The RIP Famous Person Thread

[misskit]

Olympia Dukakis, Oscar Winner for 'Moonstruck,' Dies at 89


The veteran stage actress also appeared in 'Steel Magnolias,' 'Mr. Holland's Opus' and as a transgender landlady four times on 'Tales of the City.'
Olympia Dukakis, the dignified actress who received a supporting Oscar for her performance as Cher's nitpicking Brooklyn mother in Moonstruck, died Saturday. She was 89.


Dukakis died in New York, her brother Apollo wrote on Facebook. "After many months of failing health she is finally at peace and with her [husband] Louis."


The late-blooming star also was known for her turn as Clairee Belcher, a woman of fiber and the elegant widowed friend of Ouiser Boudreaux (Shirley MacLaine), in Herbert Ross' Steel Magnolias (1989), and she portrayed a personnel director in Working Girl (1988) and a principal in Mr. Holland's Opus (1995).


Away from the big screen, Dukakis taught drama at NYU for more than 15 years and was a founding member of two regional theaters: The Charles Playhouse in Boston and the Whole Theater in Montclair, New Jersey.


Her husband of 55 years, stage and character actor Louis Zorich (Paul Reiser's father Mad About You), died in January 2018 at age 93.


She was a first cousin of former Massachusetts governor and 1988 U.S. presidential candidate Michael Dukakis.

MORE Olympia Dukakis Dead: 'Moonstruck' Oscar-Winning Actress Was 89 | Hollywood Reporter