 1969, she brought her following year Streep received a Kennedy Center Honor. In 2017 friend from Broadway to direct her in she was given the Cecil B. DeMille Award (a Golden Globe for (1969), from which she got her "signature" song, “If My Friends achievement). She is the godmother of Fisher’s daughter Could See Me Now". After a five-year hiatus, MacClaine made a Billie Lourde. documentary on China called The Other Half of the Sky: A China Memoir (1975), for which she received an Oscar nomination for best documentary. In 1977, she got her fourth Best Actress Oscar nomination for The Turning Point (1977) and after 20 years in the film industry, she finally took home the best actress Oscar for (1983). In 1989, she starred with , and in (1989). She also has written books, notably, The Camino (2001), and Out on A Leash (2003) and her most recent Sage-ing While Ag-ing (2008), in which the actress shares her quest for the meaning of life. After taking a slight hiatus from motion pictures, she returned with roles in the movies that were small, but wonderfully scene-stealing: Bewitched (2005) and In Her Shoes (2005) with and , in which she was nominated for a Golden Globe for best supporting actress. In a SHIRLEY MACLAINE (b. Shirley MacLaine (b. April 24, 1934 career that has spanned for over 60 years, MacLaine says she is in Richmond, VA) was born Shirley MacLean Beaty. Her now most known for her role as Lady Cora Crawley's outspoken mother, Kathlyn Corinne (MacLean), was a drama teacher from mother Martha Levinson in . "My whole identity Nova Scotia, Canada, and her father, Ira Owens Beaty, a is now Downton Abbey, she told The Sunday Times Culture professor of psychology and real estate agent, was from Virginia. magazine. “All that I've done - how many films? All my books? Her brother, Warren Beatty, was born on March 30, 1937 Just I'm no longer a new-age giddy dingbat. I am now ‘the one on after she graduated from Washington-Lee High School, she Downton Abbey’. In airports and other places I go, they say, packed her bags and headed for New York. While auditioning for ‘Downton Abbey, when are you coming back?’ I say, “Well, all Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II's , the right. But what about my last picture?’ Then I can’t remember it producer kept mispronouncing her name. She then changed her anyway.” name from Shirley MacLean Beaty to Shirley MacLaine. [Side Nichols—POSTCARDS FOM THE EDGE—5

DENNIS QUAID (b. April 9, 1954 in Houston, Texas) began his Popeye Doyle in The French Connection (1971). He was also the studies in acting at the University of Houston before dropping first choice to play Hannibal Lector in The Silence of the Lambs out. After seeing the success of his brother Randy Quaid, he (1991). After initially turning down the role of Little Bill Daggett decided to move to Los Angeles to pursue a film career. Initially in Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven (1992), Hackman finally the younger Quaid had trouble finding film roles, but began to accepted it, as its different slant on the interested him. gain notice when he appeared in Breaking Away (1979) and After the film, he swore he’d never again work in Westerns. His earned strong reviews for his role performance he won the Oscar in The Right Stuff (1983). He got and Golden Globe. The actor his big-starring break in 1986’s must have decided that he The Big Easy, in which he also wasn't tired of westerns after contributed music from his band, all. He has since appeared in The Sharks. Quaid was married to Geronimo: An American actress for 13 years Legend (1993), Wyatt Earp before engaging in a high-profile (1994), and The Quick and the divorce after her affair with Dead (1995). Deep into his Russell Crowe became public. career, in 2001 it was his While Quaid remarried in 2004, quirky patriarch in Wes last year he filed for divorce yet Anderson’s Royal again. Next year, Quaid will star Tenenbaums that opened as George W. Bush in the series. Tonight, Hackman up to an entirely new audience of fans. In 2003, Quaid and Simon are battling it out on the bill for sexiest grin. Hackman won the Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime Some of Quaid’s other acting credits include: At Any Price achievement to acting at the Golden Globes. Then in 2004 (2012), What to Expect When You're Expecting (2012), Beneath Hackman quit acting all together. He has published several the Darkness (2011), Footloose (2011), Legion (2010), G.I. Joe: novels, his latest Pursuit was released in 2013. He continues to The Rise of Cobra (2009), Horsemen (2009), Vantage Point lead a quiet life writing and painting in Santa Fe with his wife. (2008), Yours, Mine & Ours (2005), In Good Company (2004), The Day After Tomorrow (2004), The Alamo (2004), Far from RICHARD DREYFUSS (b. October 29, 1947 in Brooklyn, New Heaven (2002), The Rookie (2002), Traffic (2000), Frequency York City, New York) moved to Los Angeles with his family at (2000), Any Given Sunday (1999), Playing by Heart (1998), The the age of 9, where he starred in plays at the Beverly Hills Jewish Parent Trap (1998), Switchback (1997), Something to Talk About Center. Dreyfuss’ feisty attitude was on display early as he was (1995), Kidnapped (1994), Wyatt Earp (1994), Flesh and Bone once kicked out of San Fernando Valley State College for (1993), Undercover Blues (1993), Come See the Paradise demanding that a professor apologize for criticizing Marlon (1990), Great Balls of Fire! (1989), D.O.A. (1988), Suspect Brando’s performance in a production of Julius Caesar.Dreyfuss (1987), Innerspace (1987), The Big Easy (1986), Dreamscape worked his way up through bit parts in films such as The (1984), Tough Enough (1983), Stripes (1981, uncredited), The Graduate (1967) and TV before gaining attention with his Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia (1981), Caveman (1981), portrayal of Baby Face Nelson in Dillinger (1973). He gained All Night Long (1981) and The Long Riders (1980). prominence as a college-bound young man in American Graffiti (1973) and as a nervy Jewish kid with high hopes in The GENE HACKMAN (b. January 30, 1930 in San Bernardino, Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (1974). By the latter part of the California) would be over 30 years old when he finally decided ‘70s Dreyfuss was a major star, playing leads for Steven to take his chance at acting. Yet this late start has ended up Spielberg in two of the top-grossing films of the that decade: working to Hackman's advantage. His characters belong almost Jaws (1975) and Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977). He entirely to middle age. Because they've been around long enough won a Best Actor Oscar in his first romantic lead as an out-of- to experience failure and loss, but not long enough to take it easy, work actor in The Goodbye Girl (1977). (Dreyfuss held the Hackman could play them with a distinctive mix of shadow and record as the youngest man to win the Oscar for best actor until light. He began his career by enrolling at the Pasadena Playhouse 2003 when the 29-year-old Adrien Brody won for The Pianist.) in California. Both Hackman and friend were However, as the ‘80s began, Dreyfuss’ on set blow-ups and drug part of the Playhouse and were voted “least likely to succeed.” use started to affect his ability to get roles. While he did get His first role was as Norman in Lilith (1964), starring Warren clean, one of the side effects of his long-term abuse was that his Beatty. When Beatty was casting for Bonnie and Clyde (1967), memory was damaged, so much so that he still has no memory of he chose Hackman as Buck Barrow, Clyde Barrow's brother. filming the movie, Whose Life Is It Anyway? (1981). A newly That role earned Hackman an Oscar nomination for best sober Dreyfuss starred in the popular Down and Out in Beverly supporting actor, an award for which he would again be Hills (1986). That same year he provided the narration and nominated in I Never Sang for My Father (1970). Hackman is a appeared in the opening and closing “bookends” of Stand by Me versatile actor who can play comedy as the blind man in Young (1986). Dreyfuss continued working steadily through the end of Frankenstein (1974) or villainy as the evil Lex Luthor in the 1980s and into the 1990s, most notably in Moon Over Superman (1978). His career roles have swung equally as wide: Parador (1988), Spielberg’s Always (1989) and Rosencrantz & He was the first choice to play Mike Brady on The Brady Bunch Guildenstern Are Dead (1990). Dreyfuss received some of the (1969) and the sixth choice to play one of his most famous parts, best notices of his career as a determined, inspiring music teacher Nichols—POSTCARDS FOM THE EDGE—6

coping with a deaf son and the demands of his career in Mr. witty blond actor graduated into Broadway work, particularly Holland's Opus (1995), for which he received an Oscar drama, with strong roles in Candide, Advise and Consent, An nomination. In 2004, he announced his retirement from film Enemy of the People, Twigs and Uncle Vanya. In the late 1960s acting, and that he would concentrate on theater. He implied that he began to focus more intently on TV, usually playing cerebral, he decided upon this course due to a lack of recent work in film white-collar types (district attorneys, stock brokers, doctors, and that his greater passion was always theater. Dreyfuss has politicos). Bain eventually found an “in” with daytime drama, kept busy with his political activism, as well as a stint lecturing which included a recurring role on Dark Shadows (1966) and a at Oxford University. Clearly retirement did not take. The actor part on The Edge of Night in 1970. He broke away from his returned to film recently to play two infamous historical figures: trademark dramatics when the 49-year-old actor was Dick Cheney in W. (2008) “discovered” for prime-time TV by and Bernie Madoff in the and offered a TV-miniseries Madoff supporting role opposite (2016). He often has and Bill Macy in the liberally-sliced commented that his best comedy series Maude (1972). Bain friend was the late Carrie was cast as Rue McClanahan’s Fisher. stuffy, conservative doctor/husband, Arthur Harmon, who usually was at ROB REINER (b. March 6, political odds with free-wheeling 1947 in , New feminist Maude Finlay. The role York City, New York) is moved Bain into the prime TV the son of comedy character ranks. He was and Emmy-Winning actor, given the green light by Lear to comedian, writer, and move into his own comedy series producer . with Diff'rent Strokes (1978) as the Reiner was best friends in wealthy father of a girl and adoptive high school with an unknown actor named Richard Dreyfuss father of two African-American children. While young Gary (tonight’s entire cast feels like a game of two-degrees of Coleman, the compact, precocious, mouthy dynamo, may have separation in Hollywood.) The young Reiner has admitted to stolen the show, the good-humored Bain remained a strong feeling pressured as to how he would measure up to his father's center and voice of reason until the show's demise in 1986. Bain twelve Emmys and prestigious awards. According to TCM: turned for a time to screen-writing but later comfortably retired Reiner cemented his place in television history with his portrayal to the Brentwood area of Los Angeles. Bain passed away on of Michael “Meathead” Stivic on the sitcom classic, All in the January 14, 2013, less than a month short of his 90th birthday. Family (1971-79). In his first project following the series, Reiner produced, co-wrote and co-starred with then wife Penny ANNETTE BENING (b. May 29, 1958 in Topeka, Kansas) has Marshall in the TV movie More Than Friends (1978), a romantic appeared in three films directed by Mike Nichols: Postcards comedy based on the couple's own courtship. Though he from the Edge (1990), Regarding Henry (1991) and What Planet struggled for a short time trying to launch his own projects after Are You From? (2000). Bening began her acting career with the leaving the show, Reiner directorial debut was the cult classic American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco, eventually (1984), a mockumentary about a fictional moving to New York where she acted on the stage. As is so often British heavy metal band. For the next eight years, Reiner went the case, her first big-screen role was in a forgettable movie, The on an amazing directorial run that included Stand By Me (1986), Great Outdoors (1988). However, her role was in Milos The Princess Bride (1987) and When Harry Met Sally (1989). Forman's Valmont (1989), a film adaptation of Choderlos de After turning in more fine efforts with (1990) and A Few Laclos’ . Unfortunately, de Laclos’ Good Men (1992), Reiner fell into a directing slump with North story had also just served as the source of a more Hollywoodized (1994), an abhorrent addition to an otherwise flawless career. He and successful movie version, (1988), which found his footing with (1995), a great had been released the previous year. Foreman's treatment went combination of romantic comedy and political drama. Reiner’s little noticed. Bening’s career turned an important corner the latest project is the fronted film LBJ set to following year when she co-starred with and release in early November of this year and already garnering in The Grifters (1990), and her artful turn as a con Oscar buzz. artist gained her the first of several Academy award nominations. On the strength of this performance Warren Beatty cast Bening CONRAD BAIN (b. February 4, 1923 in Lethbridge, , as Virginia Hill, Siegel's fiery actress moll, in his Bugsy Canada—d. January 14, 2013, age 89, in Livermore, California) (1991). Although the movie itself did not fare well, it resulted in is most known to audiences as the affable Park Avenue father a relationship with Beatty which led to Bening's pregnancy and Phillip Drummond to Arnold and Willis on Diff'rent Strokes in then her marriage to Beatty in 1992. Bening was set to play the 1980s. The actor started his career on stage in Canada before Catwoman in (1992), but after the making his off-Broadway debut in a 1956 Circle-in-the-Square announcement of her pregnancy, the role went to Michelle revival of Eugene O'Neill's . Fair in Pfeiffer. Notable performances have since included an obsessive, complexion and exceedingly genial in demeanor, the wry and pushy real estate agent in American Beauty (1999) and as the Nichols—POSTCARDS FOM THE EDGE—7

eponymous character in István Szabó's (2004)—both resources of energy. His father had died some years earlier, earned the actress Oscar nominations. The actress was also the leaving the family financially hard-pressed. Nichols had to work subject of an urban legend claiming that she had been the model his way through college in an assortment of jobs, including one for the logo. This rumor was untrue but so as a radio announcer. Finding that he could cut classes and still widespread that Bening, herself, told that she keep pace with the other students, he also began to involve believed it to be true. Recently she has turned out stellar himself in university theatrical activities. According to his own performances in The Kids are All Right (2010) and last year’s account, he first became aware of a fellow student named Elaine Oscar nominated . May when she sneered at his performance in Strindberg’s Miss Julie. He made his debut as a director in another university MIKE NICHOLS: 1988 entry from World Film Directors v.2. production, of Yeats’ Purgatory. Nichols abandoned his psychiatric career in 1954, when he went to New York and joined Lee Strasberg’s Actor’s Studio. He supported himself by teaching horseback riding and waiting tables at Howard Johnson’s. The story goes that he lost the latter job when a customer asked which of the establishment’s great range of ice creams he would recommend for a hot fudge sundae and Nichols suggested chicken. After that he worked as a disc jockey in , commuting to New York for his lessons at the Actor’s Studio. In 1955 Nichols was invited to join Shepherd’s Compass Theatre in Chicago, a sort of threadbare nightclub where the performers improvised their satirical sketches, often around ideas elicited from the audience. The , an extraordinarily talented bunch of unknowns, included Alan Arkin, , , Zorah Lampert, and Nichols’ old university sparring partner Elaine May. It was then Ed. John Wakeman, H.W. Wilson Co., NY 1988. that Nichols developed his reputation as “the fastest tongue in the Midwest.” American director and producer, was born Michael Igor According to an article in Time magazine (June 15, Peschkowsky in Berlin, Germany. He is the son of Paul 1970), Elaine May replaced Nichols’ “child bride,” although Peschkowsky, a Russian Jewish doctor who had emigrated to their relationship was “much too serious for marriage.” Or much Germany after the revolution and the former Brigitte Landauer. too funny. Thanks to what Time calls “their matched metabolism His maternal grandparents were Hedwig Lachmann, who wrote and high literacy,” as well as their “impeccable” stagecraft, they the German libretto for Richard Strauss’ Salome, and Gustav worked marvelously together. When Compass folded in the fall Lachmann, head of the German Social Democrat Party, who was of 1957, the routines they had developed there formed the basis eventually murdered by the Nazis. of a that, after a couple of years of growing acclaim in Nichols can himself remember being racially segregated nightclubs and on television, arrived on Broadway in October and harassed as a small boy in Germany. In 1938 his father went 1960 as An Evening With Mike Nichols and Elaine May. The alone to the United States, where he changed his name to Paul two-character sketches that made up the program were like Nichols, obtained American medical qualifications and set up a frontline reports from the sex war, mixed in with parodic practice in Manhattan. The following year Mike Nichols and his variations on the works of Pirandello, Proust, O’Neill, and Noel older brother joined him. Their mother, detained by illness, Coward. The best of them are preserved on five enormously followed in 1941. successful discs. Paul Nichols was successful in his adopted country. The Elaine May wanted to write and Nichols to direct. After family lived near in Manhattan, and Mike Nichols An Evening With finally closed in July 1961, they went their was sent to the Cherry Lane School in Darien, Connecticut, the separate ways (though Nichols subsequently starred in May’s Dalton School and Walden High in New York—a series of “very unsuccessful play A Matter of Position). Nichols went first to chic, very progressive schools” where he was generally lonely Vancouver, where he directed a production of The Importance of and unhappy. Nichols was stagestruck by the time he was Being Ernest (and played in Shaw’s Saint Joan).He had his first fourteen but was assured by his teachers that he was not suited smash hit in 1963 with ’s Barefoot in the Park, which for a theatrical career. brought him a Tony award as best director of the year. The Graduating from Walden, Nichols enrolled in New York following year Nichols staged an off-Broadway production of University but soon dropped out. Drudging as a shipping clerk Ann Jellicoe’s The Knack and had another Tony-winning was no more satisfying, and in 1950, when he was nineteen, he triumph with Murray Schisgal’s Luv. There was another Neil began the pre-med program at the , Simon hit, The Odd Couple, in 1965, and yet another Tony. planning a career in psychiatry. At about the same time he was Nichols was already a celebrity as a sophisticated married to a girl even younger than himself. entertainer. By 1966, an unbroken succession of Broadway Formerly lethargic, and given to sleeping away the smashes had made him “the most in-demand director in the greater part of his time, Nichols now began to tap his immense American theatre”—a “superstar” and “a certified Beautiful Nichols—POSTCARDS FOM THE EDGE—8

Person.” He was, Time prattled on, the “intimate of Lenny and that it established Nichols as “the new Orson Welles.” Others Jackie, chum of Gloria Steinem….His triplex assumed that what was most successful in the film could be was decorated by Billy Baldwin. His Rolls patiently waited at the attributed to the director’s collaborators—to the producer Ernest curb while he visited his fellow greats.” Lehman, the photographer , the composer Alex At that point, with no experience whatever of the North, and/or to two men who thereafter regularly worked on cinema, he was invited by Warner Brothers to direct the screen Nichols’s films, the production designer and the version of Edward Albee’s most famous play, Who’s Afraid of editor Sam O’Steen. Virginia Woolf?, starring Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. Virtually everyone agreed that Nichols had drawn Those monstres sacrés play George and Martha—an associate marvelous performances from his actors. All of them were professor of history at a minor college, witty, intelligent, but nominated for Oscars, as was almost everyone involved in the psychologically deeply scarred; and his vulgar and venomous movie, including the director. Academy Awards actually went to wife, daughter of the college president. The setting is their house Elizabeth Taylor, , Haskell Wexler, Richard on campus, where, after a faculty party, they repair to drink away Sylbert, and the costume designer Irene Sharaff. Threatened with the night, and to rend each other emotionally with a skill and censorship on account of the profanity of its language. Who’s knowledge born of much practice. Hapless witness of these Afraid was specifically exempted from Production Code scenes of witty torment are two newcomers to the college—Nick standards in recognition of its serious intentions as a work of art. (George Segal), a ruthlessly And the paying public likewise ambitious and macho young took the film to its multifarious biologist, and his frigid wife bosom. Made at a cost of about $6 Honey (Sandy Dennis). million, the movie grossed $14.5 A fifth character, much million, suggesting that Nichols’ discussed, is George and Midas touch knew no formal Martha’s son who, we learn, is barriers. shortly to arrive home. He is Pausing only to snap up never seen and indeed, it his fourth Tony award as director emerges, he has never existed. of yet another Neil Simon smash, This does not prevent George, at Plaza Suite, Nichols made his the film’s climax, from “killing” second film, The Graduate (1967). him—a brave and loving attempt Scripted by and to exorcize a fantasy that allows their agonized symbiosis no way Calder Willingham from the novel by Charles Webb, it became a forward. cult object and a manifesto for a whole generation of young people, earned Nichols an Oscar as best director of the year, and As Stanley Kauffmann pointed out, Mike Nichols had grossed $50 million, making it one of the greatest box-office been given “two world-shaking stars, the play of the decade and successes in the history of the cinema. Its Simon and Garfunkel the auspices of a large looming studio. What more inhibiting songs—”The Sound of Silence,” “Mrs. Robinson,” “Scarborough conditions could be imagined for a first film?. . . But Mr. Nichols Fair”—were as much loved as the film itself. has at least survived.” , the picture’s producer and The Graduate brought instant stardom to little-known scriptwriter, had “broken the play out of its one living-room set Dustin Hoffman. He plays Benjamin Braddock who, having into various rooms in the house and onto the lawn, which the fulfilled all his parents’ expectations at college, graduates summa play accepts well enough. He has also placed one scene in a cum laude and goes home to Los Angeles. He has no idea of roadhouse which is a patently forced move for visual variety…. what to do with the rest of his life—only the wrap-around The real job of ‘filmizing’ was left to the director” who “with no affluence and a career in plastics are not the answer. Benjamin possible chance to cut loose cinematically. . . has made the most sinks into anomie, where he is promptly seduced by Mrs. of the two elements that were left to him–intimacy and acting.” Robinson (), predatory wife of his father’s Kauffmann thought that Nichols had “gone to school to business partner, who gobbles up what remains of Benjamin’s several film masters. . . in the skills of keeping the camera close, wilted ego. indecently prying; giving us a sense of the characters’ very What saves him is his dawning love for Mrs. breath; tracking a face–in the rhythm of a scene–as the actor Robinson’s daughter Elaine (Katherine Ross). Their situation is moves, to take us to other faces; puncturing with sudden impossible and (as Nichols says) “impossibility always leads to withdrawals to give us a brief, almost dispassionate respite; then passion.” Forbidden access to Elaine, first by his mistress, then plunging us in close again to one or two faces, for lots of pores by Elaine herself, he learns that she is to marry a more acceptable and bile. There is not much that is original in Mr. Nichols’ graduate. A bemused Lochinvar, he rushes to the church, arrives camerawork, no sense of the personality that we get in his stage too late to halt the ceremony, but snatches her away from her direction. . . But he has minimized the ‘stage’ feeling, and he has outraged clan. With Elaine still in her wedding dress, they escape given the film an insidious presence, good phrasing and a by bus into an uncertain future in a scene that brought many nervous drive.” audiences cheering to their feet. This was fairly typical of the film’s reviews, though Wayne Schuth, in his monograph on Mike Nichols, analyzes some critics took extreme positions, for or against. One thought The Graduate in terms of its Nichols—POSTCARDS FOM THE EDGE—9

symbolic use of color, music, and visual images. Schuth sell army rations, is soon disposing of his comrades’ parachutes, maintains that water and “drowning” are motifs that recur and in due course negotiating the bombing of his own base with throughout Nichols’ work, and are especially prominent in this the Germans. At every turn, corruption is honored, goodness and film. Thus we see Benjamin’s face in close-up “swimming” humanity are crucified—Yossarian, who happens to be naked at through the alien faces at his welcome-home party, then the fish the time, does receive a medal from General Dreedle (Orson swimming behind their Welles) but only to encourage him to glass walls in his aquarium bomb a civilian target. (which contains a model of Five times in the course of a deep-sea diver). Later, the film, Yoassarian’s mind returns wearing the diving gear his to the nightmare scene in which, father has given him, during a raid, he had tried to help his Benjamin enters the family wounded gunner Snowden; each pool, wanders to the deep time his mind flinches away from the end and stands there alone, memory before it reaches the the camera pulling back discovery of Snowden’s appalling and back so that he wound. “As in a psychoanalysis,” becomes smaller and Nichols says, “Yossarian keeps smaller as the blue water getting closer to the memory and obscures him. Benjamin is then forgetting it and cutting it off. shown symbolically That’s what the movie is….When he drowning, fading away, finally does remember Snowden, he becoming nothing.” breaks down and is reconstituted and ...The Graduate was one of the most thoroughly makes his decision. It is exactly a parallel to psychoanalysis.” discussed of recent American movies, recognized at once as a Yossarian’s decision is to desert. The film ends with him in a cultural event, a document in the youth revolution. Not everyone life-raft, paddling toward Sweden. agreed that it was an important event or a valuable document, but Catch-22 is in fact a series of dream sequences. As Andrew Sarris found it “moving precisely because its hero passes Buck Henry has said, “everything except the last scene where from a premature maturity to an innocence regained, and Yossarian leaves the hospital and goes to Sweden is inside idealism reconfirmed.” John Lindsay Brown, in an article about Yossarian’s mind.” This was not true of the novel and was not Nichols in Sight and Sound (Spring 1972). drew a somewhat apparent to some critics who were accordingly confused. Others different conclusion, calling “the enchanted fairytale missed the endless comic invention of the book….It garnered no conclusion...moving precisely because of its ambiguity within Oscars or nominations and, though it grossed over $12 million, it Benjamin. As the bus moves off with both him and Elaine is not certain that this actually represented a profit, the cost of the smiling defiantly at the audience, no real transition from film having been cited variously as $10 million and $14 million. innocence to experience has yet been made.” In Carnal Knowledge (1971), Nichols returned to the Some critics failed to find the film moving in any terms, intimate scale of his first two films. The original and extremely though most thought it wonderfully funny, thanks to “a witty script was by the cartoonist and dramatist Jules Feiffer, dazzlingly witty script that rewards great attention.” Paul who shared Nichols’ preoccupation with American sexual Mayersburg, whose phrase that is, also complained of “density in neuroses. It follows the sexual careers of two friends—the stud the visuals.” David Robinson found it “basically a rather messy Jonathan (Jack Nicholson) and the romantic Sandy (Art and indecisive film, very uncertain in intention and tone and Garfunkel)—from college days at Amherst in the mid-1940s to unashamedly derivative” (of Karel Reisz’s Morgan among other the early 1970s. The principal women in their lives are Susan films). And the iconoclastic David Thomson called the movie “a (Candice Bergen), whom they meet at college and who is horrible mesh of whimsy, safe black humor and continental secretly seduced by Jonathan, though she eventually marries games with time.” Sandy; Bobbie (Ann-Margret), who moves in with Jonathan, Critical opinion was just as radically divided about marries him, and eventually divorces him; and Cindy (Cynthia Nichols‘ next picture, Catch-22 (1970), scripted by Buck Henry O’Neal), Sandy’s second wife, whom Jonathan tries but fails to from the book by Joseph Heller and photographed on location seduce. In the end, as David Robinson wrote, “a middle-aged (mostly in Mexico) by David Watkin. The setting is an American Sandy is discovering mystical love with a hippy girl half his age, bomber base in Italy in 1944. Allied victory is inevitable, but the while Jonathan is paying prostitutes to arouse his failing publicity-crazed Colonel Cathcart (Martin Balsam) endlessly appetites with pathological rituals of his own devising.” escalates the number of missions his men must fly. And when Some reviewers decided that the problem with Jonathan bombardier Captain Yossarian (Alan Arkin) tries to opt out of the and Sandy was latent homosexuality, but Jules Feiffer attributed mindless slaughter, pleading insanity, he encounters Catch-22: their condition to “the society…[they] were born into. the “Anyone who wants to get out of combat duty isn’t really crazy,” mythology they were reared in from birth…. They were trained so he has to go on flying. to think about women as conveniences, receptacles, This kind of Lewis Carroll logic permeates the film, appendages….[sex] had to do with rivalry and envy, with reflecting the global insanity of war itself. Lieutenant Milo competition with other fellows, more than it had to do with Minderbinder () for example, finding it profitable to women.”...Jonathan Rabin called Carnal Knowledge “a glossy, Nichols—POSTCARDS FOM THE EDGE—10

undistinguished film, full of slack and dreadfully static.” Most experience…. Molly Haskell thought that “Nichols deserves critics thought better of it than that, and for many it is Nichols’ credit for a concept that tries to combine imbecility and lust in a best film…. way that is often found in Italian, but rarely in American comic After Carnal Knowledge, which grossed $12.3 million, acting.”… Nichols returned for a time to the theatre. He directed Neil For the next eight years, Nichols directed no fictional Simon’s latest play, The Prisoner of Second Avenue, adding films, devoting himself to television, as producer of the ABC-TV another Tony to his collection, and the following year, 1973, series Family, and to the theatre, where he directed Streamers, staged a production of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya, in a new Comedians, The Gin Game, the musical Annie, and other translation by himself and Albert successful productions. In 1980 he made Todd. Its star, George C. Scott, a smoothly-paced documentary of the played the lead in Nichols’ next comedian Gilda Radner’s Broadway film, The Day of the Dolphin performance, basically a one-woman (1973). show with a little help from other Nichols’ central theme, in veterans of NBC-TV’s popular Saturday the opinion of John Lindsay Night Live. But his next major film was Brown, is “the varieties of defeat Silkwood (1983), based on the true story suffered by innocence in its of Karen Silkwood, who died under confrontations with experience.” suspicious circumstances in a car Such a confrontation is certainly accident in 1974. A union activist, she central in The Day of the Dolphin, allegedly had obtained documents— another Buck Henry script from never recovered—that would have the novel by . Scott embarrassed her employer, the Kerr- plays Dr. Jake Terrell, a marine McGee Corporation, which at that time biologist who, on his Prospero’s manufactured nuclear fuel out of island off the Florida coast, is plutonium. Written by and teaching dolphins to think and Alice Arlen, the film stars Meryl Streep speak like human beings. as the angular pill-popping heroine and Malevolent forces plan to pervert mines the contrast between the workers’ the animals’ innocent intelligence messy, idiosyncratic lives and the by involving them in a plot to futuristic technology of their workplace. murder the American president. Silkwood received a number of Terrell, who loves the dolphins, Oscar and Golden Globe nominations. frees them into the ocean, instructing them never to speak again. called it “a brassy, profane, gum-chewing tour de At the end, he is calmly awaiting murder at the hands of the force, as funny as it is moving,” and said “it may be the most villains. serious work Mike Nichols has yet done in films.” David Denby Splendidly photographed by William A, Fraker, the film could not “help loving a tragic movie with so fertile a sense of has a lyrical score by , full of “Bach-like the incongruous.” And for Jack Kroll it was one of the best films chorales” as the dolphins “race, leap, dance, dive, pirouette, talk, of the year. stand on their tails and all but walk off with the film.” It seemed Throughout the 1980s, Nichols was unusually busy in to David Robinson that “the training of the dolphins owes the New York Theatre….Yet Nichols somehow found time to something of its feeling to Truffaut’s L’Enfant Sauvage, in its return to Hollywood to make another film, Heartburn (1986), picture of the patience and the reluctant cruelty of the teacher, the adapted for the screen by Nora Ephron from her own novel based terrible resistance and equally terrible capitulation of the pupil.” on her marriage to celebrity journalist Carl Bernstein. But this promising parable “dwindles to the banality of a Disney This time out, reviews were generally negative. It was live-action animal adventure, distinctly out of style with the felt that Meryl Streep and Jack Nicholson were both able enough talents involved.” in their roles, but that their performances added up to a series of By Nichols’ standards, The Day of the Dolphin was only bright, effective moments rather than a realized study of moderately successful, and the decline continued—at least in relationships. Stanley Kauffmann remarked that Nichols “is one financial terms—with The Fortune (1975), an original script by of the best of directors, on stage or screen, as long as he sticks to “Adrien Joyce” (Carole Eastman). It is set in the 1920s, mostly lightweight stuff…. He has given the film a freshness of in and around a Spanish stucco bungalow in southern California. composition, a scene-by-scene substance, that implies comedy- Here Freddie (), a kooky teen-age heiress, is drama of more import than we get….This is just a series of shacked up with two naive and incompetent con men (Warren events, not a drama, not even a narrative made cogent by Beatty and Jack Nicholson). When they are not double-crossing insight.” Pauline Kael agreed, observing that Nichols’ one another or making out with Freddie, Nicky and Oscar are technique—his moving the camera in for each significant planning to murder her for her money. In the end, confronted nuance—makes us unduly conscious of the acting, and how with incontrovertible evidence of their lethal intentions. Freddie studied it is. He turns us into connoisseurs of performance simply refuses to accept it and return cheerfully to her dangerous instead of giving us a grasp of character.” The complaint of many ménage à trois in a willed victory of innocence over critics was summed up by Richard Corliss when he wrote that Nichols—POSTCARDS FOM THE EDGE—11

Heartburn “doesn’t seem to be about anything…..it’s less a slice She has discarded most of the material about Suzanne's of life than a slice of lifestyle.”... life inside the drug clinic. She concentrates instead on Suzanne's Interviewers describe Nichols as a tall, slim, slow- relations with her mother, and on her peril-filled emotional life moving man who manages to combine “an ethereal fragile air” after she gets out of the clinic, having kicked, she believes, the with “an impression of intense alertness.” He breeds and sells cocaine-acid-Percodan habit. Arabian horses. Nichols once said that his talent “isn’t Kept firmly intact is the hilarious tone, though not the necessarily the one I would have chosen, but people have no literary form, of the gutsy, merciless, sometimes self-deluding choice. They have to go on as themselves. first-person monologues through which much of the novel speaks. ''Postcards From the Edge'' seems to have been a terrifically genial collaboration between the writer and the director, Miss Fisher's tale of odd-ball woe being perfect material for Mr. Nichols's particular ability to discover the humane sensibility within the absurd. The screenplay is not strong in the way that, say, the screenplay for ''Total Recall'' is strong. The suspense is not killing and the only damage to an automobile is a severe dent. Though Suzanne is living on the edge, there's never much doubt about how things must turn out. This is, after all, a comedy, and Suzanne's intelligence is reinforced by a pragmatic kind of wit that she has inherited from her mother. Nobody is going to spend much time worrying about what happens next in ''Postcards From the Edge,'' at least in part Vincent Canby: “Down and Out at the Top in Hollywood,” because what's going on at any given minute is so rich, even New York Times, September 12, 1990 during the initial sequences in the rehabilitation center. At first glance the casting of Shirley MacLaine and Suzanne doesn't minimize her predicament, but she can't help Meryl Streep as mother and daughter does not seem entirely standing a bit outside it. When a therapist suggests that a group plausible. It's not only the generational thing (though, technically encounter session be ended so the patients can visit with their anyway, they could be mother and daughter). It's also because ''significant others,'' Suzanne wants to know why everyone has to the two actresses seem to come from the two different poles of talk in bumper stickers. the tiny show-business planet. The movie sails effortlessly through Suzanne's first Miss MacLaine is her mother, Doris Mann, a musical post-clinic affair with a glib, good-looking movie producer comedy star of the 50's and 60's, an overwhelming public (Dennis Quaid), who tells Suzanne that she's ''the realest person personality of the sort who is ''done'' by female impersonators but I've ever met in the abstract.'' who, privately, is nothing if not practical. When she goes to visit There's also her first acting job after she gets out of the Suzanne at the drug rehabilitation clinic, she carries Woolite in clinic, in a schlocky film in which she plays a uniformed cop and her purse. spends her first day on the set tied to a cactus. The next day the She also drinks a bit too much, but it doesn't show until producers criticize the rushes because she doesn't seem relaxed. the morning she smashes her car into a tree, with more damage to Suzanne is a splendidly written character. Miss Streep reveals her the car than to either her person or her self-esteem. substance with the same magically comic brio she displayed in In these rather special circumstances, Doris has not been a bad ''She-Devil,'' when she turned her co-star, , into a mother, something she feels compelled to note from time to time. poisonous toadstool. ''How would you like to have as a Apparently Miss Streep can do anything, including, at mother?'' she screams at Suzanne. ''Or ?'' Says the end of the film, Shel Silverstein's ''I'm Checkin' Out (of the Suzanne, ''Those are my options?'' Doris loves her daughter, but Heartbreak Hotel),'' a country-and-western number that is both a sometimes her patience wears out. Then she weeps. All that she foot-stomper and a send-up. She is marvelous. has ever wanted for her (in addition to a good agent, a trusted So is Miss MacLaine as the no-nonsense movie star. business manager and an attractive man) is that Suzanne do well. Unlike her daughter, Doris never has any trouble differentiating ''You want me to do well,'' says Suzanne, ''just not between reality and make-believe. She has learned too much better.'' Theirs is not the kind of mother-daughter relationship throughout her long career to waste time being vain in private or that tears the lid off Hollywood and boils old icons in bile. The anything but fully ''on'' when in public. The two actresses are portraits here are not especially flattering, but neither are they surrounded by a cast of equals: Gene Hackman, as a director who scandalous. The satire is too good-humored about both women to may possibly be Suzanne's salvation; Richard Dreyfuss, in the do blunt, melodramatic injury. brief role of the doctor who pumps out Suzanne's stomach and In writing the screenplay, Carrie Fisher, the daughter of then asks for her telephone number; Simon Callow, Rob Reiner, and Eddie Fisher, has not adapted her best- Mary Wickes, Conrad Bain, Michael Ontkean, Annette Bening selling roman a clef, ''Postcards From the Edge,'' as much as she and Sidney Armus. Mr. Armus plays Doris's rich businessman has been inspired by it. husband. It's virtually a non-speaking part. Nichols—POSTCARDS FOM THE EDGE—12

Mr. Nichols's top-of-the-line associates behind the After a near-fatal overdose, Suzanne is told she can't be hired for camera include Michael Ballhaus, the cameraman, and Sam a new film unless she puts herself in the care of a responsible O'Steen, his longtime editor. party. So she moves into the Beverly Hills mansion of her ''Postcards From the Edge'' is a vehicle, but it's a mother, an alcoholic star who won't admit her own problem. custom-built Rolls. On Suzanne's return home, Doris throws a party. Coaxed to perform, Suzanne warbles "You Don't Know Me" -- Peter Travers, “Postcards from the Edge,” , Streep's singing is surprisingly affecting. Doris beams with September 12, 1990. maternal pride until her professional jealousy flairs, and she belts In her first novel, 'Postcards From the Edge,' Carrie out a version of 's "I'm Still Here" that blows Fisher showed how famous parents, plus lovers, shrinks, drugs away the room and her daughter's small moment. MacLaine is and a career in the shadows, nearly finished a fictional actress magnificent, but the beauty of the scene is the brilliantly named Suzanne Vale. That Fisher, the actress daughter of Debbie economical way Nichols uses it to set up the film's conflicts. Reynolds and Eddie Fisher, knows the territory is evident from Fisher neatly skewers Hollywood pretension. And the novel and this fiercely witty and moving film version, Nichols enlists a first-rate cast in cameo roles, including Dennis scripted by Fisher and incisively directed by Mike Nichols. Quaid as an oversexed producer, Gene Hackman as a Fisher jettisons most of the book's rehab-center material and compassionate director and Richard Dreyfuss as a smitten doctor. focuses on the mother-daughter relationship. It's a wise move, By the end, Suzanne forges a tentative truce with her mother especially with Meryl Streep on hand to portray the wisecracking instead of defining herself through a man. Judged on the sexist but insecure Suzanne and Shirley MacLaine to play her iron- terms of most recent Hollywood fare, Postcards is revolutionary. butterfly mother, Doris. Both deliver knockout performances.

COMING UP IN THE FALL 2017 BUFFALO FILM SEMINARS XXXV

November 7: Tran Anh Hung The Scent of Green Papayas 1993 November 14: Hayeo Miyazaki The Wind Rises 2013 November 21: Andrey Zvyagintsev Leviathan 2014 November 28: Pedro Almodóvar Julieta 2016 December 5: Billy Wilder Some Like it Hot 1959

CONTACTS:...email Diane Christian: [email protected]…email Bruce Jackson [email protected] the series schedule, annotations, links and updates: http://buffalofilmseminars.com...to subscribe to the weekly email informational notes, send an email to addto [email protected] cast and crew info on any film: http://imdb.com/ The Buffalo Film Seminars are presented by the State University of New York at Buffalo and the Dipson Amherst Theatre, with support from the Robert and Patricia Colby Foundation and the Buffalo News