Watching her spontaneous whoop and heartfelt speech after she was announced the winner of the best actress award from the Screen Actors Guild last Monday, I couldn’t help looking back to the very first time I saw her—on the small screen, a television mini-series called “Holocaust” where she played a noble German named Inga.
There is something about how the face of Meryl Streep that is so well put together despite her pointy nose. I became her instant fan, buying any magazine that had her on its cover (Time, People, Ms.). I followed her through Julia, Kramer vs. Kramer, French Lieutenant’s Woman, which I saw twice in one afternoon that stretched to late evening (coming out of the theater, I ran into art critic Leo Benesa; we rode the same homeward-bound bus and he expounded on Streep’s acting and her mastery of accents), Out of Africa, Sophie’s Choice, Postcards from the Edge down the line until I saw her paired with the great Vanessa Redgrave in another made-for-TV movie “Evening.”
“Evening” is special, I suppose, for those two actors—their own flesh-and-blood daughters appeared with them, Meryl’s Mamie playing her younger self, Vanessa’s Natasha Richardson as her dutiful daughter.
In the late 1980s, I was interviewing Filipino actor Gigi Duenas (now Gigi de Beaupre). A photographer was assigned to take her picture. She brought out a copy of Life magazine, flipped it to a page showing Ms. Streep. Gigi said, “That’s me.”
Yes, we all wish we have a bit of Meryl’s gifts.
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