One True Thing is a 1998 American drama film directed by Carl Franklin . It tells the story of a woman in her 20s who is forced to put her life on hold in order to care for her mother, who is dying of cancer . The script was adapted by Karen Croner from the novel by Anna Quindlen , with the story being based on Quindlen's own struggle with the death of her mother, Prudence Pantano Quindlen, from ovarian cancer in 1972.
188-510: The film stars Meryl Streep , Renée Zellweger , William Hurt , and Tom Everett Scott . Bette Midler sings the lead song, " My One True Friend ", over the end credits. The track was first released on Midler's 1998 album Bathhouse Betty . The film was shot in Morristown, New Jersey and Maplewood, New Jersey , as well as at the campus of Princeton University . Ellen Gulden has a high-pressure job writing for New York magazine . Ellen
376-594: A Critics' Choice Television Award . After Streep starred in Mamma Mia! , her rendition of the titular song rose to popularity on the Portuguese music charts, where it peaked at number eight in October 2008. At the 35th People's Choice Awards , her version of "Mamma Mia" won an award for "Favorite Song From A Soundtrack". In 2008, Streep was nominated for a Grammy Award (her fifth nomination) for her work on
564-413: A "gawky kid with glasses and frizzy hair", yet noted that she liked to show off in front of the camera in family home movies from a young age. At age 12, Streep was selected to sing at a school recital, leading to her having opera lessons from Estelle Liebling . Despite her talent, she later remarked, "I was singing something I didn't feel and understand. That was an important lesson—not to do that. To find
752-611: A 40-year-plus run, were cancelled in 2011. All My Children aired its network finale in September 2011, with One Life to Live following suit in January 2012. Both All My Children and One Life to Live were briefly revived online in 2013, before being cancelled again that same year. In 2019, production of Days of Our Lives was put on "indefinite hiatus" and all of the cast's contracts were terminated, raising concerns within soap publications that cancellation would ensue, though
940-652: A 72-year run (including radio). As the World Turns aired its final episode on September 17, 2010, after a 54-year run. As the World Turns was the last of 20 soap operas produced by Procter & Gamble, the soap and consumer goods company from which the genre got its name. As the World Turns and Guiding Light were also among the last of the soaps that originated from New York City. All My Children , another New York–based soap, moved its production out to Los Angeles in an effort to reduce costs and raise sagging ratings; however, both it and One Life to Live , each with
1128-656: A British biographical film about Margaret Thatcher , which takes a look at the Prime Minister during the Falklands War and her years in retirement. Streep, who attended a session of the House of Commons to see British Members of Parliament (MPs) in action in preparation for her role as Thatcher, called her casting "a daunting and exciting challenge". While the film had a mixed reception, Streep's performance gained rave reviews, earning her Best Actress awards at
1316-572: A British political activist and leader of the British suffragette movement who helped women win the right to vote. The film received mostly positive reviews, particularly for the performances of the cast, though its distributor earned criticism that Streep's prominent position within the marketing was misleading. Following the duties of the president at the 66th Berlin International Film Festival in 2016, Streep starred in
1504-842: A Gala Tribute from the Film Society of Lincoln Center in 2008, and the Kennedy Center Honor in 2011. President Barack Obama awarded her the National Medal of Arts in 2010 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2014. In 2003, the French government made her a Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters . She was awarded the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2017. Mary Louise Streep
1692-580: A German woman married to a Jewish artist played by James Woods in Nazi era Germany. She found the material to be "unrelentingly noble" and professed to have taken on the role for financial gain. Streep travelled to Germany and Austria for filming while Cazale remained in New York. Upon her return, Streep found that Cazale's illness had progressed, and she nursed him until his death on March 12, 1978. With an estimated audience of 109 million, Holocaust brought
1880-675: A May 1978 "Theater in America" television production for PBS 's Great Performances . She replaced Glenn Close , who played the role in the Off-Broadway production at the Phoenix Theatre . Hoping to divert herself from the grief of Cazale's death, Streep accepted a role in The Seduction of Joe Tynan (1979) as the chirpy love interest of Alan Alda , later commenting that she played it on "automatic pilot". She performed
2068-533: A U.S. government official who investigates an Egyptian foreign national suspected of terrorism in the political thriller Rendition (2007), directed by Gavin Hood . Keen to get involved in a thriller film, Streep welcomed the opportunity to star in a film genre for which she was not usually offered scripts, and immediately signed on to the project. Upon its release, Rendition was less commercially successful, and received mixed reviews. In this period, Streep had
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#17327867100032256-528: A blog, Julie and Julia contrasts the life of Child in the early years of her culinary career with the life of young New Yorker Julie Powell (Adams), who aspires to cook all 524 recipes in Child's cookbook Mastering the Art of French Cooking . Longworth believes her caricature of Julia Child was "quite possibly the biggest performance of her career, while also drawing on her own experience to bring lived-in truth to
2444-813: A colossal waste of a talented cast". She had a role in Robert Redford 's Lions for Lambs (also 2007), a film about the connection between a platoon of United States soldiers in Afghanistan, a U.S. senator, a reporter, and a California college professor. Like Evening , critics felt that the talent of the cast was wasted, and that it suffered from slow pacing, although one critic announced that Streep positively stood out, being "natural, unforced, quietly powerful", in comparison to Redford's forced performance. Streep found major commercial success when she starred in Phyllida Lloyd 's Mamma Mia! (2008),
2632-400: A dead body, but hey, even if you do, he or she can always come back to play the evil identical twin. Marlena Laird in 1992, during her time as a line producer and director for General Hospital . Romance , secret relationships, extramarital affairs, and genuine hate have been the basis for many soap opera storylines. In US daytime serials, the most popular soap opera characters, and
2820-450: A departure from the dramatic roles she was known to play. Reacting to her string of poorly received films, Streep said: "Audiences are shrinking; as the marketing strategy defines more and more narrowly who they want to reach males from 16 to 25 – it's become a chicken-and-egg syndrome. Which came first? First, they release all these summer movies, then do a demographic survey of who's going to see them." Biographer Karen Hollinger described
3008-415: A different scene. I thought, I've made a terrible mistake, no more movies. I hate this business." However, Streep stated in 2015 that Fonda had a lasting influence on her as an actress, and credited her with opening "probably more doors than I probably even know about". Robert De Niro, who had spotted Streep in her stage production of The Cherry Orchard , suggested that she play the role of his girlfriend in
3196-577: A film about a Chinese science graduate student who becomes violent after dealing with academic politics at a U.S. university. Inspired by the events of the 1991 University of Iowa shooting , and initially scheduled for a 2007 release, producers and investors decided to shelve Dark Matter out of respect for the victims of the Virginia Tech shooting in April 2007. The drama received negative to mixed reviews upon its limited 2008 release. Streep played
3384-468: A film adaptation of the musical of the same name , based on the songs of Swedish pop group ABBA . Co-starring Amanda Seyfried , Pierce Brosnan , Stellan Skarsgård , Colin Firth , Julie Walters , and Christine Baranski , Streep played a single mother and a former girl-group singer, whose daughter (Seyfried), a bride-to-be who never met her father, invites three likely paternal candidates to her wedding on
3572-482: A film adaptation of the Broadway musical of the same name . That same year she also reunited with director Steven Soderbergh for his HBO Max comedy film Let Them All Talk (2020). Streep starred alongside Dianne Wiest , Candice Bergen , Lucas Hedges , and Gemma Chan . Richard Lawson of Vanity Fair noted, "Streep could, in some senses, be approaching the film as a meta commentary on her own ivied stature as
3760-801: A film with heavy special effects. Streep appeared with Jeremy Irons , Glenn Close and Winona Ryder in The House of the Spirits (1993), set in Chile during Augusto Pinochet 's dictatorship. The film was not well received by critics. Anthony Lane of The New Yorker wrote: "This is really quite an achievement. It brings together Jeremy Irons, Meryl Streep, Winona Ryder, Antonio Banderas , and Vanessa Redgrave and insures that, without exception, they all give their worst performances ever". The following year, Streep starred in The River Wild , as
3948-463: A fixture of American daytime television in the early 1950s, joined by game shows , sitcom reruns and talk shows. In 1988, H. Wesley Kenney , who at the time served as the executive producer of General Hospital , said to The New York Times : I think people like stories that continue so they can relate to these people. They become like a family, and the viewer becomes emotionally involved. There seem to be two attitudes by viewers. One, that
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#17327867100034136-511: A funeral. Once Tylo reprised her character in 2005, a retcon explained that Taylor had actually gone into a coma. Stunts and complex physical action are largely absent, especially from daytime serials. Such story events often take place off-screen and are referred to in dialogue instead of being shown. This is because stunts or action scenes are difficult to adequately depict without complex movements, multiple takes, and post-production editing. When episodes were broadcast live, post-production work
4324-558: A housewife dying of cancer in One True Thing . The film met with positive reviews. Mick LaSalle in the San Francisco Chronicle declared, "After One True Thing , critics who persist in the fiction that Streep is a cold and technical actress will need to get their heads examined. She is so instinctive and natural – so thoroughly in the moment and operating on flights of inspiration – that she's able to give us
4512-701: A level of honesty and reality that makes [her performance] one of her most moving." Among the few negative reviews, Salon.com ' s Andrew O'Hehir complained that the movie "really has no plot", and found director Carl Franklin unable to properly connect with his cast. Streep was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in the film, but lost out to Gwyneth Paltrow for her role in Shakespeare in Love . Meryl Streep Mary Louise " Meryl " Streep (born June 22, 1949)
4700-488: A little mixed up." Vincent Canby of The New York Times referred to her performance as "another stunning performance", played with "the kind of virtuosity that seems to re-define the possibilities of screen acting". In 1989, Streep lobbied to play the lead role in Oliver Stone 's adaption of the play Evita , but two months before filming was due to commence, she dropped out, citing "exhaustion" initially, although it
4888-470: A local bar to numb the pain of never again achieving success with, nor even being able to complete, further novels. George admits to Ellen the reason he loved Kate was that she was full of light shining through everything, and he could not bear the thought of her light slipping away. As her mother is dying, Ellen tells her she loves her, and Kate says she knew it and always had. At the funeral, Ellen ends her relationship with her boyfriend. After Kate's death,
5076-504: A longtime habit of having flings with his female students. Ellen attempts to find a place for herself in her parents' life while struggling to continue writing on a freelance basis and maintain her relationship with her boyfriend in New York. Over time, Ellen grows closer to her mother and learns more about her parents' marriage—including realizing that Kate has known about George's affairs all along. Ellen also learns that her father's philandering days have become lonely nights of drinking at
5264-485: A luxury of space that makes them seem more naturalistic; indeed, the economics of the form demand long scenes, and conversations that a 22-episodes-per-season weekly series might dispense with in half a dozen lines of dialogue may be drawn out, as here, for pages. You spend more time even with the minor characters; the apparent villains grow less apparently villainous. Soap opera storylines run concurrently, intersect and lead into further developments. An individual episode of
5452-432: A married couple whose onscreen and real-life romance was widely covered by both the soap opera magazines and the mainstream press at large. The first program generally considered to be a "soap opera" or daytime serial by scholars of the genre is Painted Dreams , which premiered on WGN radio Chicago, on October 20, 1930. It was regularly broadcast in a daytime time slot, where most listeners would be housewives; thus,
5640-540: A movie star." Doubt (also 2008) features Streep with Philip Seymour Hoffman , Amy Adams , and Viola Davis . A drama revolving around the stern principal nun (Streep) of a Bronx Catholic school in 1964 who brings accusations of pedophilia against a popular priest (Hoffman), the film became a moderate box office success, and was hailed by many critics as one of the best films of 2008. The film received five Academy Awards nominations, for its four lead actors and for John Patrick Shanley 's script. Ebert, who awarded
5828-575: A mutual and long-overdue appreciation of Kate. One True Thing received mostly favorable reviews from critics, with Streep being the subject of acclaim for bringing warmth and natural energy instead of appearing cold and technical. On Rotten Tomatoes the film has a rating of 87% based on reviews from 61 critics. The site's consensus states: "Solid performances lift this drama to a higher level." The similar site Metacritic grades it 63 out of 100 based on reviews from 25 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave
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6016-583: A number of soap actors were also accomplished stage actors who performed live theater during breaks from their soap roles. In the 1960s and 1970s, new serials such as General Hospital , Days of our Lives , and The Young and the Restless were produced in Los Angeles . Their success made the West Coast a viable alternative to New York-produced soap operas, which were becoming more costly to perform. By
6204-425: A particular place, or focus on a large extended family. The storylines follow the day-to-day activities and personal relationships of these characters. "Soap narratives, like those of film melodramas, are marked by what Steve Neale has described as 'chance happenings, coincidences, missed meetings, sudden conversions, last-minute rescues and revelations, deus ex machina endings.'" These elements may be found across
6392-525: A radio drama in January 1937 and subsequently transferred to television in June 1952. With the exception of several years in the late 1940s, during which creator Irna Phillips was involved in a dispute with Procter & Gamble , Guiding Light was heard or seen nearly every weekday from 1937 to 2009, making it the longest story ever told in a broadcast medium. Originally serials were broadcast as 15-minute installments each weekday in daytime slots. In 1956, As
6580-525: A relationship with Cazale at this time, and resided with him until his death three years later. She starred in the musical Happy End on Broadway, and won an Obie for her performance in the off-Broadway play Alice at the Palace . Although Streep had not aspired to become a film actor, Robert De Niro 's performance in Taxi Driver (1976) had a profound impact on her; she said to herself, 'That's
6768-510: A series of daily prime time soaps from 2006 to 2007, which aired on newly created sister network MyNetworkTV , but the experiment was largely a failure after disappointing ratings). Due to the masses of episodes produced for a series, release of soap operas to DVD (a popular venue for distribution of current and vintage television series) is considered impractical. With the exception of occasional specials, daytime soap operas are notable by their absence from DVD release schedules (an exception being
6956-523: A short role alongside Vanessa Redgrave , Glenn Close , and her eldest daughter Mamie Gummer in Lajos Koltai 's drama film Evening (2007), based on the 1998 novel of the same name by Susan Minot . Switching between the present and the past, it tells the story of a bedridden woman, who remembers her tumultuous life in the mid-1950s. The film was released to a lukewarm reaction from critics, who called it "beautifully filmed, but decidedly dull [and]
7144-525: A short time from 1979 to 1980). More than half of the serials had expanded to one-hour episodes by 1980. As of 2012, three of the four U.S. serials air one-hour episodes each weekday; only The Bold and the Beautiful airs 30-minute episodes. Soap operas were originally broadcast live from the studio, creating what many at the time regarded as a feeling similar to that of a stage play. As nearly all soap operas were originated at that time from New York City ,
7332-484: A single missing episode) was rerun on the Sci-Fi Channel in the 1990s. After The Edge of Night 's 1984 cancellation, reruns of the show's final five years were shown late nights on USA Network from 1985 to 1989. On January 20, 2000, a digital cable and satellite network dedicated to the genre, Soapnet , began re-airing soaps that originally aired on ABC, NBC and CBS. Newer broadcast networks since
7520-536: A situation that she had anticipated in a 1981 interview when she commented, "By the time an actress hits her mid-forties, no one's interested in her anymore. And if you want to fit a couple of babies into that schedule as well, you've got to pick your parts with great care." At the Screen Actor's Guild National Women's Conference in 1990, Streep keynoted the first national event, emphasizing the decline in women's work opportunities, pay parity, and role models within
7708-462: A soap opera will generally switch between several concurrent narrative threads that may at times interconnect and affect one another or may run entirely independent to each other. Episodes may feature some of the show's storylines, but not always all of them. Especially in daytime serials and those that are broadcast each weekday, there is some rotation of both storyline and actors so any given storyline or actor will appear in some but usually not all of
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7896-612: A somewhat unsophisticated childhood." Streep entered the 2000s with a voice cameo in Steven Spielberg 's A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001), a science fiction film about a childlike android , played by Haley Joel Osment . The same year, Streep co-hosted the annual Nobel Peace Prize Concert with Liam Neeson which was held in Oslo, Norway , on December 11, 2001, in honour of the Nobel Peace Prize laureate,
8084-524: A story drama The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981) was Streep's first leading role. The film paired Streep with Jeremy Irons as contemporary actors, telling their modern story, as well as the Victorian era drama they were performing. Streep developed an English accent for the part, but considered herself a misfit for the role: "I couldn't help wishing that I was more beautiful". A New York magazine article commented that, while many female stars of
8272-605: A struggling actress, from the third season of the Hulu comedy series Only Murders in the Building , starring Steve Martin , Martin Short and Selena Gomez . Leila Latif of The Guardian wrote, "Streep, unsurprisingly, plays Loretta beautifully, truly tapping into the agony of a woman who's faced a lifetime of rejection but somehow kept her dream alive". She received a Golden Globe , and Primetime Emmy Award nomination and won
8460-543: A supporting part in Rob Marshall's Mary Poppins Returns , a musical sequel to the 1964 film Mary Poppins starring Emily Blunt in the titular role. Streep next featured in her first main role in a television series by starring in the second season of the HBO drama series Big Little Lies in 2019. She took on the part of Mary Louise Wright, the mother-in-law of Nicole Kidman 's character. Liane Moriarty , author of
8648-406: A thoughtful look at mature relationships". In 2013, Streep starred alongside Julia Roberts and Ewan McGregor in the black comedy drama August: Osage County (2013) about a dysfunctional family that re-unites into the familial house when their patriarch suddenly disappears. Based on Tracy Letts 's Pulitzer Prize-winning eponymous play , Streep received positive reviews for her portrayal of
8836-508: A troubled wife in Kramer vs. Kramer (1979), followed by the Academy Award for Best Actress for starring as a Holocaust survivor in Sophie's Choice (1982). She continued to gain awards and critical acclaim for her film work throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Commercial success varied, with Out of Africa (1985), Death Becomes Her (1992), and The Bridges of Madison County (1995) earning
9024-480: A very young age. Streep said, "She was a mentor because she said to me, 'Meryl, you're capable. You're so great.' She was saying, 'You can do whatever you put your mind to. If you're lazy, you're not going to get it done. But if you put your mind to it, you can do anything.' And I believed her." Although she was naturally more introverted than her mother, when she later needed an injection of confidence in adulthood, she would consult her mother at times for advice. Streep
9212-401: A week's worth of episodes. Soap operas rarely conclude all their storylines at the same time. When one storyline ends, there are several other story threads at differing stages of development . Soap opera episodes typically end on some sort of cliffhanger , and the season finale (if a soap incorporates a break between seasons) ends in the same way, only to be resolved when the show returns for
9400-474: A wheelchair in a comedy written by then-unknown playwrights Christopher Durang and Albert Innaurato . She was a student of choreographer Carmen de Lavallade , whom she introduced at the 2017 Kennedy Center Honors . Another of her teachers was Robert Lewis , a co-founder of the Actors Studio . Streep disapproved of some of the acting exercises she was asked to do, remarking that one professor taught
9588-456: A whole character around a woman who could have simply been a catalogue of symptoms." In 2008, Molly Haskell praised Streep's performance in Plenty , believing it to be "one of Streep's most difficult and ambiguous" films and "most feminist" role. Longworth considers Streep's next release, Out of Africa (1985), to have established her as a Hollywood superstar. In the film, Streep starred as
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#17327867100039776-490: A wide audience; she co-starred with Jack Nicholson in the dramas Heartburn (1986) and Ironweed (1987), in which she sang onscreen for the first time since the "Great Performances" telecast of the Phoenix Theater production of Secret Service (1977). In Evil Angels (1988), she played Lindy Chamberlain , an Australian woman who had been convicted of the murder of her infant daughter despite claiming that
9964-572: A wider degree of public recognition to Streep, who found herself "on the verge of national visibility". She won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie for her performance. Despite the awards success, Streep was still not enthusiastic towards her film career and preferred acting on stage. She played the supporting role of Leilah in Wendy Wasserstein 's Uncommon Women and Others in
10152-497: A witch. A fantasy genre crossover inspired by the Grimm Brothers ' fairy tales, it centers on a childless couple who set out to end a curse placed on them by Streep's vengeful witch. Though the film was dismissed by some critics such as Mark Kermode as "irritating naffness", Streep's performance earned her Academy Award, Golden Globe, SAG, and Critic's Choice Award nominations for Best Supporting Actress. In July 2014, it
10340-436: A woman who's at once wildly idiosyncratic and utterly believable." Los Angeles Times film critic Kenneth Turan noted that her role "is one of the least self-consciously dramatic and surface showy of her career," but she "adds a level of honesty and reality that makes [her performance] one of her most moving". Streep portrayed Roberta Guaspari , a real-life New Yorker who found passion and enlightenment teaching violin to
10528-460: A young boy is chosen to learn the real world. Streep was aware of the book before being offered the role by co-star and producer Jeff Bridges . Upon its release, The Giver was met with generally mixed to negative reviews from critics. Streep also had a small role in the period drama film The Homesman (2014). Set in the 1850s midwest , the film stars Hilary Swank and Tommy Lee Jones as an unusual pair who help three women driven to madness by
10716-522: A young naïve writer ( Peter MacNicol ) and a Jewish intellectual ( Kevin Kline ). Streep's emotional dramatic performance and her apparent mastery of a Polish accent drew praise. William Styron wrote the novel with Ursula Andress in mind for the role of Sophie, but Streep was determined to get the role. Streep filmed the "choice" scene in one take and refused to do it again, finding it extremely painful and emotionally exhausting. That scene, in which Streep
10904-492: Is Coronation Street , which was first broadcast on ITV in 1960. According to Albert Moran, one of the defining features that make a television program a soap opera is "that form of television that works with a continuous open narrative. Each episode ends with a promise that the storyline is to be continued in another episode". In 2012, Los Angeles Times columnist Robert Lloyd wrote of daily dramas: Although melodramatically eventful, soap operas such as this also have
11092-468: Is an American actress. Known for her versatility and adept accent work, she has been described as "the best actress of her generation". She has received numerous accolades throughout her career spanning over four decades, including a record 21 Academy Award nominations, winning three, and a record 34 Golden Globe Award nominations, winning eight. Streep made her stage debut in 1975 in Trelawny of
11280-606: Is back in top form. This means her performance in Out of Africa is at the highest level of acting in film today." Longworth notes that the dramatic success of Out of Africa led to a backlash of critical opinion against Streep in the years that followed, especially as she was now demanding $ 4 million a picture. Unlike other stars at the time, such as Sylvester Stallone and Tom Cruise , Streep "never seemed to play herself", and certain critics felt her technical finesse led people to literally see her acting. Her next films did not appeal to
11468-681: Is clearly having a ball as the imperious snob who snorts with disapproval...[and] does her best to hide her affection for her nieces behind her narrowed gaze and all-purpose disdain". The film received critical acclaim and grossed over $ 218 million against its $ 40 million budget. In 2020, she voiced a role in the Apple TV+ animated short film Here We Are: Notes for Living on Planet Earth . Streep had leading roles in two films, both released by streaming services . She reunited with Nicole Kidman for Netflix , in Ryan Murphy 's The Prom (2020),
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#173278671000311656-563: Is hardly an emotion that Streep doesn't touch in this movie, and yet we're never aware of her straining. This is one of the most astonishing and yet one of the most unaffected and natural performances I can imagine". Pauline Kael , on the contrary, called the film an "infuriatingly bad movie", and thought that Streep "decorporealizes" herself, which she believed explained why her movie heroines "don't seem to be full characters, and why there are no incidental joys to be had from watching her". In 1983, Streep played her first non-fictional character,
11844-541: Is it. This is what you get." She continued to work on Broadway , appearing in the 1976 double bill of Tennessee Williams ' 27 Wagons Full of Cotton and Arthur Miller 's A Memory of Two Mondays . She received a Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Play . Streep's other Broadway credits include Anton Chekhov 's The Cherry Orchard and the Bertolt Brecht - Kurt Weill musical Happy End , in which she had originally appeared off-Broadway at
12032-413: Is known for her mastery of accents; she may be the most versatile speaker in the movies. Here you might think she has no accent, unless you've heard her real speaking voice; then you realize that Guaspari's speaking style is no less a particular achievement than Streep's other accents. This is not Streep's voice, but someone else's – with a certain flat quality, as if later education and refinement came after
12220-533: Is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the actor with the longest uninterrupted performance in a single role. A number of performers played roles for 20 years or longer, occasionally on more than one show. Rachel Ames played Audrey Hardy on both General Hospital and Port Charles from 1964 until 2007, and returned in 2009. Susan Lucci played Erica Kane in All My Children from
12408-610: Is not scheduled or because of last-minute deferrals of scheduled episodes to the following day because of breaking news coverage. ( Temporary production stoppages caused by the COVID-19 pandemic similarly resulted in CBS and ABC airing older reruns of The Young and the Restless , The Bold and the Beautiful and General Hospital during the Spring and Summer of 2020 in order to ration first-run episodes and, eventually, to fill airtime after
12596-473: Is not uncommon for a single character to be played by multiple actors. The key character of Mike Karr on The Edge of Night was played by three actors. Conversely, several actors have remained playing the same character for many years, or decades even. Helen Wagner played Hughes family matriarch Nancy Hughes on American soap As the World Turns from its April 2, 1956, debut through her death in May 2010. She
12784-418: Is ordered by an SS guard at Auschwitz to choose which of her two children would be gassed and which would proceed to the labor camp, is her most famous scene, according to Emma Brockes of The Guardian who wrote in 2006: "It's classic Streep, the kind of scene that makes your scalp tighten, but defter in a way is her handling of smaller, harder-to-grasp emotions". Among several acting awards, Streep won
12972-481: Is taken aback by this request, knowing it could jeopardize her career and love interest. However, she eventually agrees, caving into her father's appeals and inducements. As Ellen helps her mother with domestic chores while her father goes about his usual business without helping much, Ellen begins to reassess her views of her parents. She realizes she always brushed her mother aside and idealized her father, despite his self-centered focus on his career and, she discovers,
13160-420: Is visiting her family home for her father George's surprise birthday party. It becomes obvious that she deeply admires George, a once-celebrated novelist and literature professor at Princeton University , but Ellen has barely restrained disdain for her mother, Kate, and the domestic life she lives. When it is discovered that Kate has cancer, George pressures Ellen to come home and take care of her mother. Ellen
13348-456: The Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance, and her characterization was voted the third greatest movie performance of all time by Premiere magazine. Roger Ebert said of her delivery, "Streep plays the Brooklyn scenes with an enchanting Polish-American accent (she has the first accent I've ever wanted to hug), and she plays the flashbacks in subtitled German and Polish. There
13536-618: The Academy Award for Best Picture . In 1979, Streep began workshopping Alice in Concert , a musical version of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland , with writer and composer Elizabeth Swados and director Joseph Papp ; the show was put on at New York's Public Theater from December 1980. Frank Rich of The New York Times referred to Streep as the production's "one wonder", but questioned why she devoted so much energy to it. By 1980, Streep had progressed to leading roles in films. She
13724-520: The Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress , which she famously left in the ladies' room after giving her speech. She received awards from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association , National Board of Review and National Society of Film Critics for her collective work in her three film releases of 1979. Both The Deer Hunter and Kramer vs. Kramer were major commercial successes and were consecutive winners of
13912-508: The Chelsea Theater Center . She received Drama Desk Award nominations for both productions. Streep's first feature film role came opposite Jane Fonda in the 1977 film Julia , in which she had a small role during a flashback sequence. Most of her scenes were edited out, but the brief time on screen horrified the actress, "I had a bad wig and they took the words from the scene I shot with Jane and put them in my mouth in
14100-525: The Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Actress in a Comedy , and received Academy Award, Golden Globe, SAG, and BAFTA nominations. Streep next starred as the first American female newspaper publisher, Katharine Graham , to Tom Hanks ' Ben Bradlee , in Steven Spielberg 's political drama The Post (2017), which centers on The Washington Post ' s publication of the 1971 Pentagon Papers . The film received positive reviews with praise directed to
14288-614: The Golden Globes and the BAFTAs , as well as her third win at the 84th Academy Awards . Former advisers, friends, and family of Thatcher criticized Streep's portrayal of her as "inaccurate" and "biased". The following year, after Thatcher's death , Streep issued a formal statement describing Thatcher's "hard-nosed fiscal measures" and "hands-off approach to financial regulation", while praising her "personal strength and grit". Streep re-united with Prada director David Frankel on
14476-527: The Mamma Mia! soundtrack. Streep has narrated numerous audio books, including three by children's book author William Steig : Brae Irene , Spinky Sulks , and The One and Only Shrek! . Soap opera A soap opera , daytime drama , or soap for short, is typically a long-running radio or television serial , frequently characterized by melodrama , ensemble casts , and sentimentality . The term "soap opera" originated from radio dramas originally being sponsored by soap manufacturers. The term
14664-462: The Stephen Frears -directed comedy Florence Foster Jenkins (2016), an eponymous biopic about a blithely unaware tone-deaf opera singer who insists upon public performance. Other cast members were Hugh Grant and Simon Helberg . Robbie Collin considered it to be one of her most "human performance" and felt that it was "full of warmth that gives way to heart-pinching pathos". She won
14852-463: The Yale School of Drama . At Yale, she supplemented her course fees by working as a waitress and typist, and appeared in over a dozen stage productions per year; at one point, she became overworked and developed ulcers, so she contemplated quitting acting and switching to study law. Streep played a variety of roles on stage, from Helena in A Midsummer Night's Dream to an 80-year-old woman in
15040-470: The novel of the same name , on which the first season is based, wrote a 200-page novella that served as the basis for the second season. Moriarty decided to name the new character Mary Louise, after Streep's legal name. Streep subsequently agreed to the part without reading a script for the first time in her career. Writing for the BBC , Caryn James labeled her performance "delicious and wily" and found her to be
15228-726: The nuclear whistleblower and labor union activist Karen Silkwood , who died in a suspicious car accident while investigating alleged wrongdoing at the Kerr-McGee plutonium plant, in Mike Nichols ' biographical film Silkwood . Streep felt a personal connection to Silkwood, and in preparation, she met with people close to the woman, and in doing so realized that each person saw a different aspect of her personality. She said, "I didn't try to turn myself into Karen. I just tried to look at what she did. I put together every piece of information I could find about her ... What I finally did
15416-806: The "embodiment of a passive-aggressive granny". She received an Emmy nomination for the show. The same year, Streep then starred in the Steven Soderbergh -directed biographical comedy The Laundromat , about the Panama Papers , opposite Gary Oldman and Antonio Banderas . It was the first movie distributed by Netflix in which Streep starred. She also played Aunt March in Greta Gerwig 's Little Women , co-starring with Saoirse Ronan , Emma Watson , Florence Pugh , Timothée Chalamet , and Laura Dern . David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter praised Streep's performance writing, "Streep
15604-502: The "poised and imperious Miranda", drew rave reviews from critics, and earned her many award nominations, including her record-setting 14th Oscar bid, as well as another Golden Globe. On its commercial release, the film became Streep's biggest commercial success to this point, grossing more than US$ 326.5 million worldwide. She portrayed a wealthy university patron in Chen Shi-zheng 's much-delayed feature drama Dark Matter ,
15792-544: The 101-day shoot in Kenya, particularly over Blixen's voice. Streep had spent much time listening to tapes of Blixen, and began speaking in an old-fashioned and aristocratic fashion, which Pollack thought excessive. A significant commercial success, the film won a Golden Globe for Best Picture. It also earned Streep another Academy Award nomination for Best Actress, and the film ultimately won Best Picture. Film critic Stanley Kauffmann praised her performance, writing "Meryl Streep
15980-547: The 1970s, became one of the first older women on the American serials to enter the workforce. Guiding Light dealt with Bert Bauer ( Charita Bauer ) and her alcoholic husband Bill, and their endless marital troubles. When Bert's status shifted to caring mother and town matriarch, her children's marital troubles were showcased. Search for Tomorrow mostly told its story through the eyes of Joanne Gardner ( Mary Stuart ). Even when stories revolved around other characters, Joanne
16168-455: The 1990s and 2000s incorporated supernatural and science fiction elements into their storylines in an attempt to boost their ratings. One of the main characters on the earlier soap opera Dark Shadows was Barnabas Collins , a vampire, and One Life to Live featured an angel named Virgil. Both shows featured characters who traveled to and from the past. In 1995, Days of our Lives featured a storyline in which fan favorite character Marlena Evans
16356-498: The Danish writer Karen Blixen , opposite Robert Redford 's Denys Finch Hatton . Director Sydney Pollack was initially dubious about Streep in the role, as he did not think she was sexy enough, and had considered Jane Seymour for the part. Pollack recalls that Streep impressed him in a different way: "She was so direct, so honest, so without bullshit. There was no shielding between her and me." Streep and Pollack often clashed during
16544-657: The Delacorte Theatre in Central Park. The Public Theater production was a new translation by playwright Tony Kushner, with songs in the Weill/Brecht style written by composer Jeanine Tesori ; veteran director George C. Wolfe was at the helm. Streep starred alongside Kevin Kline and Austin Pendleton in this three-and-a-half-hour play. Around the same time, Streep, along with Lily Tomlin , portrayed
16732-399: The U.S. since the 2000s. As of September 2022, only four daytime soap operas – General Hospital , Days of Our Lives , The Young and the Restless and The Bold and the Beautiful – are still in production with three airing on two broadcast networks and one on streaming, down from a total of 12 soaps broadcast during the 1990–91 season and a high of 19 in the 1969–70 season. This marks
16920-608: The United Nations and Kofi Annan . In 2001, Streep returned to the stage for the first time in more than twenty years, playing Arkadina in The Public Theater 's revival of Anton Chekhov 's The Seagull , directed by Mike Nichols and co-starring Kevin Kline , Natalie Portman , John Goodman , Marcia Gay Harden , Stephen Spinella , Debra Monk , Larry Pine and Philip Seymour Hoffman . Streep's son, Henry Gummer, later to be known as musician Henry Wolfe ,
17108-503: The United States who waves off the fears of climate change . In his mixed review, Peter DeBruge of Variety compared her performance of that of Donald Trump , adding she was "clearly having more fun than we are". Streep served as an executive producer on Sell/Buy/Date (2022), directed by Sarah Jones . She acted in the Apple TV+ anthology series Extrapolations (2023). Later that year, she began playing Loretta Durkin,
17296-564: The Wells , and the following year she received a nomination for the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play for a double-bill production of 27 Wagons Full of Cotton and A Memory of Two Mondays . She made her feature film debut in Julia (1977) and received her first Oscar nomination for The Deer Hunter (1978). She won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for playing
17484-455: The World Turns and The Edge of Night , both produced by Procter & Gamble Productions , debuted as the first half-hour soap operas on the CBS television network. All soap operas broadcast half-hour episodes by the end of the 1960s. With increased popularity in the 1970s, most soap operas had expanded to an hour in length by the end of the decade ( Another World even expanded to 90 minutes for
17672-520: The autopsy reveals that Kate actually died of morphine overdose . A district attorney questions Ellen about her mother's death. Scenes from this interview are interspersed throughout the movie and raise the suspicion that Ellen assisted her mother's suicide. In the closing scene, by Kate's grave, Ellen has returned from a new job she found in New York with the Village Voice . She is planting daffodils when her father approaches and tells her that she
17860-826: The baby had been taken by a dingo . Filmed in Australia, Streep won the Australian Film Institute Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role , a Best Actress at the Cannes Film Festival , and the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress . Streep has said of developing the Australian accent in the film: "I had to study a little bit for Australian because it's not dissimilar [to American], so it's like coming from Italian to Spanish. You get
18048-401: The cast and crew ventured to Jamaica to tape a love consummation storyline between the characters of Garth and Kathy. During the 1980s, perhaps as a reaction to the evening drama series that were gaining high ratings, daytime serials began to incorporate action and adventure storylines, more big-business intrigue, and an increased emphasis on youthful romance. One of the most popular couples
18236-433: The cast and storylines are rotated across the week's episodes so that each cast member will appear in some but not all episodes. UK and Australian soap operas move through storylines at a faster rate than daytime serials, making them closer to U.S. evening soap operas in this regard. American daytime soap operas feature stylistic elements that set them apart from other shows: Soap opera ratings have significantly fallen in
18424-497: The character in the book to emulate voluptuous Italian film stars such as Sophia Loren . Both Loren and Anna Magnani were an influence in her portrayal, and Streep viewed Pier Paolo Pasolini 's Mamma Roma (1962) prior to filming. The film was a box office hit and grossed over $ 70 million in the United States. The film, unlike the novel, was warmly received by critics. Janet Maslin of The New York Times wrote that Eastwood had managed to create "a moving, elegiac love story at
18612-477: The contrast in her "wittily realized" character with love interest Chris Cooper 's "lank-haired, toothless charisma" as the autodidact arrested for poaching rare orchids. Streep appeared alongside Nicole Kidman and Julianne Moore in Stephen Daldry 's The Hours (2002), based on the 1999 novel by Michael Cunningham . Focusing on three women of different generations whose lives are interconnected by
18800-454: The daily episode format of its daytime counterparts) and Another Life (a soap that combined standard serial drama with religious overtones), during the 1980s. Fox, the fourth "major network" , carried a short-lived daytime soap Tribes in 1990. Yet, other than this and a couple of pilot attempts, Fox mainly stayed away from daytime soaps, and has not attempted them since their ascension to major-network status in 1994 (it did later attempt
18988-508: The demographic group for which soap opera advertisers pay the most. Those who might watch in workplace breakrooms are not counted, as Nielsen does not track television viewing outside the home. The rise of cable and the Internet has also provided new sources of entertainment during the day. The genre's decline has additionally been attributed to reality television displacing soap operas as TV's dominant form of melodrama. An early term for
19176-459: The drama Kramer vs. Kramer , Streep was cast opposite Dustin Hoffman as an unhappily married woman who abandons her husband and child. Streep thought that the script portrayed the female character as "too evil" and insisted that it was not representative of real women who faced marriage breakdown and child custody battles. The makers agreed with her, and the script was revised. In preparing for
19364-442: The early 1970s, nearly all soap operas had transitioned to being taped. As the World Turns and The Edge of Night were the last to make the switch, in 1975. Port Charles used the practice of running 13-week " story arcs ," in which the main events of the arc are played out and wrapped up over the 13 weeks, although some storylines did continue over more than one arc. According to the 2006 Preview issue of Soap Opera Digest , it
19552-507: The early 1990s as a downturn in the popularity of Streep's films, attributing this partly to a critical perception that her comedies had been an attempt to convey a lighter image following several serious, but commercially unsuccessful, dramas, and, more significantly, to the lack of options available to an actress in her forties. Streep commented that she had limited her options by her preference to work in Los Angeles, close to her family,
19740-567: The emotional recall technique by delving into personal lives in a way she found "obnoxious". She received her MFA in drama from Yale in 1975. She also enrolled as a visiting student at Dartmouth College in 1970, and received an honorary Doctor of Arts degree from the college in 1981. One of Streep's first professional jobs in 1975 was at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center 's National Playwrights Conference, during which she acted in five plays over six weeks. She moved to New York City in 1975, and
19928-470: The exotic appeal of the stereotypes connected to the location. As examples, EastEnders focuses on the tough and grim life in the East End of London; Coronation Street and its characters exhibit the stereotypical characteristic of "northern straight talking". If we want to blend an actor back into a show, there's always a way. You can generally find a way to twist and manipulate something. You rarely see
20116-507: The expression of their problems." The film was well received, and Streep earned another Golden Globe nomination for her performance. Streep's performance in ...First Do No Harm (1997) garnered her a second Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Lead Actress – Miniseries or a Movie . In 1998, Streep first appeared opposite Michael Gambon and Catherine McCormack in Pat O'Connor 's Dancing at Lughnasa , another Broadway adaptation , which
20304-491: The extent that she's obsessive. I think that she thinks about nothing else, but what she's doing." The film was controversial among feminists, but it was a role which film critic Stephen Farber believed displayed Streep's "own emotional intensity", writing that she was one of the "rare performers who can imbue the most routine moments with a hint of mystery". For the film, Streep won both the Golden Globe Award and
20492-475: The family's strong-willed and contentious matriarch, who is suffering from oral cancer and an addiction to narcotics. She was subsequently nominated for another Golden Globe, SAG, and Academy Award. In 2014's The Giver , a motion picture adaptation of the young adult novel , Streep played a community leader. Set in 2048, the social science fiction film recounts the story of a post-apocalyptic community without war, pain, suffering, differences or choice, where
20680-462: The fiction that Streep is a cold and technical actress will need to get their heads examined. She is so instinctive and natural – so thoroughly in the moment and operating on flights of inspiration – that she's able to give us a woman who's at once wildly idiosyncratic and utterly believable." Los Angeles Times film critic Kenneth Turan noted, "[Streep's role] is one of the least self-consciously dramatic and surface showy of her career, but Streep adds
20868-508: The film a grade "A" on a scale of A to F. Todd McCarthy of Variety called it "sensitively written, fluidly directed and expertly acted." Roger Ebert , reviewing the film for the Chicago Sun-Times , commended it for rising above the level of a soap through pure craftsmanship, and awarded the film three stars out of four. Mick LaSalle in the San Francisco Chronicle declared, "After One True Thing , critics who persist in
21056-430: The film from Robert James Waller 's novel of the same name . It relates the story of Robert Kincaid (Eastwood), a photographer working for National Geographic , who has a love affair with a middle-aged Italian farm wife Francesca (Streep). Though Streep disliked the novel it was based on, she found the script to be a special opportunity for an actress her age. She gained weight for the part and dressed differently from
21244-486: The film industry. She criticized the film industry for downplaying the importance of women both on screen and off. After roles in the comedy-drama Postcards from the Edge (1990), and the comedy-fantasy Defending Your Life (1991), Streep starred with Goldie Hawn in the farcical black comedy, Death Becomes Her (1992), with Bruce Willis as their co-star. Streep persuaded writer David Koepp to re-write several of
21432-794: The film the full four stars, highlighted Streep's caricature of a nun, who "hates all inroads of the modern world", while Kelly Vance of The East Bay Express remarked: "It's thrilling to see a pro like Streep step into an already wildly exaggerated role, and then ramp it up a few notches just for the sheer hell of it. Grim, red-eyed, deathly pale Sister Aloysius may be the scariest nun of all time." In 2009, Streep played chef Julia Child in Nora Ephron 's Julie & Julia , co-starring with Stanley Tucci , and again with Amy Adams . (Tucci and Streep had worked together earlier in Devil Wears Prada .) The first major motion picture based on
21620-422: The film was an homage to the works of Alfred Hitchcock , but that one of its main weaknesses was a lack of chemistry between Streep and Scheider, concluding that Streep "is stunning, but she's not on screen anywhere near long enough". Greater success came later in the year when Streep starred in the drama Sophie's Choice (also 1982), portraying a Polish survivor of Auschwitz caught in a love triangle between
21808-652: The film, she played Lisa Metzger, the Jewish psychoanalyst of a divorced and lonesome business-woman, played by Uma Thurman , who enters a relationship with Metzger's 23-year-old son ( Bryan Greenberg ). A modest mainstream success, it eventually grossed US$ 67.9 million internationally. Roger Ebert noted how Streep had "that ability to cut through the solemnity of a scene with a zinger that reveals how all human effort is, after all, comic at some level". In August and September 2006, Streep starred onstage at The Public Theater 's production of Mother Courage and Her Children at
21996-428: The first network daytime serial. The main characteristics that define soap operas are "an emphasis on family life, personal relationships, sexual dramas, emotional and moral conflicts; some coverage of topical issues; set in familiar domestic interiors with only occasional excursions into new locations". Fitting in with these characteristics, most soap operas follow the lives of a group of characters who live or work in
22184-429: The first new daytime soap opera to premiere on a major broadcast network since Passions in 1999. As women increasingly worked outside of the home, daytime television viewing declined. New generations of potential viewers were not raised watching soap operas with their mothers, leaving the shows' long and complex storylines foreign to younger audiences. As viewers age, ratings continue to drop among young adult women,
22372-520: The first soap opera since Generations to feature an African American cast. On April 12, 2024, CBS renewed The Talk for a 15th and final season, with the show concluding in December 2024. Three days later, on April 15, The Gates (now titled " Beyond the Gates ") was greenlit by CBS and is slated to premiere on February 24, 2025, likely to take the time slot of The Talk , meaning it will be
22560-530: The first time since 1953 that there have been only four soap operas airing on broadcast television . The Young and the Restless , the highest-rated soap opera from 1988 to the present, had fewer than 5 million daily viewers as of February 2012, a number exceeded by several non-scripted programs such as Judge Judy . Circulations of soap opera magazines have decreased and some have even ceased publication. Soapnet, which largely aired soap opera reruns, began to be phased out in 2012 and fully ceased operations
22748-495: The following year. The Daytime Emmy Awards , which honor soap operas and other daytime shows, moved from prime time network television to smaller cable channels in 2012, then failed to get any TV broadcast at all in 2014, 2016, and 2017. Several of the U.S.'s most established soaps ended between 2009 and 2012. The longest-running drama in television and radio history, Guiding Light , barely reached 2.1 million daily viewers in 2009 and ended on September 18 of that year, after
22936-495: The frontier to get back East. Streep does not appear until near the end of the film, playing a preacher's wife, who takes the women into care. The Homesman premiered at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival where it garnered largely positive reviews from critics. Directed by Rob Marshall , Into the Woods (also 2014) is a Disney film adaptation of the Broadway musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim in which Streep plays
23124-734: The gamut of soap operas, from EastEnders to Dallas . In many soap operas, in particular daytime serials in the US, the characters are frequently attractive, seductive, glamorous and wealthy. Soap operas from the United Kingdom and Australia tend to focus on more everyday characters and situations, and are frequently set in working-class environments. Many of the soaps produced in those two countries explore social realist storylines such as family discord, marriage breakdown or financial problems. Both UK and Australian soap operas feature comedic elements, often affectionate comic stereotypes such as
23312-413: The gossip or the grumpy old man, presented as a comic foil to the emotional turmoil that surrounds them. This diverges from US soap operas where such comedy is rare. UK soap operas frequently make a claim to presenting "reality" or purport to have a "realistic" style. UK soap operas also frequently foreground their geographic location as a key defining feature of the show while depicting and capitalising on
23500-411: The guitar for the semi-autobiographical drama-comedy film, which again featured Streep with her eldest daughter Mamie Gummer. Reviews of the film were generally mixed. Streep's other film of this time was director Sarah Gavron 's period drama Suffragette (also 2015), co-starring Carey Mulligan and Helena Bonham Carter . In the film, she played the small, but pivotal, role of Emmeline Pankhurst ,
23688-442: The heart of Mr. Waller's self-congratulatory overkill", while Joe Morgenstern of The Wall Street Journal described it as "one of the most pleasurable films in recent memory". Longworth believes that Streep's performance was "crucial to transforming what could have been a weak soap opera into a vibrant work of historical fiction implicitly critiquing postwar America's stifling culture of domesticity". She considers it to have been
23876-486: The idyllic Greek island of Skopelos known in the film as Kalokairi. An instant box office success, Mamma Mia! became Streep's highest-grossing film to date, with box office receipts of US$ 602.6 million, also ranking it first among the highest-grossing musical films. Nominated for another Golden Globe, Streep's performance was generally well received by critics, with Wesley Morris of The Boston Globe commenting: "The greatest actor in American movies has finally become
24064-537: The inner-city kids of East Harlem , in the music drama Music of the Heart (1999). Streep replaced Madonna , who dropped out of the project before filming began due to creative differences with director Wes Craven . Required to play the violin, Streep underwent two months of intense training, five to six hours a day. Streep received nominations for an Academy Award, a Golden Globe and a Screen Actors Guild Award for her performance. Roger Ebert wrote that "Meryl Streep
24252-650: The kind of actor I want to be when I grow up.' Streep began auditioning for film roles, and underwent an unsuccessful audition for the lead role in Dino De Laurentiis 's remake of the action adventure King Kong which was released in 1976. De Laurentiis, referring to Streep as she stood before him, said in Italian to his son: "This is so ugly. Why did you bring me this?" Unknown to Laurentiis, Streep understood Italian, and she remarked, "I'm very sorry that I'm not as beautiful as I should be, but, you know – this
24440-473: The last two members of what was once a popular family country music act in Robert Altman 's final film A Prairie Home Companion (2006). A comedic ensemble piece featuring Lindsay Lohan , Tommy Lee Jones , Kevin Kline and Woody Harrelson , the film revolves around the behind-the-scenes activities at the long-running public radio show of the same name . The film grossed more than US$ 26 million,
24628-435: The late 1960s and into the 1970s. Exterior shots were slowly incorporated into the series The Edge of Night and Dark Shadows . Unlike many earlier serials that were set in fictional towns, The Best of Everything and Ryan's Hope were set in a real-world location, New York City. The first exotic location shoot was made by All My Children , to St. Croix in 1978. Many other soap operas planned lavish storylines after
24816-484: The late 1980s, such as Fox and cable television networks, have largely eschewed soap operas in their daytime schedules, instead running syndicated programming and reruns. No cable television outlet has produced its own daytime serial, although DirecTV 's The 101 Network took over existing serial Passions , continuing production for one season; while TBS and CBN Cable Network respectively aired their own soap operas, The Catlins (a primetime soap that utilized
25004-449: The loyalty of the soap opera fan base and the expansion of several half-hour series into hour-long broadcasts in order to maximise advertising revenues. The article explained that at that time, many prime time series lost money, while daytime serials earned profits several times more than their production costs. The issue's cover notably featured its first daytime soap stars, Bill Hayes and Susan Seaforth Hayes of Days of Our Lives ,
25192-535: The majority of which came from domestic markets. Commercially, Streep fared better with a role in The Devil Wears Prada (also 2006), a loose screen adaptation of Lauren Weisberger 's 2003 novel of the same name . Streep portrayed the powerful and demanding Miranda Priestly , fashion magazine editor (and boss of a recent college graduate played by Anne Hathaway ). Though the overall film received mixed reviews, her portrayal, of what Ebert calls
25380-532: The matriarch of The Guiding Light , Bert Bauer, developed uterine cancer (as the actress, Charita Bauer , had been diagnosed with the same illness in real life). The storyline encouraged many women to get pap smears and the CBS mailroom in New York City received a then-record amount of fan mail wishing Bauer (both Bert and Charita) well. Nixon would go on to tell many socially relevant storylines on her soaps One Life to Live and All My Children in
25568-487: The miniseries Holocaust (1978) and Angels in America (2003), as well as the narration in the documentary series Five Came Back (2017). Her other television work include the drama series Big Little Lies (2019) and the comedy-mystery series Only Murders in the Building (2023–24). Streep has been the recipient of many honorary awards, including the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2004,
25756-509: The most money during that period. Streep reclaimed her stardom in the ensuing decades with leading roles in The Devil Wears Prada (2006), Doubt , Mamma Mia! (both 2008), Julie & Julia , It's Complicated (both 2009), and Into the Woods (2014). She won her third Oscar for her portrayal of Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady (2011). For her work on television, she won three Primetime Emmy Awards for her roles in
25944-439: The most popular storylines, often involved a romance of the sort presented in paperback romance novels . Soap opera storylines weave intricate, convoluted and sometimes confusing tales of characters who have affairs, meet mysterious strangers and fall in love, and who commit adultery, all of which keeps audiences hooked on the unfolding story. Crimes such as kidnapping, assault (sometimes sexual), and even murder may go unpunished if
26132-507: The mother of children on a whitewater rafting trip who encounter two violent criminals ( Kevin Bacon and John C. Reilly ) in the wilderness. Though critical reaction was generally mixed, Peter Travers of Rolling Stone found her to be "strong, sassy and looser than she has ever been onscreen". Streep's most successful film of the decade was the romantic drama The Bridges of Madison County (1995) directed by Clint Eastwood , who adapted
26320-494: The novel Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf , the film was generally well received and won all three leading actresses a Silver Bear for Best Actress . In 2003, Streep re-united with Mike Nichols to star with Al Pacino and Emma Thompson in the HBO 's adaptation of Tony Kushner 's six-hour play Angels in America , the story of two couples whose relationships dissolve amidst the backdrop of Reagan era politics. Streep, who
26508-581: The part, Streep spoke to her own mother about her life as a wife with a career, and frequented the Upper East Side neighborhood in which the film was set, watching the interactions between parents and children. The director Robert Benton allowed Streep to write her own dialogue in two key scenes, despite some objection from Hoffman, who "hated her guts" at first. Hoffman and producer Stanley R. Jaffe later spoke of Streep's tirelessness, with Hoffman commenting: "She's extraordinarily hard-working, to
26696-487: The past had cultivated a singular identity in their films, Streep was a " chameleon ", willing to play any type of role. Streep was awarded a BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role for her work. The following year, she re-united with Robert Benton for the psychological thriller , Still of the Night (1982), co-starring Roy Scheider and Jessica Tandy . Vincent Canby , writing for The New York Times , noted that
26884-456: The performances of the two leads. Manohla Dargis wrote that "Streep creates an acutely moving portrait of a woman who in liberating herself helps instigate a revolution". It earned over $ 177 million against a budget of $ 50 million. Streep received her 31st Golden Globe nomination and 21st Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. In 2018, Streep briefly reprised her role in the musical sequel Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again . She also played
27072-421: The perpetrator is to be retained in the ongoing story. Australian and UK soap operas also feature a significant proportion of romance storylines. In Russia, most popular serials explore the "romantic quality" of criminal and/or oligarch life. In soap opera storylines, previously unknown children, siblings and twins (including the evil variety ) of established characters often emerge to upset and reinvigorate
27260-407: The play Miss Julie at Vassar College in 1969, in which she gained attention across the campus. Vassar drama professor Clinton J. Atkinson noted, "I don't think anyone ever taught Meryl acting. She really taught herself." Streep demonstrated an early ability to mimic accents and to quickly memorize her lines. She received her BA in drama cum laude in 1971, before applying for an MFA from
27448-411: The programs ran out of new episodes to broadcast; Days of Our Lives , which produces its episodes roughly eight months ahead of their initial broadcast, did not resort to airing older episodes during this time as it had a larger first-run episode backlog.) Early episodes of Dark Shadows were rerun on PBS member stations in the early 1970s after the show's cancellation, and the entire series (except for
27636-601: The prosperous Brooks family with four daughters, and the working-class Foster family of a single working mother with three children. Its storylines explored realistic problems including cancer, mental illness, poverty, and infidelity. In contrast, Dark Shadows (1966–1971), Port Charles (1997–2003) and Passions (1999–2008) featured supernatural characters and dealt with fantasy and horror storylines. Their characters included vampires, witches, ghosts, goblins, and angels. The American soap opera Guiding Light (originally titled The Guiding Light until 1975) started as
27824-523: The role in which Streep became "arguably the first middle-aged actress to be taken seriously by Hollywood as a romantic heroine". Streep played the estranged sister of Bessie ( Diane Keaton ), a woman battling leukemia , in Marvin's Room (1996), an adaptation of the play by Scott McPherson . Streep recommended Keaton for the role. Roger Ebert stated that, "Streep and Keaton, in their different styles, find ways to make Lee and Bessie into much more than
28012-717: The role of Katherine in The Taming of the Shrew for Shakespeare in the Park . That same year she played a supporting role as the former girlfriend turned lesbian in Manhattan (1979) for Woody Allen . Streep later said that Allen did not provide her with a complete script, giving her only the six pages of her own scenes, and did not permit her to improvise a word of her dialogue. Vincent Canby of The New York Times described her performance as being "beautifully played". In
28200-483: The romance Falling in Love (1984), which was poorly received, and portrayed a fighter for the French Resistance during World War II in the British drama Plenty (1985), adapted from the play by David Hare . For the latter, Roger Ebert wrote that she conveyed "great subtlety; it is hard to play an unbalanced, neurotic, self-destructive woman, and do it with such gentleness and charm ... Streep creates
28388-677: The scenes, particularly the one in which her character has an affair with a younger man, which she believed was "unrealistically male" in its conception. The seven-month shoot was the longest of Streep's career, during which she got into character by "thinking about being slightly pissed off all of the time". Due to Streep's allergies to numerous cosmetics, special prosthetics had to be designed to age her by ten years to look 54, although Streep believed that they made her look nearer 70. Longworth considers Death Becomes Her to have been "the most physical performance Streep had yet committed to screen, all broad weeping, smirking, and eye-rolling". Although it
28576-426: The set of relationships examined by the series. Unexpected calamities disrupt weddings, childbirths, and other major life events with unusual frequency. As in comic books – another popular form of linear storytelling pioneered in the US during the 20th century – a character's death is not guaranteed to be permanent . On The Bold and the Beautiful , Taylor Hayes ( Hunter Tylo ) was shown to flatline and have
28764-424: The set of the romantic comedy-drama film Hope Springs (2012), co-starring Tommy Lee Jones and Steve Carell . Streep and Jones play a middle-aged couple, who attend a week of intensive marriage counseling to try to bring back the intimacy missing in their relationship. Reviews for the film were mostly positive, with critics praising the "mesmerizing performances ... which offer filmgoers some grown-up laughs – and
28952-425: The show was later renewed through September 2021. In 2022, NBC announced that Days of Our Lives would be moved exclusively to its streaming service, Peacock , making NBC the first of the big three networks not to air any daytime soap operas. In March 2024, CBS Studios , NAACP Venture , in partnership with P&G Studios announced that a new soap opera for CBS titled The Gates is in development and will be
29140-1535: The show's debut in January 1970 until it ended its network television run on ABC on September 23, 2011. Erika Slezak played Victoria Lord #3 on One Life to Live from 1971 until the show ended its network television run on ABC on January 13, 2012, and resumed the role in its short-lived online revival on April 29, 2013. Other actors have played several characters on different shows. Millette Alexander , Bernard Barrow , Doris Belack , David Canary , Judith Chapman , Keith Charles , Jordan Charney , Joan Copeland , Nicolas Coster , Jacqueline Courtney , Augusta Dabney , Louis Edmonds , Don Hastings , Larry Haines , Vincent Irizarry , Lenore Kasdorf , Teri Keane , Lois Kibbee , John Loprieno , Lori March , Maeve McGuire , Robert Mili , James Mitchell , Lee Patterson , Christopher Pennock , Antony Ponzini , William Prince , Rosemary Prinz , Louise Shaffer , Mary Stuart , Richard Thomas , Diana van der Vlis , Mary K. Wells , Lesley Woods and Michael Zaslow , among many others, have all played multiple soap roles. For several decades, most daytime soap operas concentrated on family and marital discord, legal drama and romance. The action rarely left interior settings, and many shows were set in fictional, medium-sized Midwestern towns. Social issue storylines were typically verboten when soaps were starting, due to heavy network-imposed censorship at that time, but writer and producer Agnes Nixon introduced these storylines slowly but surely, first in 1962 when
29328-501: The shows were aimed at – and consumed by – a predominantly female audience. Clara, Lu, 'n Em would become the first network radio serial of the type when it aired on the NBC Blue Network at 10:30 p.m. Eastern Time on January 27, 1931. Although it did not make the move until February 15, 1932, Clara, Lu 'n Em would become the first network serial of the type to move to a weekday daily timeslot, and so also became
29516-429: The start of a new yearly broadcast. Evening soap operas and those that air at a rate of one episode per week are more likely to feature the entire cast in each episode and present all storylines. Evening soap operas and serials that run for only part of the year tend to bring things to a dramatic end-of-season cliffhanger. In 1976, Time magazine described American daytime television as "TV's richest market", noting
29704-471: The stories are similar to what happened to them in real life, or two, thank goodness that isn't me. Many long-running US soap operas established particular environments for their stories. The Doctors and General Hospital , in the beginning, told stories almost exclusively from inside the confines of a hospital. As the World Turns dealt heavily with Chris Hughes' law practice and the travails of his wife Nancy who, tired of being "the loyal housewife" in
29892-734: The story of a late bloomer". In Nancy Meyers ' romantic comedy It's Complicated (also 2009), Streep starred with Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin . She received nominations for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for both Julie & Julia and It's Complicated ; she won the award for Julie & Julia , and later received her 16th Oscar nomination for it. She also lent her voice to Mrs. Felicity Fox in Wes Anderson 's stop-motion film Fantastic Mr. Fox . Streep re-teamed with Mamma Mia director Phyllida Lloyd on The Iron Lady (2011),
30080-538: The success of the All My Children shoot. Soap operas Another World and Guiding Light both went to St. Croix in 1980, the former show culminating a long-running storyline between popular characters Mac, Rachel and Janice, and the latter to serve as an exotic setting for Alan Spaulding and Rita Bauer 's torrid affair. Search for Tomorrow taped for two weeks in Hong Kong in 1981. Later that year, some of
30268-622: The supernatural soap opera, Dark Shadows , which did receive an essentially complete release on both VHS and DVD; the single lost episode #1219 is reconstructed by means of an off-the-air audio recording, still images, and recap material from adjacent episodes). Soap opera performers in the United States are typically divided into two main groups: primary characters (sometimes referred to as "contract players" – as their portrayers signed contracts of employment – or leading characters) and secondary characters (sometimes referred to as recurring characters). These two groups of characters make up
30456-548: The supporting role of Aunt Josephine in Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events alongside Jim Carrey , based on the first three novels in Snicket 's book series . The black comedy received generally favorable reviews from critics, and won the Academy Award for Best Makeup . Streep also narrated the film Monet's Palate . Streep was next cast in the comedy film Prime (2005), directed by Ben Younger . In
30644-507: The thing that I could feel through." She quit after four years. Streep had many Catholic school friends, and regularly attended Mass . She was a high school cheerleader for the Bernards High School Mountaineers. She was also chosen as the homecoming queen her senior year. Although Streep appeared in numerous school plays during her high school years, she was uninterested in serious theater until acting in
30832-584: The time. With the resultant budget cuts, soap operas were no longer able to go on expensive location shoots overseas as they were able to do in the 1980s. During that decade, soap operas increasingly focused on younger characters and social issues , such as Erica Kane 's drug addiction on All My Children , the re-emergence of Viki Lord 's dissociative identity disorder on One Life to Live , and Stuart Chandler dealing with his wife Cindy dying of AIDS on All My Children . Other social issues included cancer , rape , abortion and racism . Several shows during
31020-420: The vast majority of the people who appear on any given soap. There are also characters who appear only for a short time as dictated by a specific storyline, and even characters who may only get a first name and no fleshed-out character history with little dialogue (these are sometimes referred to as "under-5s" since they receive under five lines of dialogue in each episode). Due to the longevity of these shows, it
31208-432: The war film The Deer Hunter (1978). Cazale, who had been diagnosed with lung cancer , was also cast in the film, and Streep took on the role of a "vague, stock girlfriend" to remain with Cazale for the duration of filming. Longworth notes that Streep, "Made a case for female empowerment by playing a woman to whom empowerment was a foreign concept–a normal lady from an average American small town, for whom subservience
31396-502: The world from being frozen, brought a mobster down by finding his black book in a left-handed boy statue, and helped a princess find her Aztec treasure in Mexico . Other soap operas attempted similar adventure storylines, often featuring footage shot on location – frequently in exotic locales. During the 1990s, the mob, action and adventure stories fell out of favor with producers, due to generally declining ratings for daytime soap operas at
31584-451: The world's greatest living actor (in some people's estimation, anyway). If that is what's happening, she never betrays her motivations with a wink. It's all played pretty earnestly". The following year, Streep starred opposite Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence in Don't Look Up (2021), directed by Adam McKay for Netflix . Streep played a comical role as the fictional President of
31772-524: Was Luke Spencer and Laura Webber on General Hospital . Luke and Laura helped to attract both male and female fans. Even actress Elizabeth Taylor was a fan and at her own request was given a guest role in Luke and Laura's wedding episode. Luke and Laura's popularity led to other soap producers striving to reproduce this success by attempting to create supercouples of their own. With increasingly bizarre action storylines coming into vogue, Luke and Laura saved
31960-438: Was a commercial success, earning $ 15.1 million in just five days, Streep's contribution to comedy was generally not taken well by critics. Time ' s Richard Corliss wrote approvingly of Streep's "wicked-witch routine" but dismissed the film as " She-Devil with a make-over" and one which "hates women". Streep later admitted to having disliked filming the scenes involving heavy special effects, and vowed never to work again on
32148-619: Was also featured in the play in the role of Yakov, a hired workman. The same year, Streep began work on Spike Jonze 's comedy-drama Adaptation. (2002), in which she portrayed real-life journalist Susan Orlean . Lauded by critics and viewers alike, the film won Streep her fourth Golden Globe in the Best Supporting Actress category. A. O. Scott in The New York Times considered Streep's portrayal of Orlean to have been "played with impish composure", noting
32336-646: Was announced that Streep would portray Maria Callas in Master Class , but the project was pulled after director Mike Nichols 's death in November of the same year. In 2015, Streep starred in Jonathan Demme 's Ricki and the Flash , playing a grocery store checkout worker by day who is a rock musician at night, and who has one last chance to reconnect with her estranged family. Streep learned to play
32524-522: Was born on June 22, 1949, in Summit, New Jersey to artist Mary Wilkinson Streep and pharmaceutical executive Harry William Streep Jr. She has two younger brothers, Harry William Streep III and Dana David Streep, both actors. Her father was of German and Swiss descent; his lineage traced back to Loffenau , from where Streep's great-great-grandfather, Gottfried Streeb, immigrated to the United States and where one of her ancestors served as mayor (the surname
32712-408: Was briefly discussed that all ABC shows might do telenovela arcs, but this was rejected. Though U.S. daytime soap operas are not generally rerun by their networks, occasionally they are rebroadcast elsewhere; CBS and ABC have made exceptions to this, airing older episodes (either those aired earlier in the current season or those aired years prior) on major holidays when special event programming
32900-565: Was cast by Joseph Papp in a production of Trelawny of the Wells at the Vivian Beaumont Theater, opposite Mandy Patinkin and John Lithgow . She went on to appear in five more roles in her first year in New York, including in Papp's New York Shakespeare Festival productions of Henry V , The Taming of the Shrew with Raul Julia , and Measure for Measure opposite Sam Waterston and John Cazale . She entered into
33088-417: Was cast in four roles in the miniseries, received her second Emmy Award and fifth Golden Globe for her performance. She appeared in Jonathan Demme 's moderately successful remake of The Manchurian Candidate in 2004, co-starring Denzel Washington , playing the role of a woman who is both a U.S. senator and the manipulative, ruthless mother of a vice-presidential candidate. The same year, she played
33276-571: Was entered into the Venice Film Festival in its year of release. Janet Maslin of The New York Times remarked that "Meryl Streep has made many a grand acting gesture in her career, but the way she simply peers out a window in Dancing at Lughnasa ranks with the best. Everything the viewer need know about Kate Mundy, the woman she plays here, is written on that prim, lonely face and its flabbergasted gaze." Later that year, she played
33464-425: Was featured on the cover of Newsweek magazine with the headline "A Star for the 80s"; Jack Kroll commented, "There's a sense of mystery in her acting; she doesn't simply imitate (although she's a great mimic in private). She transmits a sense of danger, a primal unease lying just below the surface of normal behavior". Streep denounced her fervent media coverage at the time as "excessive hype". The story within
33652-411: Was frequently a key player in their storylines. Days of Our Lives initially focused on Dr. Tom Horton and his steadfast wife Alice. The show later branched out to focus more on their five children. The Edge of Night featured as its central character Mike Karr, a police detective (later an attorney), and largely dealt with organized crime. The Young and the Restless first focused on two families,
33840-468: Was impossible. Though all serials have long switched to being taped, extensive post-production work and multiple takes, while possible, are not feasible due to the tight taping schedules and low budgets. The first daytime TV soap opera in the United States was These Are My Children in 1949, though earlier melodramas had aired in the evenings as once-a-week programs. Soap operas quickly became
34028-786: Was later changed to "Streep"). Another line of her father's family was from Giswil . Her mother had English, German, and Irish ancestry. Some of Streep's maternal ancestors lived in Pennsylvania and Rhode Island , and were descended from 17th-century English immigrants. Her maternal great-great-grandparents, Manus McFadden and Grace Strain, were natives of the Horn Head district of Dunfanaghy in County Donegal , Ireland. Streep's mother, whom she has compared in both appearance and manner to Dame Judi Dench , strongly encouraged her daughter and instilled confidence in her from
34216-490: Was later revealed that there was a dispute over her salary. By the end of the decade, Streep actively looked to star in a comedy. She found the role in She-Devil (1989), a satire that parodied societal obsession with beauty and cosmetic surgery, in which she played a glamorous writer. Though the film was not a success, Richard Corliss of Time wrote that Streep was the "one reason" to see it, and observed that it marked
34404-495: Was look at the events in her life, and try to understand her from the inside". Jack Kroll of Newsweek considered Streep's characterization to have been "brilliant", while Silkwood's boyfriend Drew Stephens expressed approval in that Streep had played Karen as a human being rather than a myth, despite Karen's father Bill thinking that Streep and the film had dumbed his daughter down. Pauline Kael believed that Streep had been miscast. Streep next played opposite Robert De Niro in
34592-645: Was possessed by the devil, and in 1998, Guiding Light featured a cloning storyline involving legacy character Reva Shayne . Modern U.S. daytime soap operas largely stay true to the original soap opera format. The duration and format of storylines and the visual grammar employed by U.S. daytime serials set them apart from soap operas in other countries and from evening soap operas. Stylistically, UK and Australian soap operas, which are usually produced for early evening timeslots, fall somewhere in between U.S. daytime and evening soap operas. Similar to U.S. daytime soap operas, UK and Australian serials are shot on videotape, and
34780-490: Was preceded by " horse opera ", a derogatory term for low-budget Westerns. According to some dictionaries, for something to be adequately described as a "soap opera", it doesn't need to be long-running. , but some authors define the word in a way that excludes short-running serial dramas from their definition of "soap opera". BBC Radio 's The Archers , first broadcast in 1950, is the world's longest-running radio soap opera. The longest-running existing television soap
34968-545: Was raised as a Presbyterian in Basking Ridge, New Jersey , and attended Cedar Hill Elementary School and the Oak Street School, which was a junior high school at that time. In her junior high debut, she starred as Louise Heller in the play The Family Upstairs . In 1963, the family moved to Bernardsville, New Jersey , where she attended Bernards High School . Author Karina Longworth described her as
35156-400: Was the only thing she knew". Pauline Kael , who later became a strong critic of Streep, remarked that she was a "real beauty" who brought much freshness to the film with her performance. The film's success exposed Streep to a wider audience and earned her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress . In the 1978 miniseries Holocaust , Streep played the leading role of
35344-473: Was very brave to do what she did. She looks puzzled until she realizes George thinks she had given her mother the fatal overdose. Ellen replies that she had thought the accomplice was the father. They both realize Kate must have killed herself. George speaks to Ellen about how much he loved Kate, considering her his muse , his "one true thing." Ellen explains to her father how to plant the daffodil bulbs and he helps her, foreshadowing their reconciliation based on
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