Olympia Dukakis Remembered

Olympia Dukakis the actress who was renowned for memorable characters including Clairee Belcher from Steel Magnolias, Rose Castorini from Moonstruck and Anna Madrigal from Tales of the City, passed away Saturday morning in New York City after a short illness.

Dukakis won the Oscar for her role as Rosie Castorini in Moonstruck playing opposite the likes of Cher and Nicolas Cage.

Olympia often referred to as an actor who played wise older roles, playing Dustin Hoffman’s mother in the film John and Mary when she was only 32-year-old.

When asked by the New York Times in 2004 why her choice in roles “I always played older, I think it was the voice”.

Olympia Dukakis was born in Lowell, Massachusetts in 1931 to the parents, who were Greek immigrants, interestingly enough her father who worked various factory jobs also founded an amateur theater company.

Olympia studied drama at Boston University receiving her M.F.A. She made her New York debut in The Breaking Wall at St. Mark’s Playhouse in the East Village. 

Stage was always a passion for Olympia Dukakis and something she returned to constantly throughout her career, she even founded a theater company with her husband, Louis Zorich, in 1973, Whole Theater Company in Montclair New Jersey.

Dukakis’s film debut was in 1964 where she played a patient in a mental hospital in Robert Rossen’s Lilith.

Making a name for herself as a character actor, Olympia went on to play the mother of Joseph Bologna in Made for Each Other. At the time of filming Dukakis was 40 and Bologna was 36. In one such memorable scene she is alone in a hallway and screams “Get that woman out of my house” after her son has brought home the new girlfriend, played by Renee Taylor.

Coincidentally when not acting on stage or the screen Olympia Dukakis was teaching drama at NYU for over 15 years.

In 1986, Dukakis starred on Broadway in the Mike Nichols’ production comedy Social Security, playing an 80 something Jewish mother opposite Marlo Thomas. The stage play ran for two years and lead to the producers of Moonstruck seeing her in the performance and deciding she would be perfect for the role of Rose.

After years of working tirelessly Dukakis landed a film role that would bring her international fame and the Academy Award for best supporting actress. The role was Rose Castorini, Sicilian wife and nagging mother in Moonstruck, the role is often described as a career defining performance. 

Renowned for her love of theater Olympia played some amazing classical roles in productions such as Electra, Titus Andronicus, A Man’s a Man, The Marriage of Bette and Boo, The Memorandum and Curse of the Starving Class. 

Her last stage role in New York was in 2011 as Flora Goforth, the deathly widow from the Tennessee Williams play The Milk Train Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore. 

But what Olympia Dukakis will be remembered for is the outstanding performance in Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City which first aired in 1993. Dukakis played transgendered landlady Anna Madrigal. This role was reoccurring in More Tales of the City 1998, Further Tales of the City 2001 and reprising the role in 2019 on Netflix for a new incarnation of Tales of the City.

Dukakis remarked later in life “the fun part is that people pass me on the street and yell lines from my movies: for Moonstruck they say, ‘Your life is going down the toilet!’.

Olympia Dukakis was 89 years old and is survived by her children and grandchildren.