Dana Ivey Movies
Her name may not ring any bells, but talented actress Dana Ivey has a face familiar to audiences thanks to countless supporting roles in such high-profile films as The Color Purple (1985), Sleepless in Seattle (1993), Sabrina (1995), and Legally Blonde 2 (2003). And though she was almost always at least halfway down the credits list, Ivey consistently added dimension and personality to even the most minor roles. A Georgia native who got her start on-stage, Ivey appeared in numerous American and Canadian theater productions before making her home in New York during the 1980s. It wasn't long before she rose through the ranks of the New York stage scene and made her Broadway debut in Noël Coward's Present Laughter. Roles in Quartermaine's Terms and Driving Miss Daisy (as the eponymous character) earned Ivey two Obies and found her reputation as an actress growing. Subsequent work in the Broadway production of Heartbreak Hotel earned her two supporting actress Tony nominations in the mid-'80s. In 1978, Ivey made her television debut in the daytime soap opera Search for Tomorrow, and soon her small-screen career blossomed in such efforts as the NBC miniseries Little Gloria... Happy at Last. Though Ivey simultaneously nurtured a feature career with supporting roles in Explorers and The Color Purple, it was her performance in the 1986 sitcom Easy Street that truly found her coming into her own on the television. After recalling her previous stage exploits with Heartbreak House and Sunday in the Park With George in 1986, Ivey joined the cast of All My Children in 1989 and spent the majority of the following decade in such features as The Addams Family (1991), Sabrina (1995), and Simon Birch (1998). Although her career leaned increasingly toward feature work, Ivey also remained true to her stage roots, appearing in such plays as The Glass Menagerie in 1998 and Major Barbara in 2001. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide- 1992
Based on a true story, the made-for-TV Child Lost Forever was advertised as a "docudrama." A unwed teenage mother is forced to give up her baby for adoption. 16 years later, the girl (played as an adult by Beverly D'Angelo), now married and the mother of two, decides to look for the son she lost. She finds that the boy died at age three under mysterious circumstances. The more she investigates, the more she realizes that she's stumbled upon a long-hushed-up case of child abuse. Child Lost Forever debuted November 16, 1992. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Beverly D'Angelo, Michael McGrady, (more)
Inspired more by the 1960s TV series than by the original Charles Addams New Yorker cartoons, The Addams Family proved to be one of the more successful of the TV shows-turned-movies of the 1990s. The film opens on a recreation of the magazine cartoon wherein the ghoulish Addamses prepare to pour hot oil upon a group of merry Christmas carolers. After a series of vignettes which establish the characters of Gomez (Raul Julia), Morticia (Anjelica Huston), Wednesday (Christina Ricci), Pugsley (Jimmy Workman) and family servants Lurch (Carel Struycken) and Thing (Christopher Hart), the plot proper gets under way. A stranger, played by Christopher Lloyd, shows up on the Addams doorstep, claiming to be long-lost Uncle Fester. It appears, however, that Lloyd is a ringer, in cahoots with attorney Tully Alford (Dan Hedaya) to strip the Addamses of their fortune. In their usual against-the-grain fashion, the Addams Family seems to delight in the possibility that they're being hoodwinked-indeed, not even kidnapping or death threats dampen the Addams clan's joy of living (or should we say dying?). The Addams Family served as the directorial debut of cinematographer Barry Sonnenfeld. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Anjelica Huston, Raul Julia, (more)
Kevin Kline directed this television adaptation of the New York Shakespeare Festival's 1990 production of Shakespeare's most famous tragedy, in which Kline also stars as the melancholy Danish prince. Deeply saddened by the death of his father, Hamlet (Kline) is shocked to discover his mother, Queen Gertrude (Dana Ivey), has already taken a new husband, Claudius (Brian Murray), the brother of the late King. Visited by the shade of his late father, Hamlet is told that Claudius rose to his new status through murder, and the son is soon torn over what action he should take; meanwhile, Ophelia (Diane Venora) descends into madness. This adaptation of Hamlet was originally produced for PBS, where it first aired in 1990. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Mike Nichols lends some comic structure to Carrie Fisher's best-selling confessional novel concerning a woman's struggles with drug addiction and mother-daughter rivalry (subjects Fisher admits to understanding all too well). Meryl Streep, in her most full-blown comic performance up to that point, plays Suzanne Vale, a popular movie actress well on her way to a Hollywood crack-up. Suzanne suffers from blackouts and memory lapses, and awakens in the beds of men she doesn't remember; she is a barely-functioning wreck on the set of her latest movie. When a coke dealer who delivers stops by her dressing room between takes, she swiftly finds herself being rushed to the hospital, suffering the effects of a narcotics bender. While in detox, Suzanne attempts to piece her life and career back together, but her confidence is shattered when her mother arrives at the rehab clinic -- Doris Mann, a famed film icon from the 1950s and 1960s (Shirley MacLaine). Doris is soon soaking up the adulation and applause of Suzanne's fellow recovering drug addicts. Upon Suzanne's release, she must compete with her mother for attention and fame as she tries to walk a thin line as a recovering drug abuser. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Meryl Streep, Shirley MacLaine, (more)
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels is a remake of the 1964 film farce Bedtime Story. Steve Martin and Michael Caine take over the roles originally played by Marlon Brando and David Niven: two international con artists, plying their trade on gullible wealthy women up and down the Riviera. Martin and Caine vie over the honor of fleecing ingenuous heiress Glenne Headly (in a role originated by Shirley Jones). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Steve Martin, Michael Caine, (more)
Grad-school administrative head Marion Post (Gena Rowlands) is in the midst of writing a book. The walls are thin in the apartment she's taken for work purposes, and soon Marion begins listening to the sessions conducted by her neighbor, an analyst. One of the patients is Hope (Mia Farrow), whose marriage is in tatters. As Hope prattles on, Marion begins flashing back to highlights (and lowlights) of her own marriage. Her musings are constantly interrupted by the memory of the man (Gene Hackman) she'd once ardently loved. Later on, chance encounters with old friends force Marion to face the fact that she has lived her life sheltering herself from her true emotions. Director Woody Allen's career-long indebtedness to Ingmar Bergman is underlined in Another Woman via Bergman's frequent cinematographer Sven Nykvist. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gena Rowlands, Mia Farrow, (more)
- 1986
Heartbreak House is a 1985 TV staging of the 1920 comedy by George Bernard Shaw. Rex Harrison stars as retired British sea captain Shotover, who tries vainly to maintain an even keel in his own household. The catalyst for the plot is Ellie (Amy Irving), a friend of Shotover's eldest daughter Heslone (Rosemary Harris). Having set her cap for a self-made industrialist (George Martin), Ellie is talked out of the union by Heslone, whereupon the younger girl claims she's taken up with an elusive and highly suspect stranger. As Shotover watches helplessly, the social structure that he has honored all his life crumbles before him--a symbol, claim Shaw's disciples, of the collapse of "proper" European society after World War I. This videotaped version of Heartbreak House premiered over the Showtime Cable service on April 16, 1985. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Rex Harrison, Amy Irving, (more)
Though she always played coy about the fact in interviews, Nora Ephron's novel Heartburn is a thinly disguised "a clef" rehash of her marriage to Washington Post reporter Carl Bernstein. Meryl Streep plays Rachel, an influential food critic who marries charismatic columnist Mark (Jack Nicholson) after a whirlwind courtship. Warned that Mark is constitutionally incapable of settling down with any one woman, Rachel gives up her own job to make certain that her marriage works. When Rachel announces that she's pregnant, Mark virtually jumps out of his skin with delight. But as the news sinks in, Mark chafes at the impending responsibilities of fatherhood, and the philandering begins-- as if it had ever really stopped! Our favorite scene: Rachel and her friends being robbed at her therapy group. That's Meryl Streep's real-life daughter playing Rachel's offspring. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Meryl Streep, Jack Nicholson, (more)
James Lapine directed this television adaptation of his acclaimed musical, which he created in collaboration with the great composer Stephen Sondheim. In the first act, artist Georges Seurat (Mandy Patinkin) is working on his latest painting with the woman he loves, Dot (Bernadette Peters), posing for him. The work is to become the impressionist masterpiece Sunday Afternoon on the Isle of La Grande Jatte, and along with Dot, Georges interacts with the various people who happen through the park and become characters in his painting. In act two, Seurat's great grandson George (also played by Patinkin) and his grandmother Marie (also played by Peters) return to the place where Seurat had created his masterpiece 100 years earlier. George, a sculptor, is in dire need of inspiration, and the visit leads both him and Marie to ponder their ideas of what is art, and what is life. This performance of Sunday in the Park with George also features Charles Kimbrough, Barbara Byrne, and Brent Spiner (the latter before he gained fame as Data on Star Trek: The Next Generation). ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mandy Patinkin, Bernadette Peters, (more)
Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Alice Walker, The Color Purple spans the years 1909 to 1949, relating the life of Celie (Whoopi Goldberg), a Southern black woman virtually sold into a life of servitude to her brutal husband, sharecropper Albert (Danny Glover). Celie pours out her innermost thoughts in letter form to her sister Nettie (Akousa Busia), but Albert has been hiding the letters Nettie writes back, allowing Celie to assume that Nettie is dead. Finally, Celie finds a champion in the don't-take-no-guff Sofia (Oprah Winfrey), the wife of Glover's son from a previous marriage. Alas, Sofia is "humbled" when she is beaten into submission by angry whites. Later, Celie is able to forge a strong friendship with Albert's mistress Shug (Margaret Avery). Emboldened by this, Celie begins rifling through her husband's belongings and finds Nettie's letters. Able at last to stand up to her husband, Celie leaves him to search for a new life on her own. A major box-office hit, The Color Purple was nominated for eleven Oscars. The film was co-produced by Quincy Jones, who also wrote the score. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Danny Glover, Whoopi Goldberg, (more)
Explorers turns out to be much ado about nothing, but it's so sublimely assembled we're willing to overlook the sappy climax. Young sci-fi geek Ben Crandall (Ethan Hawke) (could he possibly be based on director Joe Dante?) would give anything to travel in space. Thanks to his computer-happy pal Wolfgang Muller (River Phoenix), Ben gets his wish, together with best bud Darren Woods (Jason Presson). In the Great Beyond, the boys encounter an extraterrestrial (Robert Picardo), whose knowledge of earth is limited to what he's gleaned from 1960s TV sitcoms (this is unusual?) Lots of outer-space fun ensues before the film's inevitable downward spiral. Moderately successful in theatres, Explorers had a healthy second life on video and cable TV, especially after director Dante rethought the film and rearranged a few scenes for better dramatic (and comic) impact. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ethan Hawke, River Phoenix, (more)
- 1984
Little Gloria...Happy at Last is the two-part TV adaptation of Barbara Goldsmith's 1980 best-seller. The film concerns the true-life custody battle over the daughter of millionaire Reggie Vanderbilt (Christopher Plummer) and his "child bride," Gloria Morgan (Lucy Gutteridge). When the over-imbibing Reggie dies, Gloria enjoys the high life as a wealthy widow, leaving her daughter in the care of her sister-in-law, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (chillingly portrayed by Angela Lansbury in her TV-movie debut). Gloria's personal income, predicated on the child's inheritance, is severely cut, whereupon Gloria sues the indomitable Vanderbilts for custody of her daughter. We won't tell you the outcome, but we can tell you that "Little Gloria," the ten-year-old focus of the custody fight, grew up to be the same Gloria Vanderbilt who went into the designer jeans business. Little Gloria...Happy at Last was originally telecast October 24 and 25, 1982. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
