, writing: “My beloved sister, Olympia Dukakis, passed away this morning in New York City. After many months of failing health she is finally at peace and with her Louis.”Dukakis was 56 when she came to prominence overnight thanks to her Oscar-winning turn in “Moonstruck,” in which she played, with an extraordinary comic ethnic gusto characteristic of the movie as a whole, the mother of Cher’s character.
By the next year, however, she was third-billed, behind John Travolta and Kirstie Alley, in baby comedy “Look Who’s Talking,” in which she played the pregnant Alley’s mother in a manner reminiscent of her work in “Moonstruck.” She returned for the 1990 sequel. Dukakis was part of the Greek chorus that was either a charming conceit or an ungainly one, depending on whom you ask, in Woody Allen’s 1995 romantic comedy “Mighty Aphrodite,” in which the chorus comments on the Allen character’s infidelity. Also that year she appeared as the skeptical, hard-nosed principal in sentimental Richard Dreyfuss vehicle “Mr. Holland’s Opus,” and as the mother of a gay man in the AIDS drama “Jeffrey.
She played a senile grandmother in Jon Kasdan’s “In the Land of Women,” starring Adam Brody, Kristen Stewart and Meg Ryan. But much more interesting was writer-director Thomas Fitzgerald’s 2011 film “Cloudburst,” in which Dukakis starred with Brenda Fricker as a lesbian couple who travel to Canada in order to get married. Variety said, “Dukakis outdoes even her most memorable earlier turns as Stella, the irrepressible old dame determined to spring her lover free.
Dukakis was a series regular on the brief 2004 CBS sitcom “Center of the Universe,” starring John Goodman and Jean Smart. She also guested on numerous TV series, providing voices on “Frasier” and “The Simpsons” and appearing on “Numbers”; “Law & Order: SVU,” as a defense attorney; and HBO detective comedy “Bored to Death.”
She made her television debut in 1962 on an episode of “The Doctors and the Nurses,” also guesting on “Dr. Kildare” the same year. The actress made her bigscreen debut in the 1964 film short “Twice a Man.” Over the next 10 years she had a number of small, often uncredited, roles in films including “Death Wish.
She was a great performer!
So sad!! 😔
RIP🙏
Oh No...
I can hear her voice -- 'what's the matter with you? Your life's going down the toilet!' RIP