The Backstory to 'Broads'

These Old Broads is a 2001 TV movie written by Carrie Fisher (with Elaine Pope) and starring Debbie Reynolds, Shirley MacLaine, Joan Collins and Elizabeth Taylor. In it, Fisher set out to pen a campy romp that gay audiences would love, a valentine to lovers of Old Hollywood and the legendary ladies who twinkled in its firmanent. 

The premise is simple: A trio of has-been actresses who can’t stand each other team up for a tribute to the 60s beach movie that made them stars (think Where The Boys Are). But the plot of the movie is really beside the point. The real fun of These Old Broads is knowing the backstories of its superstar cast and connecting the dots.

Fisher found her movie title in an old Hollywood story that perfectly captured the attitude toward aging actresses in Hollywood.

In 1962, studio head Jack Warner told producer Robert Aldrich when he asked for financing on a picture starring aging divas Bette Davis and Joan Crawford: “No one’s going to give you a dime for these old broads.” (But Warner was wrong, of course, and Whatever Happened To Baby Jane went on to become the surprise hit of that year.)

Carrie Fisher with her mom Debbie Reynolds, circa 1970

Carrie Fisher herself was one complicated character. Space Princess. Hollywood Princess. And also Princess of Pain - obsessive, intense and bipolar, with a passionate and encyclopedic knowledge of Hollywood folklore. We are fortunate that she was such a prolific writer and chronicler of the many things going on inside that brilliant beautiful mind.

If you’re not familiar with Fisher’s history and Hollywood pedigree, I highly recommend watching her hilarious one-woman show Wishful Drinking (available on HBO) before seeing These Old Broads. In it, she gives an enlightening synopsis of her life in a lecture replete with a flow chart of her famous family tree—aptly titled Hollywood Inbreeding 101. 

Bottom line: it’s all connected—and many of the details must be understood to fully appreciate Broads. 

Back in 1957, singer Eddie Fisher and girl next door MGM star Debbie Reynolds (parents to Carrie and brother Todd) were America’s sweethearts, and best friends to impresario Mike Todd and his new wife Elizabeth Taylor. (Debbie had even served as Elizabeth’s matron of honor.) Tragically, Mike Todd suddenly died in a plane crash, leaving Elizabeth devastated. Debbie sent Eddie to help her friend in any way he possibly could. 

The Other Woman: Elizabeth Taylor with Eddie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds

Then, as Carrie tells it, “My father rushed to her side—and then made his way around to her front.” The despondent widowed Taylor needed comfort and consolation, and in Eddie’s daughter’s words, “She consoled herself with my father’s p****s.”

The scandal and feud that resulted played out in the tabloids for years to come. Elizabeth was branded an adulteress, and Eddie lost his lucrative TV show. Reynolds divorced Fisher. Fisher and Taylor would marry in 1959, but three years later Taylor would dump him as well for costar Richard Burton, igniting yet another Scandale.

In Broads, Debbie Reynolds plays a role very close to her real self, an unsinkable former movie star who owns a hotel and movie memorabilia museum.  

One key scene in These Old Broads capitalizes on the Debbie/Eddie/Liz scandal and is fascinating to watch, the square-off scene between Elizabeth Taylor and Debbie Reynolds. It’s full of fun, affection and nostalgia as Debbie playfully chastises her former friend for being a nymphomaniac and Elizabeth defends herself by calling Debbie a boring born-again virgin. Debbie forgives Elizabeth and together they tear Eddie to shreds for coming between them. In real life, Debbie and Elizabeth had buried the hatchet years before, but for a classic movie lover it’s a real treat to see an onscreen version of their reconciliation. (It’s the raison d’etre for the whole film, in my opinion!)

Friends forever: Elizabeth Taylor and Debbie Reynolds

With almost nothing to do or interesting to say, Shirley MacLaine fares less well than Debbie and Elizabeth in Broads. The character she plays would have benefited by a dash of the metaphysical/woowoo (some say kooky) spiritual persona that has helped make the name Shirley MacLaine iconic, but no one thought of that.

But of course, MacLaine has backstory that connects her directly to both Debbie Reynolds and Elizabeth Taylor in the Hollywood tapestry of myth. In Postcards from the Edge, Carrie Fisher’s thinly veiled account of her recovery from a drug overdose, MacLaine famously played the role of the mother fashioned after Debbie, opposite Meryl Streep in the Carrie role. 

And Liz Taylor once “stole” the Oscar that MacLaine believed was hers, back in 1961! 

Liz "stole" Shirley's Oscar in 1961, but Shirley got one too in 1984

Nominated for a Best Actress Oscar for her role of Miss Kubelik in Billy Wilder’s The Apartment,  MacLaine was the odds-on favorite to win. That is, until fellow nominee Elizabeth Taylor fell ill with pneumonia in London and was at death’s door. Only emergency surgery saved Elizabeth from drowning in her own lung fluids, along with the prayers of filmgoers worldwide who forgave her sinful past transgressions (specifically, stealing Debbie’s husband Eddie). “I prayed right along with them for Elizabeth’s recovery,” a saintly Debbie Reynolds was quoted as saying.

The Academy voters took pity on her as well and Taylor won, for her performance as a trampy call girl in the sleazy yet slick soap opera Butterfield 8, prompting Shirley MacLaine to retort cynically, “I lost to a tracheotomy.” (MacLaine would finally win the coveted gold statuette for Best Actress in 1984, for Terms of Endearment.)

Connecting the dots to…Joan Collins. When Elizabeth had fallen ill, it had been none other than Joan Collins who was tapped to replace Taylor as the Queen of the Nile in the big screen Fox epic Cleopatra. (But Taylor, of course, recovered!)

Joan Collins almost took over the role of Cleopatra from an ailing Taylor - but she recovered!

Collins, considered to be the poor man’s Elizabeth Taylor, had been a Hollywood glamour girl for half a decade but had never achieved the A-List status of a Taylor or a Monroe. The British beauty did some high profile parts (taking over the role Joan Crawford played in The Women for the color remake The Opposite Sex, for example) but her filmography also contained numerous lesser efforts such as the sword-and-sandal epic Land of the Pharoahs.

Married to flamboyant songwriter and performer Anthony “What Kind of Fool Am I” Newley in the 1960s, Collins became more well known as an international jetsetter than as an actress, though she did take time out to raise a family. A ubiquitous presence on International Best Dressed Lists and in the tabloids, Collins was seen frugging at posh nightclubs in seqinned minidresses, glittering with diamonds, sporting her trademark false lashes and kohl-black eyeliner, high bouffant wigs and falls. Fabulous!

Building an icon: From 1950s glamour girl to 1960s fashionista to TV's top femme fatale

In the 1970s, Collins worked steadily, often in horror films (like Tales That Witness Madness and The Empire of the Ants) and titillating semi-sexploitation ugh films like The Bitch (based on a book by her equally famous sister Jackie Collins, who exposed the seamier side of fame and fortune with her racy contemporary romance novels, most notably The Hollywood Wives.)

Then came the TV series Dynasty, in which her tour de force performance as the beautiful, villainous and flawlessly fashionable Alexis Morell Carrington Colby Dexter Dexter Rowan revitalized her career and propelled her to a richly deserved icon status of her own. 

In Broads, Joan looks spectacular - she was 67 at the time - but she seems miscast in her role of a gangster’s moll (shades of Lana Turner and Johnny Stompananato) and her American accent leaves something to be desired. 

Perhaps Elizabeth had been offered the Collins role first and turned it down (though it wouldn’t have been a good fit for her either) and then bade Fisher to create a role in which she could relax in bed most of the time. Taylor suffered from constant agonizing pain from back trouble and had difficulty walking, and indeed for the rest of her life conducted most of her business from her bedroom! 

Like Mae West, Elizabeth did some of her best work in bed

(For all her beauty, talent, fame and and money, Taylor’s life was indeed beset by crisis after crisis, tragedy after tragedy, dozens of health scares, operations and close calls. A long-running soap opera. But she still found the energy and time to create a billion-dollar perfume business and to establish, organize and promote the AIDS charity AMFAR.)

In her small role as a high-powered Hollywood agent, Elizabeth steals the film from her famous costars, a zoftig earth mother lounging in her caftan and barking orders in a thick New York accent.  (Taylor had converted to Judaism when she married Mike Todd and ever since, always referred to herself as a Jewish American Princess and a Jewish Mother, and she plays it to the hilt here.)

If only the movie itself were as interesting as the stories behind it and the stars in it!  It’s a mess in many respects (a mix of slapstick farce and bitchy comedy of manners) but its heart is in the right place. Any movie that gives work to mature, powerful, accomplished women is all right in my book. When it’s on again, you can be sure I’ll be watching it! 

Thanks for the opportunity to add this entry to the Joan Collins Blogathon hosted by RealWeegieMidget Reviews and Taking Up Room! I look forward to exploring the glittering career of Dame Joan with my fellow bloggers! 

Steel Yourself for an ’80s Guilty Pleasure

When I first saw this film version of one of my favorite stage plays almost three decades ago, I must admit—I didn’t love it. But over the years, Steel Magnolias (1989) has grown on me. 

Perhaps because our local theater’s version of Robert Harling’s intimate tragicomic play about the strength and fortitude of ordinary everyday Southern women had been performed with such depth, dimension and heart, I didn’t see eye to eye with director Herbert Ross’s cinematic vision of casting larger-than-life movie stars playing these women in such flamboyant fashion.

Though I had enjoyed every member of the cast in other film performances, seeing this all-star extravaganza for the first time was a somewhat jarring experience. Though its star power packed a powerful punch, some of the lead actresses’ broad and over-the-top characterizations bothered me. 

Olympia Dukakis as Clairee Belcher

But that didn’t stop me from seeing the film again. And again. In fact, this has become one of those movies that if I land on it as I channel surf looking for something to pass the time, I’ll stay tuned and watch it to the end (even though I own my own DVD!). It’s an addictive guilty pleasure, imbued with a gay sensibility and a soupçon of camp, eminently watchable despite all its perceived flaws, far superior to a Mommie Dearest or a Myra Breckinridge (both of which I happen to adore). 

For the film, director Herbert Ross (Funny Lady, The Goodbye Girl)  and screenwriter Robert Harling (The First Wives Club, Telenovela), opened up the play (which all took place on the single set of Truvy’s Beauty Spot), actually filming on location in Harling’s own hometown of Natchitoches, Louisiana. But its casting and production design seemed decidedly at odds with a touching play that according to Harling had been inspired by real people and events in his life, including losing his sister to diabetes.

Shirley MacLaine as Oiuser Boudreau

Much of the expanded plot of the movie relies on humor and sight gags—the Pepto-Bismol pink church wedding scene; the shooting of birds from the trees for the reception; the smashed Easter eggs; the outlandish costumes of the principals. Of course, just as in the stage play, comedy gives way to tragedy as the story unfolds. 

Time and repetition have made this a movie I truly enjoy. Harling’s script is chock full of unforgettable one-liners that still zing and sting with rare wit, and tells a heartwarming story with the power to make viewers both laugh and cry. And indeed, I did become attached to these now-iconic characters as brought to life by these bigger-than-life star personalities.

Dolly Parton as Truvy Jones

As wisecracking matron Clairee Belcher, Olympia Dukakis, who I loved so much in her Academy Award-winning role as Cher’s cynical mom in Moonstruck, spews her lethal one-liners with the practiced timing of a Mae West or W.C. Fields, actually talking out of the side of her mouth in broad asides. (“If you can’t say anything nice about anybody, come sit by me.”) Funny as hell, but the stage character used humor to ease the pain of losing her beloved husband. That subtle shading is somewhat lost here. 

As Ouiser, the mean and crotchety one—“I’m not crazy…I’ve just been in a very bad mood for 40 years”—veteran actress Shirley MacLaine (who was still a vibrant, ageless, high-kicking redhead when the film was made), is more than just deglamorized. Her costumes and makeup are hideously ugly, and she’s given too much cartoonlike schtick with a sad-looking (similarly roughed up!) St. Bernard. 

Sally Field as M'Lynn Eatonton

In the play, much of the momentum is carried by the character Truvy, owner of the beauty salon, a long-winded storyteller who passes the time regaling her clients as she teases and sprays. In the film, Dolly Parton’s performance as Truvy is uneven (though heartfelt). In Nine to Five her refreshingly natural and unself-conscious portrayal of a spirited secretary charmed audiences, but here she seems to be a little intimidated by Harling’s intricate and often wordy dialogue. In Parton, Truvy’s humorous turns of phrase are delivered haltingly, but not without timing or humor. At some moments her delivery is odd and awkward — “[Miss Merry Christmas] was caught with her tinsel…down around her knees”— but in her defense, Miss Dolly does fire off a few comedic bullseyes as well. 

Don’t get me wrong, I do love Dolly and enjoy her quirky performance here. Once I learned through interviews with Shirley MacLaine that an impatient Herbert Ross had browbeaten and humiliated Parton in front of the rest of the cast, telling her to go get acting lessons, I looked at her valiant effort in an entirely different light. Now I find her performance brave and balls-out—Dolly is not a skilled actress but a natural performer with boundless charisma, enthusiasm and heart—and her chemistry with the other women is warm and real. 

Julia Roberts as Shelby Eatonton Latcherie

Two-time Oscar winner Sally Field (Norma Rae, Places in the Heart—both Southern women, by the way) plays the role of M’Lynn Eatonton with matter-of-fact skill and far less bombast than her costars, although she does have her obligatory hysterical “Sybil” moment in the scene in the cemetery following daughter’s funeral. Somehow, though, Sally’s breakdown can still bring me to tears, too.

As Shelby, daughter of M’Lynn, the feisty bride who loses her life to a battle with diabetes—a difficult role that required her to transition from light comedy (“I’ll be the one in the veil, down front”) to high drama (literally expiring in a hospital vigil as the beeping EKG machine slows and stops)— a young Julia Roberts acquits herself with grace and aplomb. (This is despite the fact that director Ross had been equally hard on Roberts as he was Parton.) For Steel Magnolias, Roberts was nominated for her first Oscar, as Best Supporting Actress—the one and only Oscar nod the film received. Roberts would receive a Best Actress nomination for Pretty Woman a year later, and finally win a Best Actress statuette for Erin Brokovich in 2000.

Daryl Hannah as Annelle Dupuis

As Annelle, the new girl in town (“with a past!”), Daryl Hannah displays a great comic flair. Revealing herself to be more than the sex symbol she played in Splash and in Wall Street and the tabloid-selling paramour of JFK Jr. and nemesis of his mother Jackie Onassis (who reportedly put the kibosh on her son’s marriage plans with the actress), Hannah gives one of her most solid film performances.

Ironically, Jackie O’s sister Lee Radziwill was married to Steel Magnolias director Herbert Ross at the time of filming. (Perhaps that even played a part in how Daryl got the role.) Ross had recently been widowed after a 28-year marriage to ballerina Nora Kaye. Together, their cinematic labor of love had been the exquisite 1977 ballet drama The Turning Point, starring Shirley MacLaine and Tom Skerritt. Lee Radziwill, also a lover of ballet and patroness of the arts, had been a friend of Ross for years before their 1988 marriage, but the union was not to last. Ross acrimoniously divorced Radziwill in 2000 and then he died in 2001.

The male characters of Steel Magnolias do not appear in the all-female-cast stage play at all and are painted by Harling as little more than comical cartoon characters, as colorfully described in amusing anecdotes by the women in the beauty parlor. But in the film, Tom Skerritt (Alien, Top Gun), Sam Shepard (The Right Stuff, August Osage County) and Kevin J. O’Connor (Peggy Sue Got Married) manage to imbue their performances with depth and humanity.

Sam Shepard as Spud Jones

As Drum Eatenton, M’Lynn’s husband and Shelby’s dad, Skerritt is affecting in the final act of the picture as his daughter and wife undergo a kidney transplant (after playing Drum as a “dumb redneck” in the first two thirds of the picture).

Sam Shepard gives the most naturalistic portrayal of all as Truvy’s husband (despite his comical character name of Spud). Parton’s best and most touching scene, in fact, is a somber moment opposite Shepard, who plays her husband, as as they prepare for Shelby’s funeral. 

Tom Skerritt as Drum Eatonton

As Shelby’s sardonic husband, handsome Dylan McDermott is properly macho and tongue-in-cheek as he humorously refuses to take anything his mother-in-law Field says seriously, but his shallow character is given very little screen time.  In contrast, Kevin J. O’Connor makes the most of his brief scenes as Daryl Hannah’s gentle bartender boyfriend. 

His knack for writing rich female characters of all ages has turned into a cottage industry for Robert Harling, who parlayed his little play into a successful, still-going-strong career as screenwriter and producer. Harling would work with Sally Field again in Soapdish and with Shirley MacLaine in Evening Star, the sequel to Terms of Endearment.

Dylan McDermott as Jackson Latcherie

All in all, for me the years have been kind to Steel Magnolias; it’s a film I really do love. (I haven’t yet seen the African-American TV film version made in 2012. Now I’m so attached to the film version, I hesitate, because I know it so well after umpteen viewings!) The actors are unforgettable and iconic. Having helmed the musical numbers in William Wyler’s film of Funny Girl (as well as directing its sequel Funny Lady), director Ross gives the film a rhythmic musical flow. Lively southern music and the picturesque Natchitoches Louisiana locations lend charm and authenticity to the proceedings. And ultimately, it achieves, in the words of Truvy,  a  mixture of “laughter through tears—my favorite emotion.”

Director Herbert Ross and his all-stars

A Postcard from Carrie

To the world at large, she’ll undoubtedly be best remembered as Princess Leia. But Carrie Fisher gave us so much more than just one iconic portrayal. She lives on in my movie collection as the aforementioned rebel princess in the original Star Wars trilogy; as nymphomaniac Lee Grant’s rebellious yet equally promiscuous daughter in Shampoo; and as kooky Dianne Wiest’s romantic rival for Sam Waterston in Hannah and her Sisters. But Fisher’s masterwork, in my opinion, is a film in which she does not appear in front of the camera. In Postcards from the Edge (1990), Fisher reveals hilarious, uncomfortable and touching truths about herself, her famous mother and show business in her brilliant screen adaptation of her own best-selling autobiographical novel.

 In the hands of master filmmaker Mike Nichols, the vivid characters and the wry poetry of Fisher’s incisive script shine like diamonds, with frequent Nichols muse Meryl Streep (Silkwood, Angels in America) bringing Fisher’s pithy dialogue and beleaguered heroine to life with her usual aplomb.

In Postcards, the fun begins when troubled actress Suzanne Vale overdoses on opiates and her horrified bedmate (Dennis Quaid) drops her off, unresponsive, at the emergency room (literally). She’s resuscitated and shipped off to rehab, only to discover that the only way that anyone will hire her again is if she is under the watchful eye of a guardian. So she goes home to live with her estranged mother, who also happens to be a famous actress—a prospect as painful as the stomach pumping she’s just endured. 

Meryl Streep as Suzanne Vale

Shirley MacLaine as Doris Mann

Fisher’s jaundiced view of the movie business is evident here, as a still-fragile Suzanne is badgered by producers and directors as she begins work on a new film, a comedy in which she portrays a lady cop (opposite the dreamy Michael Ontkean, who has precious little to do here). The awkward moments where producer Rob Reiner asks Suzanne for a drug test/urine sample, the endless notes and criticisms Suzanne endures regarding her performance, and the clucking of a smug wardrobe woman (a hilarious turn by Dana Ivey) about the actress’s appearance (“Her thighs are...well, bulbous!”), are uniformly both funny and raw, essayed by a skilled cast and director Nichols. With deft humor and bullseye accuracy, Fisher neatly captures the grueling drudgery of filmmaking, the schadenfreude, jealousy and foibles of the film business.

Gene Hackman and Meryl Streep in the looping scene

Natalie Wood in Inside Daisy Clover

Fisher’s reverence for old Hollywood shows in the film’s many old-movie references including an obvious homage to the famous looping scene from Inside Daisy Clover (remember how Natalie Wood has that hysterical nervous breakdown in the dubbing booth?). In Postcards, Streep’s Suzanne struggles with the effects of the pills she’s just taken (and thrown up) as she attempts to correct the sins of the past—on film, at least-—during the voice-over recordings.

The cameos are worth their weight in Hollywood gold: Richard Dreyfuss as the amorous doctor who pumps Suzanne’s stomach; Lucille Ball’s second husband and Borscht Belt comedian Gary Morton as her agent; Rob Reiner as the gruff producer; Annette Bening as an empty-headed actress who mispronounces “endorphins” as “endolphins”; Gene Hackman as Suzanne’s tough but supportive director; veteran character actress Mary Wickes (The Trouble with Angels, Sister Act) as the “lovable loud mountain” of a grandmother and Diffrent Strokes star Conrad Bain as her senile spouse.

Doris and Suzanne

Carrie and Debbie

Of course, though, the centerpiece of the film is the uneasy relationship between Suzanne and her mother, legendary movie star and gay icon Doris Mann, played with relish by the indefatigable Shirley MacLaine (as unsinkable as Debbie Reynolds herself and a longtime family friend). Of course, MacLaine imbues the character of Doris with her own brand of star power, as does Streep. Much more than stand-ins for Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds, Streep and MacLaine add dimension and their own subtle older-and-younger actress-to-actress competitiveness to the proceedings. Sparks of chemistry fly, and the results are absorbing, thanks to the screenplay, the performers and the expert guidance of a true actor’s director.

 Fisher’s often prickly script evokes the relationships of Joan and Christina Crawford and Lana Turner and Cheryl Crane in a tense confrontation scene between Suzanne and a drunken Doris, played under a print of a famous Life magazine cover featuring Shirley with daughter Sachi, who incidentally wrote a cruel Mommie Dearest–type tell-all about life with Mama MacLaine just recently. (Fisher and Reynolds posed for many a similar magazine layout over the years.)

Shirley and Sachi

 It’s not all recriminations and bitchy repartee, though, not by a long shot. The complexity of the mother-daughter relationship is beautifully drawn by Fisher as the film unfolds. There is much love and cameraderie lurking amid the awkward silences and the screaming matches between Suzanne and Doris. Like Debbie Reynolds did for Carrie Fisher, Doris encourages Suzanne in her singing, a talent she is not famous for but truly excels in. Streep’s strong performances of “You Don’t Know Me” and “I’m Checking Out” are counterpointed by MacLaine’s glitzy, showy and slightly camp rendition of Sondheim’s “I’m Still Here.” (Indeed, Carrie Fisher was a lovely singer, too—check out her sweet and soulful version of “The Way You Look Tonight” in the audition scene from Hannah, and her brassy belting of “Happy Days Are Here Again” in her 2010 one-woman show Wishful Drinking.)

Reportedly, Debbie Reynolds was unhappy with the character of the alcoholic, self-centered mother, frightened that the public would believe it was really her. ( “I am not an alcoholic,” Doris Mann insists in the film. “I just drink like an Irish person.”) In the press, Carrie agreed with her mother that the character she had created was fictional, merely using her real-life upbringing as a jumping-off point for her made-up story. (You could almost see Fisher rolling her eyes in interviews at the time; it’s so clear she wanted to help her mom save face, without negating her own experience as the movie star’s daughter.)

Streep, Reynolds, MacLaine and Fisher at the Postcards premiere

 Ironically, the supposed rift between Carrie Fisher and her mother over this portrayal served to bring the two much closer together than they had been in recent years. As they grew older, their relationship flourished. In 2001, Carrie and Debbie had a ball filming a TV movie called These Old Broads with Doris Mann herself Shirley MacLaine, Joan Collins and none other than Elizabeth Taylor…not a great (or even good) film by any stretch of the imagination but a camp curiosity nonetheless. How surreal it must have been for Ms. Fisher to pen that scene between Liz Taylor and Debbie Reynolds, their characters reminiscing about the cheating crooner who left one to marry the other (obviously based upon Carrie’s father, Eddie Fisher).

 Fisher’s admiration and protective affection for Reynolds is glimpsed in the final mother-daughter scene of Postcards, played in the hospital where Doris has ended up after an alcohol-induced car accident. Suzanne gently makes up her mother’s face to help her face the paparazzi crowding outside her hospital room, singing tenderly to her. It’s a sweet moment that says a lot; eventually, the child becomes the parent, and the parent becomes the child...did that occur as well in real life for Debbie and Carrie?

Soul sisters

 At the time of their surprising dual deaths (Debbie passed away a mere 24 hours after her daughter, the week after Christmas 2016), Carrie and Debbie had been longtime next-door neighbors in Beverly Hills—and, by all accounts, soulmates. As 84-year-old Debbie’s health and vigor declined, it was 60-year-old Carrie who accepted many of the recent life achievement awards and honors on her mother’s behalf, most notably Debbie’s Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award Oscar in 2015.

 As Hollywood royalty, Carrie Fisher lived her entire (abbreviated) life in the spotlight, but she gave us so much, first as an actress, later as an advocate for mental health—and ultimately, she might add herself with that streak of dark humor, as a cautionary tale. But Carrie Fisher’s talents reached their zenith as a writer, with her unerring ear for witty dialogue, her frank storytelling and unconventional sense of humor, all gloriously apparent in one of my favorite films, and the outstanding book it’s based upon. Thanks for the Postcards, Carrie!

Dance of the Duelling Divas

In every life, there comes a moment of decision, a crossroads. When that choice is made, there is no turning back. Life takes a different direction, and we must live with the consequences. This is The Turning Point (1977).

For his intimate look behind the scenes of the competitive world of professional ballet, director Herbert Ross assembled a stellar cast, headed by two of Hollywood’s biggest stars. Both Shirley MacLaine and Anne Bancroft were over the age of 40 and battling to secure leading roles in film as a new breed of stars began to dominate 1970s cinema. This wonderful film won both women enough accolades to bolster their superstar status and secure their career longevity.  

Shirley MacLaine as Deedee

Anne Bancroft as Emma

As DeeDee, Shirley MacLaine has one of her most memorable roles. Though many may prefer MacLaine’s more iconic performances in earlier films including The Apartment and Sweet Charity, or her later triumphs in Terms of Endearment and Postcards from the Edge, I find this mid-life MacLaine character full of touching vulnerability and sympathetic insecurity. DeeDee is filled with regret at dreams that never came true, a frazzled hausfrau with a house full of kids almost ready to leave the nest. She’s put on a few pounds since the days she studied to be a prima ballerina, and when the American Ballet Company comes to town, she finds herself face to face with her best friend and rival Emma, now a legendary star. When DeeDee’s talented daughter Amelia, a budding ballerina, is invited to join the company in New York, the two old friends have the opportunity to settle a few old scores.

Anne Bancroft is commanding as Emma, the aging superstar who must fight to keep her place in the company despite the newcomers who can now out-dance (and outshine) her. Slim, angular and elegant, Bancroft carries herself with a dancer’s grace and poise, but her lack of dance ability is obvious; we never get to see the great talent that has made Emma a legend. Bancroft’s brief “performances” in the dance sequences show the actress “acting up a storm,” but with cheated camera angles and nary a pirouette. Acting-wise, though, Bancroft is strong, and her scenes with MacLaine crackle with chemistry and excitement as a lifetime of regrets and recriminations mount, and the two vie for the affection of Amelia.

Leslie Browne as Amelia

Mikhail Baryshnikov as Yuri

Tom Skerritt as Wayne

Reminiscent of those old “women’s pictures” of the 1930s and ‘40s like Auld Acquaintance and In This Our Life, these two strong female characters carry the picture, assisted by dancer Leslie Browne in her film debut as Amelia. The male members of the cast--including Tom Skerritt (Alien) as DeeDee’s husband, another former dancer; James Mitchell (All My Children) as the company’s famed choreographer; and Mikhail Baryshnikov as Amelia’s dashing Russian dance partner and love interest--are all excellent but merely incidental to the proceedings. Together, MacLaine and Bancroft form the engine that makes the sparks fly.

Both MacLaine and Bancroft received Academy Award nominations that year in the Best Actress category, but as so often happens, neither won. (Diane Keaton beat them both, winning the award for Annie Hall.) Also nominated that year in the supporting categories were dancers Browne and Baryshnikov, more for their glorious dancing than for their acting prowess. (Vanessa Redgrave and Jason Robards won those awards, both for their performances in the film Julia.)

Director Ross skillfully avoids focusing on Emma's feet...

A passionate pas de deux for Leslie and Mischa

The raison d'etre for ballet - lots of skin and tights

What sets this film apart from mere well-acted soap opera is its loving spotlight on the art of the dance. Director Herbert Ross, ably assisted by then-wife Nora Kaye (he later married Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis’s sister Lee Radziwill), creates a visual valentine to the art of the ballet, capturing on film some of the most legendary talents in the field and sharing his passion for this somewhat elitist and recherche medium with a mass audience. Baryshnikov in particular has some astonishing moments. At the peak of his physical and technical talents, he is a passionate young god leaping divinely and defying gravity at every turn.

Herbert Ross, whose first big film assignment was choreographing the musical numbers for Funny Girl in 1968, apparently used some unorthodox means for creating dramatic tension between his two leading ladies in The Turning Point.  As a prelude to their famous hair-pullling, cat-scratching rooftop battle royale, MacLaine and Bancroft share a scene in a quiet bar and begin to verbally spar, culminating in Bancroft tossing a drink into MacLaine’s obviously startled face. MacLaine was indeed nonplussed, since it was a gesture that Ross had secretly worked on with Bancroft to elicit MacLaine’s raw and naked emotional response. She never quite trusted the director again after that scene, though they would work together again.

The famous cat-fight

MacLaine skewered Ross’s sadistic techniques for getting a performance out of his actresses, both on this film and in Steel Magnolias a dozen years later. In her memoirs, she wrote that he literally brought both Darryl Hannah and Dolly Parton to tears. Not Shirley, though. She was now wise to his flim-flam.

Director Ross, Nora Kaye and Shirley MacLaine

The Turning Point is a great opportunity to see two fine actresses at the top of their game, as well as an unparalleled look at the world of ballet, both on and off the stage.