Mary Steenburgen Movies
Curly haired, sandy-voiced actress Mary Steenburgen is a natural when it comes to playing Southerners, probably because she hails from the region herself. Born in Arkansas on February 8, 1953, Steenburgen was the daughter of a railroad employee. Pursuing drama in college, she headed to New York in 1972, where she worked with an improvisational troupe. She was spotted by Jack Nicholson, who cast her as his feisty "in name only" frontier wife in 1978's Goin' South. Two years later, she won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her performance as Melvin Dummar's inamorata in Melvin and Howard (1980).Able to convey a wide age and character range, Steenburgen was effectively cast as a free-spirited Frisco girl in Time After Time (1979), the corseted matriarch of a turn-of-the-century household in Ragtime (1981), prim authoress Marjorie Rawlins in Cross Creek (1983), a long-suffering suburban housewife in Parenthood (1989), and a Marcia Clark-like attorney in Philadelphia (1993). She also portrayed the Jules Verne-loving Western schoolmarm Clara in Back to the Future 3 (1990), a role she perpetuated (via voice-over) on the Back to the Future TV cartoon series. In 1988, she was executive producer of End of the Line, in which she also appeared. Steenburgen's film appearances throughout the 1990s were erratic: some highlights, in addition to Philadelphia, include What's Eating Gilbert Grape (1993), Nixon (1995), and The Grass Harp (1995). In 1999, she starred as Noah's wife in the biblical epic Noah's Ark, sharing the screen with the likes of Jon Voight, F. Murray Abraham, James Coburn, and Carol Kane. Formerly married for several years to actor Malcolm McDowell, Steenburgen married former Cheers star Ted Danson in 1995. The two have collaborated on a number of projects, including 1994's Pontiac Moon and the made-for-TV Gulliver's Travels in 1996. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
A once-in-a-lifetime cast of veterans performs David Berry's play about Libby Strong (Bette Davis) and Sarah Webber (Lillian Gish), widowed sisters vacationing on a Philadelphia island for their 60th consecutive summer. Libby is blind and embittered, while Sarah is healthy, supportive, and almost annoyingly chipper. Their neighbor Tisha (Ann Sothern) tries to convince Sarah to put Libby in the care of her daughter, but Sarah hasn't forgotten Libby's moral support when her own husband died, and she won't entertain such notions -- until she is swept off her feet by an aging roué (Vincent Price). When Libby spitefully sabotages this romance, an infuriated Sarah decides that gratitude has its limits. But when it actually comes down to selling their summer house and sending Libby packing, Sarah can't do it. In the film's flashback sequences, Libby is played by Margaret Ladd, Sarah by Mary Steenburgen, and Tisha by Ann Sothern's real-life daughter Tisha Sterling. Another film personality of long standing, Harry Carey Jr., is well cast as the sisters' handyman. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bette Davis, Lillian Gish, (more)
- 1985
The "magic" in One Magic Christmas is often (and surprisingly) of the "black" variety. Like Jimmy Stewart before her, worn-out wife and mother Mary Steenburgen wishes that she'd never been born. And like Stewart, Steenburgen is visited by a guardian angel, in this case the western-garbed Harry Dean Stanton. Instead of granting Steenburgen's wish, Stanton shows her what life would be like without Christmas--and that vision is as grim as anything you're ever likely to see in any Holiday film. Throughout the horrendous tragedies heaped upon Steenburgen, we are comforted in the knowledge that Stanton is working in concert with Steenburgen's young daughter. Steenburgen learns her lesson of course, but what a ride! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mary Steenburgen, Gary Basaraba, (more)
Phoebe (Mary Steenburgen) and Jason (Dudley Moore) are a pair of Broadway playwrights who are partners in their chosen profession, but in spite of a definite inclination, they remain unpartnered (for a long time) in any other way. Phoebe is an aspiring playwright from the Northwoods and Jason is just getting married when the two meet for the first time and decide to collaborate. As their relationship produces first a failure and then a string of successes, their repartée remains sharp and witty -- and their unrequited interest in each other gathers energy over a nine-year period, until some resolution is finally in sight. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dudley Moore, Mary Steenburgen, (more)
Director Martin Ritt's bucolic rural environments of Norma Rae, Conrack, and Sounder, are re-visited once again in Cross Creek, based on author Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' memoirs of her times on a remote Florida bayou. Mary Steenburgen plays Rawlings, author of The Yearling, who, in 1928, makes the abrupt decision to leave her husband and move to an isolated orange grove to concentrate on her writing. Rawlings buys a run-down house covered with cobwebs that she restores with quick dispatch. In these desolate surroundings, Rawlings pauses in her housecleaning to listen reflectively to the otherworldly noises of the swamp. But suddenly out of this loneliness, people emerge. There is Geechee (Alfre Woodard), Rawlings' devoted servant; Marsh Turner (Rip Torn), a liquor-guzzling swamp rat; Floyd Turner (Cary Guffey), a cute harmonica-playing boy; and Ellie Turner (Dana Hill), a little girl whose fawn becomes the basis of Rawlings' Yearling book. Rawlings becomes involved with Norton Baskin (Peter Coyote), the owner of the local hotel, and, as she settles into life on the bayou and her friendship with Norton and Geechee, she is inspired to begin writing. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mary Steenburgen, Rip Torn, (more)
- 1983
Little Red Riding Hood (Mary Steenburgen ) is en route to Grandma's house when she encounters a hungry stranger in the woods whose carnivorous appetite may lead him in the same direction. Malcolm McDowell is delightfully smarmy as the Big Bad Wolf who races to Grandma's house with plans to gobble her up and then wait in disguise for Red Riding Hood to arrive. ~ Carrie Downes, All Movie Guide
- 1982
- PG
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Woody Allen brings a diverting whimsy and a hopeful innocence to this period roundelay, based upon Ingmar Bergman's Smiles of a Summer's Night and Jean Renoir's Rules of the Game. Allen plays Andrew, a Wall Street broker and eccentric inventor who is having frigidity problems with his wife Adrian (Mary Steenburgen). Adrian and Andrew are the hosts, at their summer house in the country, of a wedding party for Ariel (Mia Farrow) and Leopold (Jose Ferrer), a famed academic who is Andrew's cousin. Over the weekend, another couple converges at Andrew's summer home -- the sly, lady-killer of a doctor Maxwell (Tony Roberts) and his date, the deliciously ditzy nurse Dulcy (Julie Hagerty). Through the course of the weekend, sexual partners are exchanged and magical fairy tale moments are shared. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Woody Allen, Mia Farrow, (more)
E. L. Doctorow's novel Ragtime was a sprawling fictional account of American manners and mores in the years between 1900 and 1913. Among the mosaic of colorful factual and fictional characters in the novel were escape artist Harry Houdini and radical Emma Goldman. Both characters are all but eliminated in the film version, which only concentrates on three of Doctorow's many plot threads: The story of an immigrant artist (Mandy Patinkin) who becomes a movie director; the saga of "Gibson Girl" Evelyn Nesbit Shaw (Elizabeth McGovern), for whose sake playboy Harry K. Thaw (Robert Joy); kills architect Stanford White (Norman Mailer) and a lone black man's (Howard Rollins Jr.) quest for justice when his car is destroyed by a racist fire chief (Kenneth McMillan). This last subplot consumes most of the film's running time, to the overall detriment of the pacing. There are also several scenes involving an unnamed upper-middle-class family (headed by James Olson and Mary Steenburgen) who are evidently meant to be the audience's eyes and ears, but are frankly not terribly interesting. Back in 1981, Ragtime was given plenty of press coverage as the "comeback" picture for James Cagney, after twenty years in retirement. The problem is that Cagney's character (a police commissioner) isn't in the book, and his inclusion not only throws the story off balance, but necessitates the removal of several potentially interesting characters and events. Another detriment is the gratuitous (and illogical) nudity in the Evelyn Nesbit scenes, which earned the film its "R" rating. An ornate misfire, Ragtime is of interest today only for its remarkable cast of veterans and stars-to-be, including Pat O'Brien and Eloise O'Brien, Donald O'Connor, Debbie Allen, Moses Gunn, Jeff Daniels and Fran Drescher. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- James Cagney, Brad Dourif, (more)
Jonathan Demme's breakthrough movie featured the shaggy energy and affection for marginal American eccentrics that marked his earlier Citizens Band (1977) and such later films as Something Wild (1986) and Married to the Mob (1988). Melvin Dummar (Paul LeMat) is a barely-getting-by Nevada milkman. One day in the early 1970s, while driving down a lonely highway, Melvin picks up a shaggy, bearded bum (Jason Robards Jr.) and offers him a ride into town. Melvin gives the bum a quarter at the end of the ride, and that, so far as Melvin is concerned, is that. The story goes off on a new tangent, involving the on-and-off marriage between Dummar and his contest-happy wife Lynda (Mary Steenburgen). During one of the multitude of financial crises endured by the Dummars, Melvin discovers that the tramp he picked up was none other than billionaire Howard Hughes -- and when Hughes dies, Melvin inherits $150 million. The movie's wide acclaim included Oscars for Steenburgen and Goldman's script and New York Film Critics Awards in almost all major categories, including Best Picture and awards for Demme, Goldman, Steenburgen, and Robards. Demme would gain even greater attention in the 1990s as the director of The Silence of the Lambs (1991) and Philadelphia (1993). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Paul Le Mat, Jason Robards, Jr., (more)
It's H.G. Wells (Malcolm McDowell) versus Jack the Ripper (David Warner) in the fanciful Time After Time -- and, per the film's title, the chase extends from the 19th century to the 20th. Wells has built a time machine in his cellar, which the Ripper uses as a means of escape. Both men find themselves in 20th century San Francisco, and, after a period of adjustment, they make themselves at home. The plot takes a dark turn when the Ripper, disappointed that Wells' dreams of a Utopian future have not come to fruition, resumes his murderous activities. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Malcolm McDowell, David Warner, (more)
Sentenced to hang in a backwater western town, horse thief Henry Moon (Jack Nicholson) is saved when frontierswoman Julia Tate (Mary Steenburgen) agrees to marry him. Taking advantage of the town law that prohibits the execution of married men, Moon follows Tate back to her ranch, planning all the while to escape at the first possible opportunity. But Tate insists that he honor his end of the bargain at work on the ranch. She has no intention of consummating the union, a fact that drives the hot-to-trot Moon up a wall. She puts him to work on the gold mine that she has on her property, while his old gang prepares to relieve the couple of their gold once it's on the surface. Jack Nicholson personally selected movie newcomer Mary Steenburgen for Goin' South. The film also features John Belushi in the role of a dyspeptic deputy. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jack Nicholson, Mary Steenburgen, (more)
- 1978
- PG
In this, Joan Rivers' first attempt at film direction, a young virgin male (Billy Crystal) is engaged to be married when he finds out he is pregnant! Using the film as a vehicle for her acerbic humor, director Rivers may as well be on stage, for interspersed throughout this questionable plot is an unending onslaught of sarcastic slams pointed at just about every sector of society. Ms. Rivers even makes a cameo appearance. Other big names in this film are Tom Poston (as a minister), Roddy McDowall (in several roles), and George Gobel as the U.S. President. ~ All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Billy Crystal, Joan Prather, (more)
