Olympia Dukakis, the dignified actress who received a supporting Oscar for her performance as Cher's nitpicking Brooklyn mother in Moonstruck, has died. She was 89. Dukakis died Saturday in New York, her brother Apollo wrote on Facebook.
she asked to speak with"a human being who's gone through this" when she arrived to play the character the first time. "They found someone," Dukakis recalled."She came, and when she opened the door, she was, like, 6-foot-2, with hands that could wrap around a football, but a soft voice.
Lovely breasts. She walks into the room, she sits down, and … she was a sex therapist, and she evidently helps people with these transitions. And I asked her, 'What was it that you wanted so much that made it possible for you to go through this incredible journey?' "And this is what she said to me: 'All my life, I yearned for the friendship of women.' And I started to cry. I couldn’t help it. I don't know what I expected her to say, but not that. And that I knew. And I totally understood. To have your voice silenced, to not be able to be able to speak and be who you are … Who doesn't know about that? So that’s how I was able to play Anna Madrigal." Olympia Dukakis was born June 20, 1931, in Lowell, Massachusetts. Her father, a Greek immigrant, launched a drama club to stage the classic Greek plays. After graduating from Boston University, where she was a New England fencing champion — she also was pretty good at basketball, tennis, pingpong and riflery — she worked as a physical therapist to earn money to get her masters in theater arts. After attaining her degree, Dukakis came to New York in 1958 and taught drama at NYU while pursuing parts. In summer stock, she panicked during her first onstage performance, unable to speak for an entire act.