Olympia Dukakis, the veteran stage and screen actress whose flair for maternal roles helped her win an Oscar as Cher’s mother in the romantic comedy “Moonstruck,” has died. She was 89.
Dukakis died Saturday morning in her home in New York City, according to Allison Levy, her agent at Innovative Artists. A cause of death was not immediately released.
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Olympia Dukakis, the veteran stage and screen actress whose flair for maternal roles helped her win an Oscar as Cher’s mother in the romantic comedy “Moonstruck,” has died. She was 89.
Dukakis won the Oscar for best supporting actress and Cher took home the trophy for best actress.
After earning her bachelor’s degree, she worked at an understaffed hospital in Marmet, West Virginia, and at the Hospital for Contagious Diseases in Boston.
“I thought they were all nuts,” she said. “It was wonderful.”
After three years with a Boston regional theater, Dukakis moved to New York and married actor Louis Zorich.
Her Oscar victory kept the motherly film roles coming. She was Kirstie Alley’s mom in “Look Who’s Talking” and its sequel “Look Who’s Talking Too,” the sardonic widow in “Steel Magnolias” and the overbearing wife of Jack Lemmon (and mother of Ted Danson) in “Dad.”
Dukakis won her Oscar through a surprising chain of circumstances, beginning with author Nora Ephron’s recommendation that she play Meryl Streep’s mother in the film version of Ephron’s book “Heartburn.” Dukakis got the role, but her scenes were cut from the film. To make it up to her, director Mike Nichols cast her in his hit play “Social Security.” Director Norman Jewison saw her in that role and cast her in “Moonstruck.”
FILE - In this Feb. 23, 1988 file photo, Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis poses with cousin Olympia Dukakis during fundraiser in New York. Olympia Dukakis, the veteran stage and screen actress whose flair for maternal roles helped her win an Oscar as Cher’s mother in the romantic comedy “Moonstruck,” has died. She was 89. (AP PhotoRay Stubblebine, File)
Dukakis won the Oscar for best supporting actress and Cher took home the trophy for best actress.
She referred to her 1988 win as “the year of the Dukakii” because it was also the year Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis, her cousin, was the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee. At the ceremony, she held her Oscar high over her head and called out: “OK, Michael, let’s go!”
Dukakis, who was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, had yearned to be an actress from an early age and had hoped to study drama in college. Her Greek immigrant parents insisted she pursue a more practical education, so she studied physical therapy at Boston University on a scholarship from the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis.
FILE - In this May 24, 2013 file photo, Actress Olympia Dukakis is honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her stage work in front of the Pantages Theatre in Los Angeles. Olympia Dukakis, the veteran stage and screen actress whose flair for maternal roles helped her win an Oscar as Cher’s mother in the romantic comedy “Moonstruck,” has died. She was 89. (AP PhotoDamian Dovarganes, File)
After earning her bachelor’s degree, she worked at an understaffed hospital in Marmet, West Virginia, and at the Hospital for Contagious Diseases in Boston.
But the lure of the theater eventually led her to study drama at Boston University.
It was a shocking change, she told an interviewer in 1988, noting that she had gone from the calm world of science to one where students routinely screamed at the teachers.
FILE - In this April 11, 1988 file photo, Olympia Dukakis holds her Oscar at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angles after being honored at the 60th Academy Awards as best supporting actress for her role in "Moonstrck." Olympia Dukakis, the veteran stage and screen actress whose flair for maternal roles helped her win an Oscar as Cher’s mother in the romantic comedy “Moonstruck,” has died. She was 89. (AP PhotoLennox Mcleondon, File)
“I thought they were all nuts,” she said. “It was wonderful.”
Her first graduate school performance was a disaster, however, as she sat wordless on the stage.
After a teacher helped cure her stage fright, she began working in summer stock theaters. In 1960, she made her off-Broadway debut and two years later had a small part in “The Aspen Papers” on Broadway.
FILE - In this June 26, 2011 file photo, Actress Olympia Dukakis, a celebrity Grand Marshall for the 41st annual Gay Pride parade, waves to the crowd while being driven past them in San Francisco. Olympia Dukakis, the veteran stage and screen actress whose flair for maternal roles helped her win an Oscar as Cher’s mother in the romantic comedy “Moonstruck,” has died. She was 89. (AP PhotoJeff Chiu, File)
After three years with a Boston regional theater, Dukakis moved to New York and married actor Louis Zorich.
During their first years of marriage, acting jobs were scarce, and Dukakis worked as a bartender, waitress and other jobs.
She and Zorich had three children — Christina, Peter and Stefan. They decided it was too hard to raise children in New York with limited income, so they moved the family to a century-old house in Montclair, a New Jersey suburb of New York.
FILE - In this Nov. 5, 1989 file photo, stars of the film Steel Magnolias from left: Dolly Parton, Sally Field, Olympia Dukakis, Shirley MacLaine, Julia Roberts and Daryl Hannah pose for a photo in New York. Olympia Dukakis, the veteran stage and screen actress whose flair for maternal roles helped her win an Oscar as Cher’s mother in the romantic comedy “Moonstruck,” has died. She was 89. (AP PhotoEd Bailey, File)
Her Oscar victory kept the motherly film roles coming. She was Kirstie Alley’s mom in “Look Who’s Talking” and its sequel “Look Who’s Talking Too,” the sardonic widow in “Steel Magnolias” and the overbearing wife of Jack Lemmon (and mother of Ted Danson) in “Dad.”
Her recent projects included the 2019 TV miniseries “Tales of the City” and the upcoming film “Not to Forgot.”
But the stage was her first love.
FILE - In this Oct. 15, 2014 file photo, Olympia Dukakis attends a screening of Lifetime's "Big Driver" in New York. Olympia Dukakis, the veteran stage and screen actress whose flair for maternal roles helped her win an Oscar as Cher’s mother in the romantic comedy “Moonstruck,” has died. She was 89. (Photo by Andy KropaInvisionAP, File)
“My ambition wasn’t to win the Oscar,” she commented after her “Moonstruck” win. “It was to play the great parts.”
She accomplished that in such New York productions as Bertolt Brecht’s “Mother Courage and Her Children,” Eugene O’Neill’s “Long Day’s Journey into Night” and Tennessee Williams’ “The Rose Tattoo.”
For two decades she ran the Whole Theater Company in Montclair, New Jersey, specializing in classic dramas.
Zorich died in January 2018 at age 93.
While her passion lay in stage, a line from her Oscar-winning performance as Rose nonetheless seemed fitting: “I just want you to know no matter what you do, you’re gonna die, just like everybody else.”
The late Associated Press writer Bob Thomas in Los Angeles was the primary writer of this obituary.