Courtesy Entertainmnent Weekly‘s Fall Preview: Bartesville, Okla., rests on the edge of Osage County, carved by the broad, flat Caney River. It’s a pretty city, clean and polite, and for a brief time last fall, it was home to some of Hollywood’s biggest stars, who all lived together (at Meryl Streep’s suggestion) in a new condo complex tucked behind a car dealership. “I’s step out on my little patio and look over and ‘Oh, there’s Meryl,'” Julia Roberts says, laughing. “I’d look to my left and there’s Ewan McGregor. Someone would say, ‘So, anybody want to run some lines?'” “August: Osage County”, based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway play by Tracy Letts, is about a family swirling in a dust storm of dysfunction. The matriarch, Violet Weston (Streep), staggers around a sprawling house in rural Oklahoma, smoking, suffering from mouth cancer, and popping Percocet like peppermints. When her husband (Sam Shepard) vanishes one day, her daughters and their families return to provide support.
Members of the Wilmington Fund VT are celebrating the success of last Saturday evening’s fundraising events. The evening kicked off at the Hermitage Club with an exclusive dinner with special guest, actress Meryl Streep. Also in attendance were Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin and Congressman Peter Welch. The fundraising dinner was sold out, with 115 guests paying between $1,000 and $5,000 per plate. Donors paying for the $2,500 and $5,000 plates also had their photos taken with Streep.
Streep was at the event at the behest of her friend, Wilmington Fund VT founder and president Dan Kilmurray. Kilmurray says he has known Streep’s family for years. “Her brother and I met and became dear friends when I was about 18,” Kilmurray said. “I met her when she graduated from Vassar. When I was in the process of launching this fundraising event, I asked her if she would help.” During an after-dinner chat hosted by Kilmurray’s wife and co-founder of Wilmington Fund VT, Tamara Kilmurray, Streep said that one of the reasons she was willing to help the Wilmington Fund was because she was familiar with the town. After she left Dartmouth College for Vassar, she said, she continued to travel between the two colleges on trips to visit her boyfriend at Dartmouth. “Wilmington was my halfway point,” she said. “I used to stop at a little ice cream place on Route 9 that isn’t there anymore (Gene’s KreeMee).” Streep also found an unexpected connection to the area. Rep. Ann Manwaring told her that the bottles of Vermont maple syrup on the tables were donated by local business owner Ed Metcalfe, who had attended elementary school with Streep. “Oh, little Eddie Metcalfe?” Streep said. “Is he here?” But Metcalfe wasn’t in attendance. More information on the event can be found here and at their official website.
One part of the gallery that has been ignored for long are the many posters and advertisments for Meryl’s films throughout the years. Many have received different key-arts for international releases, so flip through the new albums and see how they were distributed. Additionally to posters, DVD or laserdiscs covers, Oscar ads have been added as well. To launch all last updated albums, click one of the previews below.
At the Public Theater’s 2013 gala at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park last night, Sting, Steve Martin and Meryl Streep had prime seats for a one-night-only performance of “The Pirates of Penzance,” starring Kevin Kline as the Pirate King and Martin Short as Major-General Stanley, a sure recipe for hilarity. Streep took the stage before the performance to say a few words about her friend Nora Ephron. Streep recalled a dinner with Ephron. “I bubbled to our tablemates, ’Bon Appetit,’” Streep said, doing a perfect imitation of Julia Child. “And she gave me a sideways look and said, ’I have a thought.’”
Warner Home Video has recently released a 40 film collection of Clint Eastwood’s career, including a new one-hour documentary. Many of his colleagues and friends, including Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorcese, Gene Hackman, and his leading ladies Hilary Swank, Marcia Gay Harden and Meryl Streep are interviewed. An excerpt has been added to the video archive, in which Meryl talks about “The Bridges of Madison County” and gives an uncanny “Unforgiven” impression. Screenaptures have been added as well.
Many thanks to Simona for contributing scans from Ciak (Italy, June 1989), covering Meryl’s appearance at the Cannes Film Festival and the release of “A Cry in the Dark”, as well as two additional pictures of from festival earlier in 1989, where Meryl won Best Actress. Enjoy.
Yesterday, Meryl took to the stage in New York to honour the careers of fellow actresses Lois Smith and Frances Sternhagen with the Obie’s Lifetime Achievement Award. A first batch of pictures have been added to the image library with more to come.
The public appearances have been sorted a bit and new pictures have been added, including television appearances that Meryl did in the late 1980s, including Entertainment Tonight and ABC’s The Home Show. Additionally, some already added pictures have been identified for the correct events, such as this one or this one. All last added pictures can be launched by clicking below. And while we’re at it, some additional early work pictures from The Deadliest Season, The Cherry Orchard and Taken in Marriage have been added as well. Enjoy.
And another event update. On April 22, Meryl Streep and husband Don Gummer have attended the the 50th anniversary gala of the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, an organization founded in the early 1960s on the model of artists supporting one another’s creative efforts. It started as visual artists supporting performing artists, but since 1993 artists working in just about any medium have been eligible for a grant. More information can be found here. A picture from the anniversary gala has been added to the image library with many thanks to Glenn for the heads-up.
Yesterday, Meryl Streep was a surprise guest at Indiana University’s dedication and demonstration of Big Red II, the first one petaFLOPS supercomputer in the state and the fastest university-owned system in the nation. Indiana University continues to lead the state, nation, and world in using high-speed computation to expand the frontiers of research. But in an age where each day brings a life-changing discovery, staying at the forefront means working at the speed of innovation. While there’s little coverage on the event, one picture has been added to the image library.