Sad news today. Jonathan Demme, best known for directed “The Silence of the Lambs”, for which he won a Best Director Academy Award, has died at 73. Meryl Streep has spoken out on the passing of filmmaker Jonathan Demme, who directed the Oscar winner in 2015’s rocker comedy, “Ricki and the Flash.” In a statement provided to TheWrap, Streep praised Demme as: “A big hearted, big tent, compassionate man- in full embrace in his life of people in need- and of the potential of art, music, poetry and film to fill that need- a big loss to the caring world.” Demme died Wednesday in New York of esophageal cancer and complications from heart disease. He was originally treated for the disease in 2010, but suffered from a recurrence in 2015. His condition deteriorated in recent weeks leading to his passing. In “Ricki and the Flash,” Streep played an aging rocker coming to terms and dealing with the reconciliation of her music life and her family life. “Juno” Oscar winner Diablo Cody wrote the screenplay. Streep sung and played guitar live for the role. Her and Demme were friends prior to making “Ricki the Flash.” Demme’s other credits include “Philadelphia,” “Rachel Getting Married,” “Melvin and Howard,” “Swing Shift” and “Something Wild.”

As previously announced, Meryl Streep was among the guests of the Academy of American Poets’ 15th Annual Poetry and the Creative Mind on Thursday, and the Literary Hub has a nice article on the evening and the poems that were read. The sweeping Alice Tully Hall was full, the lobby had been swarmed for almost an hour before, and tickets had sold out in about three minutes. The state of our world is precarious, and it’s hard not to feel uncertain or desperate; the poems chosen for the night seemed to speak precisely to that. As the final speaker of the evening, Meryl Streep said that she was thinking about what Uzo Aduba said about the first poem she ever loved; hers was the lullaby her mother used to sing to her. “It’s not on the program, but I think I have to sing it.” And she did. After the song, she read Gary Snyder’s “Mother Earth: Her Whales,” and then, to cheer us up, “Good Bones” by Maggie Smith. “Life is short and I’ve shortened mine in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,” a mother begins, before saying she will keep it from her children: I am trying to sell them the world. Any decent realtor, walking you through a real shithole, chirps on about good bones: This place could be beautiful, right? You could make this place beautiful. Would it be too sentimental to say that a large room of poets, singing their childhood memories and pleas for resistance, reading poems that enriched and inspired and devastated them, felt like it had filled in the bones of Lincoln Center and New York and the world for just one evening? When Meryl Streep reads poetry to you, it’s hard to resist romance. Pictures from the evening have been added to the photo gallery.

On this day 40 years ago, Meryl Streep was first seen by a broad television audience in the CBS movie of the week “The Deadliest Season”. In it, Michael Moriarty plays a hockey player who struggles with getting older and uses more and more violent tricks on the field to remain in form, until one of his actions land him in court. Meryl Streep plays his wife, which says pretty much everything about her character – there’s not much to do or anything poignant to say (if you don’t count “When I watched you in a game it turned me on”). This short period of being an unknown film actress lasted for only a year until her breakthrough performances in “The Deer Hunter” and “Holocaust” in 1978, so it’s kind of fun to see Meryl Streep in a bit part, and how she manages to give this character depth and meaning after all. For more information about the film, visit the career page with additional production notes and pictures. To celebrate its anniversary, six exclusive clips have been added to the video archive, with many thanks to Simona for helping me out. Enjoy!

According to Deadline, “The Post will be hitting theaters much sooner than we have thought. Steven Spielberg only said yes this past Monday to direct Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep in the Fox/Amblin co-production and they’ve all been clearing their schedules to start production in late May. Deals are still being finalized, but that means the film will be ready for release to qualify for this coming Oscar season. As AwardsWatch continues in a second artice, Spielberg was prepping The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara for a 2017 release (and was heavily predicted by the Gold Rush Gang in those first predictions) and is in post- production on Ready Player One (set for March 2018). That opens up the schedules of Mark Rylance and Oscar Isaac, both set to star in Mortara (but also opens up their Oscar chances in other 2017 films). Hanks was ready to start the WWII thriller Greyhound but now that’s pushed back. This marks Hanks’s fifth collaboration with Spielberg. Streep is currently filming Mary Poppins Returns in London but will be long finished by the time The Post begins. Many thanks once again to Frank for the heads-up.

The 89th Annual Academy Awards will go down in history for its shocking false announcement in the Best Picture category, which made one forget about the pointless Lagerfeld tabloid story (although Jimmy Kimmel couldn’t resist to ask, “nice dress. Is that an Ivanka?). Kimmel pulled no punches during his opening monologue, joking that the 20-time-nominee was getting a bit too much credit for her acting chops. “We’re here to honor the actors who seem great, but actually really aren’t. And of all the ‘great’ actors here in Hollywood, one in particular has stood the test of time for her many uninspiring and overrated performances,” Kimmel dead-panned. “From her mediocre early work in ‘The Deer Hunter’ and ‘Out of Africa,’ to her underwhelming performances in ‘Kramer vs. Kramer’ and ‘Sophie’s Choice,’ Meryl Streep has phoned it for more than 50 films over the course of her lackluster career.” Kimmel finished things off by asking everyone else in the auditorium to show their appreciation for the actress. “This is Meryl’s 20th Oscar nomination,” he pointed out. “Made even more amazing considering the fact that she wasn’t even in a movie this year, we just wrote her name down out of habit. Everybody, please join me in giving Meryl Streep a totally undeserved round of applause.” The evening went as expected – until its very unexpected end – with a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for Meryl’s friend Viola Davis and Javier Bardem paying tribute to Meryl’s performance in “The Bridges of Madison County”, before joining her on stage to present the Best Cinematography category to Linus Sandgren for “La La Land”. Pictures from the (apparently very brief) arrivals and the show have been added to the photo gallery. Many thanks to Lindsey for her contributions. Enjoy, and goodbye to the 2017 awards season!

Tonight, Meryl Streep has attended the 30th Annual British Academy Awards as a Best Actress nominee for “Florence Foster Jenkins”. The trophy was handed to Emma Stone, but “Florence” won in the Hair & Makeup category . Over 100 pictures from the arrivals and the show have been added to the photo gallery. Many many thanks to the wonderful Claudia and Lindsey for their contributions. Much appreciated. Edit: A clip of Emma Stone’s acceptance speech has been added as well, since no better segment from the Best Actress category has showed up – but besides the nominees and a short clip from “Florence Foster Jenkins” we’re not missing much.

Meryl Streep drew cheers at yesterday’s annual gala for the Human Rights Campaign, a national group that advocates on behalf of LGBTQ rights, where Streep received the group’s National Ally For Equality Award. Among the other honorees and speakers were Senator minority leader Charles Schumer, who was more impassioned and freewheeling than we are used to seeing him on the Senate floor; Moonlight writer Tarell Alvin McCraney; and late-night host Seth Meyers. But it was Streep who carried the night. As Deadline wrote, Meryl spoke of the early and powerful influence of teachers when she was growing up in suburban New Jersey, and particularly of Paul Grossman, her music teacher when she was in sixth and seventh grades. He had taken the class on a field trip to the Statue of Liberty, she recalled. “Our whole class stood at the feet of that huge, beautiful woman and we sang a song that he had taught us with the lyrics taken from the poem by Emma Lazarus engraved at the face of the monument.” Streep paused as if considering her next move, and then began to sing. “Give me your tired your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore Send thee the homeless tempest toss’t to me. I life my lamp beside the golden door.” At one point she turned away from the audience, her eyes red with tears before continuing, and when finished, she half-whispered, “I can’t remember what I did Tuesday, but I remember that.” Streep said that Paul Grossman later became Paula Grossman and was promptly fired, never seeing a classroom again.

This evening, Meryl Streep has attended the 23rd Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards as a Best Actress nominee for “Florence Foster Jenkins”. The statue was won by “La La Land”‘s Emma Stone. Lots of pictures from the arrivals and from inside the ballroom, mingling with Amy Adams, Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt, have been added to the photo gallery. If Meryl was one of the first celebrities to speak out about the current political climate at the Golde Globes three weeks ago, almost every recipient at the SAGs followed in her footsteps. Streep received a shoutout from winner and former co-star John Lithgow, who noted that the SAG Awards are about actors honoring actors, and he praised his fellow nominees in the category, adding that “a great actress somehow managed to speak my exact thoughts three weeks ago in another awards ceremony and that’s Meryl Streep.” Hundreds of additional pictures have been added with many many thanks to Claudia and Lindsey, alongside screencaptures and the Best Actress segment in the video archive. Enjoy the new additions.

Congratulations to Meryl Streep on receiving her 20th – twentieth! – Academy Award nomination. Earlier this morning, she has received a Best Actress nomination for “Florence Foster Jenkins”, alongside Isabelle Huppert for “Elle”, Ruth Negga for “Loving”, Natalie Portman for “Jackie” and Emma Stone for “La La Land”. “Florence Foster Jenkins has received another nomination for Best Costume Design (the expected nominations for Best Hair and Makeup and a Supporting nomination for Hugh Grant were overlooked). To revive Meryl’s past Oscar nominations, have a look at Simply Streep’s Academy Award special. The Academy Awards will be handed out during a live ceremony on February 26, 2017.

While almost all sources cite “Julia” as Meryl’s film debut and “The Deadliest Season” as her first television, the first time that Meryl has ever been seen on a television screen was in “Secret Service“. Originally performed with the Phoenix Theatre Company in April 1976, the William Gillette play was picked by PBS to air for their Great Performances series of theatre adaptations. On January 12, 1977 – 40 years ago on this exact day – American audiences were able to catch a first glimpse of Meryl Streep – surrounded by John Lithgow, Marybeth Hurt, Joe Grifasi and Jeffrey Jones – singing in the chorus of “God Save the South” for the production’s first scene. To celebrate her television debut and the 40th anniversary of her career, I’ve recently launched streeponfilm.com, which will serve as a supplement to Simply Streep – posting background information, rare pictures and articles from back in the day. Imagine it like a 1977 fansite on Meryl Streep, with all the material already waiting to be posted :-) You’re welcome to join Streep on Film, maybe there’s even some old material to contribute. Below you will find one of the rare instances in which Meryl Streep was interviewed on “Secret Service”. She has fond memories of the theatre group, although not so much on Gillette’s “awful” play.