Friday
Mar082019
Open Thread for International Women's Day
Friday, March 8, 2019 at 2:05PM Still sick. Apologies! So herewith an open thread. I'll give you a prompt.
Name the first three actresses you ever loved in the comments! Mine were probably Hayley Mills and Maureen O'Hara (because The Parent Trap was my favorite movie as a wee tyke) and Natalie Wood (because I was obsessed with musicals as a kid and particularly West Side Story airings on television). The trifecta of Michelle Pfeiffer, Kathleen Turner, and Meryl Streep that completely done me in* at movie theaters happened a bit later.
*aka caused my actressexuality
Reader Comments (124)
Whoopi Goldberg, Kathy Najimy and Maggie Smith
Madeline Kahn, Bea Arthur, Angela Lansbury.
Mary Tyler Moore, Diane Keaton, Jennifer Jones
Julie Andrews
Glenn Close
Kate Winslet
Audrey Hepburn, Natalie Wood and Nicole Kidman.
Margaret Hamilton, Michelle Pfeiffer, Marilyn Monroe
Winona Ryder, Molly Ringwald & Linda Hamilton
Cameron Diaz, There is something about Mary - I completely fell in love with her in this movie when I was a teenager. Genius work, I love that NYFCC win
Jodie Foster, The Silence of the Lambs - Growing up in a very patriarchal society, my 13 yo self was in awe with this character. Still one of the very best movie performances.
Nicole Kidman, Moulin Rouge. It was the movie that made me start to follow the oscars particularly to see her.
Madeline Kahn, Teri Garr, and I think maybe Georgia Engel? Tough question. Great question. But tough question.
ScottC -- Georgia Engel. OMG, love this answer.
Andrew -- gee, i wonder what movie you were watching on loop as a kid.
Julie Andrews, Dorothy McGuire, Hayley Mills. I watched a LOT of Disney Channel.
When I was a kid I had seen every crappy Whoopie Goldberg movie and I was a huge fan of her, though the first three that made get way into movies were:
Angelina Jolie (TF????? @creepy 17-y/o me)
Julia Roberts (geez, the crush is still there)
Ziyi Zhang (she was everywhere)
Bette Davis
Anne Bancroft
Diane Keaton
Bette Midler, Madeline Kahn, Lealey Ann Warren.
At a young age I was more obsessed with specific movies (ahem, CLUE), and not the actresses within them. Like I saw Sound of Music and Mary Poppins dozens of times, but it wasn’t about Julie, for instance.
That said, I could not get enough of Bette Midler movies, any of them.
Eva Green, Carla Gugino and Madeline Stowe
That’s easy:
Michelle Pfeiffer
Glenn Close
(Yes, I was / am obsessed with Dangerous Liaisons)
Kathleen Turner
Whoopi Goldberg
Anjelica Huston
Kathy Bates
My childhood was pre-VCR - ergo, my list is actually awesome.
Judy Garland - Wizard of Oz used to be an annual TV event on CBS
Julie Andrews - Sound of Music used to be an annual TV event on NBC
Angela Lansbury - Murder She Wrote, every Sunday night on CBS at 8pm
Sigourney Weaver
Brenda Blethyn
Imelda Staunton
Whoopi Goldberg, Finn Carter (I loved 'Tremors') and Neve Campbell (though I desperately wanted it to be Drew Barrymore before her unfortunate demise in the first ten minutes of 'Scream).
Sounds like I started a lot earlier then the rest of you...
Julie Andrews (because of Sound of Music)
Elizabeth Montgomery (because of Bewitched, if TV actresses count)
Kim Richards (because of Escape from Witch Mountain, of course)
That last one's a little embarrassing, but this is a safe space, right? I even rented Tuff Turf in high school because Kim Richards was in it (with James Spader!).
Nicole Kidman
Reese Witherspoon
Renée Zellweger
I have to go with these 4:
Judy Garland (thanks to repeated viewings of The Wizard of Oz)
Julie Andrews (thanks to Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music)
Samantha Egger (thanks to Doctor Doolittle)
Sally Ann Howes (thanks to Chitty Chitty Bang Bang)
Barbara Eden
Elizabeth Montgomery
Cheryl Ladd
😘
Juliette Lewis
Jennifer Jason Leigh
Diane Keaton
Katharine Hepburn; Glenn Close; Glenn Close (once I discovered her at 14 she took over everything...)
Rosalind Russell (because Auntie Mame was on TV all the time)
Madeline Khan
Stockard Channing (a bit weird but she stood out to me as Rizzo, she had a very short-lived TV show, a few movies and I saw her in Joe Egg on Broadway)
Fay Wray in King Kong - my favourite classic film to watch on video (Betamax!) whenever I was off sick from school as a child
Lois Maxwell as Miss Moneypenny in all the Bond films she was in
Cher in Moonstruck was everything to me when it first came out (and sort of still is!) - I was just 13 when it came out
I love this question so much, and love reading everyone's responses.
Catherine O'Hara [Christopher Guest films were my cinephile awakening at a very young age!]
Maggie Smith [lethal combo of Harry Potter and Prime of Ms Jean Brodie]
Carey Mulligan [underrated by the world <3]
Glenn Close, Glenn Close, Glenn Close.
She's been my idol for so long.
Jodie Foster
Holly Hunter
Geena Davis
Katharine Hepburn, Meryl Streep, and Emma Thompson/Jodie Foster.
I can't remember whether Emma or Jodie came first, I loved them both around the same time in high school.
Eleanor Parker - Because of Scaramouche, which I saw in my teens and is one of my favorites of all times and other movies I saw with her reaffirmed this passion.
Goldie Hawn - Private Benjamin is guilty of my attraction to funny women - yes, I think women are funny - and of the fact that I cannot stand people with no sense of humor around.
Michelle Pfeiffer - In that series of films she made in the late 1980s, mostly Married to the Mob and Dangerous Liaisons. I wish she had made more comedy.
Sissy Spacek
Jessica Lange
Penélope Cruz
♡♡♡♡♡ Jean Arthur ♡ Doris Day ♡ Myrna Loy ♡ Love comedies and musicals and old movies ♡♡♡♡♡
MIchelle Pfeiffer, Jami Gertz (Lost Boys fan here), and Julia Roberts
Great question!
Linda Darnell-Blackbeard, the Pirate was on Saturday morning TV all the time when I was a kid and she was the breathtaking damsel in distress. Loved her ever since.
Judy Garland-The Wizard of Oz of course, when it was a special yearly event.
Peggy Cass-Auntie Mame was another film that was on all the time and while I loved Rosalind Russell almost as much I had such a soft spot for the Gooch. Plus she was on To Tell the Truth which my folks watched all the time and she was charming on there as well.
Nicole Kidman, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Whoopi Goldberg.
Katharine Hepburn, Julie Andrews and Glenn Close. My age shows :(
I think Glenn Close would be up there. There weren't a ton of opportunities for 90s kids to see BIG actressing besides 101 Dalmatians.
I was utterly obsessed with 90’s Rose McGowan.
She leaves me cold these days because I hate lazy artists, but Jodie Foster was essential to me during her best actress Oscar run from Accused to Nell.
I love the brightness and intelligence she gave Clarice in The Silence of The Lambs. It's not easy to attack such an intellectual role -Clarice is thinking all the time - without looking detached.
Bette Midler, Angela Lansbury, Julia Roberts
Whoopi Goldberg, Judi Dench, Laura Dern
Elizabeth Montgomery
Madeline Kahn
Meryl Streep
Nicole Kidman: My dad had me watch Far and Away in 1992 to show me the struggle of the Irish moving to America, I took away an obsession with her ever since.
Kate Winslet: I remember thinking eww why her when I saw the movie poster for Titanic. Once I saw it I fell in love with her and rented Sense and Sensibility, Jude and Heavenly Creatures and again became obsessed.
Christina Ricci: liked her in all the kid movies as we are the same age but all her late 90’s it girl films The Opposite of Sex, Buffalo 66, The Ice Storm, Pecker and 200 Cigarettes. Someone please give her a juicy role again!!
You're asking for the first three so:
Rossana Podesta - As a kid I was a nut for Greek mythology and movies. So the 1956 "Helen of Troy" was a seismic event for me - and - in my eyes - Podesta was the perfect Helen. Had the luck to meet her decades later and she was a sweetheart.
Christine Carere - a charming French import who - in retrospect - looked like a miraculous blend of two 60's icons -Natalie Wood and singer France Gall. Fox gave up on her after a few films and back to France she went. I fell in love with her in a less than lightweight Pat Boone musical called "Mardi Gras"
Judy Garland - via TV reruns of her old movies and recordings. I was around 12 when she made her amazing Carnegie Hall powered comeback and - boy - was I on board!
Judy Garland ( Wizard of Oz) Bette Davis (Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?) Julie Andrews (Mary Poppins) I t saw all of these for the first time as a child of the 60's - and hooked on their respective bodies of work ever since.
Angela Lansbury
Sandra Bullock
Julie Andrews
JULIETTE BINOCHE - "Trois couleurs: Bleu" just blew me away, that was when I started my love affair with French cinema and therefore Adjani, Deneuve, Cotillard, etc
SHARON STONE - when I found out what a larger than life movie star with incredible acting chops should be like.
DIANE KEATON- From "Annie Hall" to "The First Wives Club" and "Marvin's Room" she can do just about anything.