I snapped this up as soon as I sat on a bookshelf at Berkelouw’s at Rose Bay. I am a big Streep fan. She has given so many great performances. My favourite, her stunning performance as Polish immigrant Sophie who lives in Brooklyn with her schizophrenic lover Nathan and young writer Stingo.
Carlson’s book is a satisfying bio as he charts Streep’s filmography and gives us some background to her main films. Some of the anecdotes are well known. It is well documented that Streep and Dustin Hoffman had an acrimonious relationship during the making of ‘Kramer versus Kramer’.
Also well known is what happened when Streep auditioned for director Dino De Laurentiis’s new film ‘King Kong’. With Streep in earshot, Dino remarked, in Italian, to his son, how could you send someone so ugly. What he didn’t know was that Streep understood Italian. She retorted to hi, “I amsorry that I am not as beautiful as I should be. but you know this is it. This is what you get!”
Less well known is the rather tenuous relationship that existed between Streep and her co-star Alan Alda during the filming of ‘The Seduction of Joe Tynan’.
Streep has garnered good reviews from most critics. There was however one leading American film critic, Pauline Kael, who she could never please. Kael found herself increasingly marginalised with her disapproving reviews.
One of Streep’s major films was David Hare’s play turned film ‘Plenty’. Hare had some interesting things to say about Streep.
“I’ve realised how powerful the tug is in Streep between duty and freedom, and that all her greatest performances are about that conflict. My two favourite performances of hers are in ‘Silkwood’- in which she is amazing as a woman who gets drawn into realising what her duty is- and ‘A Cry in the Dark’ about Lindy Chamberlain But the conflict is there, clearly, in ‘Sophie’s Choice’, which is almost like a video game program for the things Meryl does best. One side of her is free spirited, anarchic, and funny. The other expresses the nobility of duty.”
Alan J. Pakula, the director of ‘Sophie’s Choice’, said of Meryl Streep, “She went from being a great classical actress to playing parts in Hollywood that others could have done. Sometimes they put her into a picture and it’s like having this huge motor on this tiny car.”
Streep said this about critics, “I’ve always wanted to get together a group of actors and talk about the process and then write it all down and send it to all the main critics so they’d know what actors do. Most of them- even the most sophisticated- are swept away by whether it’s a character they like or dislike. They confuse the dancer with the dance. With my work they get stuck in the auto mechanics of it- the most obvious stuff, like what’s under the hood. They mention the accent or the hair- as if it’s something I’ve laid on that doesn’t have anything to do with the character. It’s very ingenious, really. They’re like children who want to believe in Santa Claus. Some critics categorically refuse to believe Santa Claus is their dad with a beard.”
Carlson’s book features some lovely sketch illustrations by Justin Teodoro, a New York city based artist.
Streep is now seventy years old. There is no sign that she is slowing down as her awesome body of work continues to grow. Carlson’s bio is a respectable addition to the literature about the world’s greatest living actress.
‘Queen Mary : The iconic roles, heroic deeds and legendary life of Merry Streep’ by Erin Carlson.
Publisher : Hachette Books
ISBN 9780316485272
Featured image : Meryl Streep. Image courtesy of Getty images.