Breaking: Olympia Dukakis, theater veteran and Oscar-winning ‘Moonstruck’ actress, dies at 89
Oscar winner Olympia Dukakis, the theater veteran who rose to prominence late in her career with memorable turns in 1980s films such as “Moonstruck” and “Steel Magnolias,” has died at the age of 89.
Actress Olympia Dukakis holds her supporting actress Oscar for “Moonstruck” at the Academy Awards on April 11, 1988. It was her philanthropy and heritage that enabled her name to appear on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2013. The Greek America Foundation, which she long supported, came up with the $30,000 required for the application. Additionally, she was approached to play the matriarch in Nia Vardalos’ 2002 runaway hit “My Big Fat Greek Wedding,” but declined due to a scheduling conflict, she told the“I’m happy it’s had success. I know some Greeks feel conflicted about it.
She arrived in New York in late 1959 but could only finds parts playing ethnic roles, of which there were few. “All of the attention I was getting was lovely, of course, but I was more than a little confused about why it had come at this point, and with this role, which, to my mind, was not the greatest part I had ever played,” she said.But with the success of “Moonstruck” and her cousin’s presidential run, the first-generation Greek-American ultimately embraced the laurels and said it allowed her to stop living her life as “a hyphenated American.
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