Twelve Oscars that got away from our greatest living actress
At the 2009 Screen Actors Guild Awards, when she heard her name (Best Leading Actress, "Doubt"), Meryl Streep looked majorly dumbfounded. She fairly flew to the stage, holding her arms joyously aloft. Breathlessly, the radiant lady in elegant evening pants chortled her surprise: "I didn't even buy a dress!" Then, "Can I just say there is no such thing as the best actress, there is no such thing as the greatest living actress ... I am in a position where I have secret information, that I know this to be true."
There was more, just as eloquent and gracious, an authentically charming performance. Emphasis on "performance." Anyone familiar with Streep's formidable craft as an actress might be forgiven for noticing how precisely the scene had been paced and shaped, down to her "breathless" delivery, from the very first moment her name was announced!
And there's the rub. America's "greatest living actress" sometimes runs like clockwork, her style too calculating, cerebral, controlled. Streep can armor herself up in a character (and accent), flawlessly acting the hell out of the role. But occasionally, as a non-admiring Katharine Hepburn once snarkily observed, you can hear the "click, click, click" of wheels turning in the actress's head.
Still, no less a diva than Bette Davis claimed Streep as her legitimate heir. And when Meryl Streep is firing on all cylinders, few can match her wattage. Even in a crappy movie that asks nothing of her, this star can suddenly take fire, shining a light on some terrible or beautiful truth.
Oscar fell in love with Streep for the first time for her promising (supporting) performance in "Kramer vs. Kramer" (1979). After passionately embracing her for "Sophie's Choice" (1982), Golden Boy has jilted this classy dame a dozen times over a period of 25 years, not even giving her the time of day for what's arguably one of her best and most natural performances ever in Robert Altman's "A Prairie Home Companion" (2007).
What awful irony if, after decades of worthier work, the coveted statuette goes home with Meryl Streep for winding up the dreary clockwork nun in "Doubt"!
(Everett Collection)
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