What a Dame!

Dame Joan Plowright is the dame of whom I speak. Or Plowwright, maybe. Both spellings appear in print. In any case, this graceful, aging actress and widow of Sir Laurence Olivier is vastly underappreciated here in the colonies, methinks. I was reminded last night when two women friends and I watched her in a touching, charming, funny film entitled "Mrs. Palfrey at The Claremont." If you haven't seen it, you can catch it now on DVD. I will save the details in case you want to see it, but the gist is this: an aging woman declines living with her daughter and determines to be independent to the end.

That said, I also associate Dame Plowright with a disappointing moment in one of the least disappointing days of my life. Here's THAT story...

The day before Thanksgiving 1989, I stood in a Jewish cemetery in Baltimore, dressed in 1950s black funeral attire, respectfully posing as a mourner at the casket and gravesite of a character played by Dame Plowright in Barry Levinson's "Avalon," one of three autobiographical films set in his native Baltimore. "I wish he'd called Dame Plowright to come and lie down in the casket," I thought. "At least I might have caught a glimpse of her that way."

Instead, the director had me stand behind and peer between the shoulders of actors Aidan Quinn and Armin Muehller-Stahl--no slouches themselves--who played Dame Plowright's son and husband, respectively. There we all stood, listening to the Rabbi, and mournfully staring at (of course) a closed and empty casket.

To my surprise, when the movie premiered, there I was on the Big Screen. With no less than my closeup, Mr. DeMille (Mr. Levinson). I won't ever forget it--or forgive Barry Levinson for denying me the glimpse of greatness when the Dame, independent to the end, didn't lie down in the casket.