Eager for a change in her career, and to give her children a constant place to live, Meryl Streep moved her family from Connecticut to Los Angeles. She worked with Mike Nichols for a third time on the adaptation of Carrie Fisher’s semi-autobiographical “Postcards from the Edge”, loosely based on Fisher’s own struggle with drugs and the rocky relationship to her mother, who was played in the film by Shirley MacLaine. “Postcards” also gave Streep a chance to sing again on film after “Silkwood” and “Ironweed”. She performed two songs in the film – a solo rendition of “You Don’t Know Me” and a big country number of “I’m Checking Out”, the latter receiving an Academy Award nomination for Best Song. While the film was not very successful at the box office, it received favorable reviews, espially for its actors, spawned a lifelong friendship between Streep and Fisher, and won Meryl Streep yet another Academy Award nomination as Best Actress.

Not shy of the spotlight anymore to voice her activist beliefs, Meryl Streep received cheers and more than a few raised eyebrows with her speech at the Screen Actors Guild about the inequality in payment between actresses and their male counterparts.

What is the problem? We all know what the problem is. One, there’s very little work for women. And two, when we do work we get paid much less than our male counterparts – about 40 cents to 60 cents on the male dollar. And what work there is lately is off. Somebody at The New Yorker said recently that if the Martians landed and did nothing but go to the movies this year, they’d come to the fair conclusion that the chief occupation of women on Earth is hooking. And I don’t mean rugs (Meryl Streep, First National Women’s Conference by the Screen Actors Guild, August 01, 1990)

Feature Films

Postcards from the Edge

September 12, 1990