Nora Dunfee Movies
Nora Dunfee was best known in the entertainment industry as a dialect coach and speech consultant, but she also occasionally appeared in feature films as a bit player, most notably as the elderly Southern woman who gave advice to Tom Hanks at the bus stop in Forrest Gump (1994). She also appeared in Lorenzo's Oil while consulting for star Susan Sarandon. Dunfee was working as Sissy Spacek's dialogue coach and preparing for her own role in Charles Matthau's adaptation of Truman Capote's The Grass Harp when she became ill and had to leave the shoot.Born Marjorie Dean Dunfee in Belmont, OH, she started out at Maine's esteemed Ogunquit Playhouse, starring in Sinclair Lewis' production of Our Town. This led to performances on and off-Broadway, as well as in theaters across the country, that continued until the late '80s and included a 1981 appearance in The Gin Game with David Clarke, her husband since 1946. Dunfee studied speech and voice under Margaret Prendergast McLean.
Dunfee was a master teacher in the Graduate Acting Program of New York University's Tisch School of the Arts and had worked there since 1966. She also taught private lessons in New York and California. Her clientele included Raul Julia, Mel Gibson, Diane Keaton, Barbara Hershey, and Tuesday Weld. James Earl Jones, with a lifelong stuttering problem when not acting, had been her student since the 1950s. Other films on which she worked as a coach and consultant include Witness (1985), Crimes of the Heart (1986), and The Serpent and the Rainbow (1987). Her last consulting job was on the film Rob Roy (1995). ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
"Stupid is as stupid does," says Forrest Gump (played by Tom Hanks in an Oscar-winning performance) as he discusses his relative level of intelligence with a stranger while waiting for a bus. Despite his sub-normal IQ, Gump leads a truly charmed life, with a ringside seat for many of the most memorable events of the second half of the 20th century. Entirely without trying, Forrest teaches Elvis Presley to dance, becomes a football star, meets John F. Kennedy, serves with honor in Vietnam, meets Lyndon Johnson, speaks at an anti-war rally at the Washington Monument, hangs out with the Yippies, defeats the Chinese national team in table tennis, meets Richard Nixon, discovers the break-in at the Watergate, opens a profitable shrimping business, becomes an original investor in Apple Computers, and decides to run back and forth across the country for several years. Meanwhile, as the remarkable parade of his life goes by, Forrest never forgets Jenny (Robin Wright Penn), the girl he loved as a boy, who makes her own journey through the turbulence of the 1960s and 1970s that is far more troubled than the path Forrest happens upon. Featured alongside Tom Hanks are Sally Field as Forrest's mother; Gary Sinise as his commanding officer in Vietnam; Mykelti Williamson as his ill-fated Army buddy who is familiar with every recipe that involves shrimp; and the special effects artists whose digital magic place Forrest amidst a remarkable array of historical events and people. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Tom Hanks, Robin Wright, (more)
Susan Sarandon and Nick Nolte give brilliant performances as parents trying to save the life of their son in George Miller's harrowing and heartbreaking Lorenzo's Oil. Based on a true story, the film begins as bright young Lorenzo (Zack O'Malley Greenburg) is leading a pleasant life on the Comoro Islands. But things start to go wrong with him -- he collapses, he raves, and he loses his hearing -- so his concerned parents, Augusto (Nick Nolte) and Michaela Odone (Susan Sarandon), take him to a doctor. The diagnosis is a death warrant; they are told that Lorenzo has been diagnosed with adrenoleukodystrophy (ALD), an rare and incurable nerve disease that is always fatal. When Augusto and Michaela are told to be patient as they watch their son sink further into the debilitating illness, they take matters into their own hands and start their own investigation of the disease. Using rapeseed oil, they find their own treatment for ALD. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi
- Starring:
- Nick Nolte, Susan Sarandon, (more)
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