On we go with new magazine scans from the mid-1990s, in which “The House of the Spirits”, “The River Wild”, “The Bridges of Madison County”, “Before and After” and “Marvin’s Room” were released, all more or less successful with critics and the box offic, with the exception of “Madison County”. For a complete list of new articles, have a look at the list below. Enjoy your Sunday.

This week’s Scan Sunday covers Meryl Streep’s comedy years from 1989 to 1993, reviewing “She-Devil”, “Postcards from the Edge”, “Defending Your Life” and “Death Becomes Her”. Lots of articles and reviews from international magazines have been added to the photo gallery. Among the highlights is a brief mention in 1993’s Veronica magazine from the Netherlands of a big television interview to promote “Death Becomes Her”, which I have never heard of. I don’t know if it was filmed exclusively in the Netherlands, or during the UK oder French promotion for the film, so if you’re from the Netherlands and know more about this interview, please let me know. Enjoy reading and have a great Sunday.

Over the last weeks, I have worked behind the scenes on the career pages to make them more functional and easier to browse. Meryl Streep’s career is a massive task to cover, and yet it’s one of my favorite parts of the site, since it’s not only films, but heaps of documentaries, television specials and narration work. Plus, we have been able to source pretty much all of her 50 plus theatre performances since her time at Vassar College with lots of rare pictures and posters. So, let me introduce some nifty new functions: Each career site has been updated with full cast and crew information and shortcuts to the photo gallery, video archive and related reviews (there have been a lot with the ongoing magazine updates). You can check each project’s availablity on a wide array of streaming services in your country. Each page also comes with tags – so if you’re looking for similar work, you’ll find shortcuts like, for example, drama, based on a true story, and many more. Lastly, all career pages are connected with the chronology pages, so you can find all productions from a specific year listed by release. You can start by browsing the career main page with 12 subcategories and then lose yourself for a couple of days with over 330 productions to (re)discover :-). Enjoy browsing and check back tomorrow for a new Scan Sunday.

Our second Scan Sunday contains a wild ride throughout the 1980s with reviews and articles on “Silkwood”, “Falling in Love”, “Plenty”, “Out of Africa”, “Heartburn”, “Ironweed” and “A Cry in the Dark”. Among the highlights of this update is a wonderful cover from the French Le Figaro (1983) and a lenghty article and pictorial on “Out of Africa” from the French Premiere Magazine. As always, many thanks to Alvaro for the contributions. Enjoy reading and have a wonderful Sunday.

Over the last couple of weeks, my friend and frequent site contributor Alvaro has shared yet another treasure trove of old articles with interviews and reviews, ranging from 1976 to 2021. As I didn’t want to make just one update and send them out in one big chunk, I rediscovered a nice alternative I used a couple of years ago – the Scan Sunday. From this week on, every Sunday will feature a scan update with a slice from these new scanned articles. This will keep us entertained for a couple of months :-) We start today with scans from 1976 to 1983, covering her early theatre work in New York to reviews for her formative years with “Kramer vs. Kramer”, “The French Lieutenant’s Woman” and econcluding somewhere between “Sophie’s Choice” and “Still of the Night”. For a complete list of updates, have a look at the list below. Enjoy reading.

According to People, one lucky fan will be getting a private Zoom session with The Devil Wears Prada cast! Lollipop Theater Network is auctioning off the rare prize of zooming with the A-List cast — Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt and Stanley Tucci — to benefit the organization in its 20th year. The 10-minute call will give the lucky winner the chance to see the cast reunite 15 years after the hit film was released. “We are so thrilled to be celebrating our 20th anniversary with our amazing partners at Charitybuzz and the incredibly talented cast of The Devil Wears Prada,” said Lollipop Theater Network Executive Director Evelyn Iocolano in a statement. “We have seen the tremendous impact that these kinds of interactions have on our young patients, and now one lucky bidder will have the chance to experience it themselves, all while contributing much-needed funds to keep our programs up and running! Here’s to the next 20 years of Lollipop!” the statement concluded. The auction is open now and will end on August 3 at www.charitybuzz.com/thedevilwearsprada. Many thanks to Glenn for the heads-up.

Journalist and author Reba Merrill, who will be releasing her book Nearly Famous: Tales from the Hollywood Trenches on July 21, has blessed Meryl Streep fans with a wonderfully rare and downright odd video interview with the actress, which gets all the more fascinating if you know the back story. As Merrill writes in her book and on her website: In 1987, I went on location to upstate New York for the film Ironweed, which would be Oscar-nominated in 1988 against Rain Man. I knew that I would not be allowed to interview or shoot behind the scenes footage of Jack Nicholson. That left me with his co-star, Meryl Streep. I shot footage of Jack working, but no one knew because I had my cameraman turn his light off. Jack joked around with the TV crew and me as long as the camera was not running. Meryl Streep, on the other hand, let us shoot behind the scenes footage of her. The film’s unit publicist arranged Meryl’s interview and when the scheduled time came, we were set up and ready. What a surprise when Meryl arrived with wet hair, glasses, and no make up. No one had told her that this was a video interview, not print. I told her, “This interview will last a long time, and I don’t think you want to look that way on video.” I left the film set with all the interviews except the one with the star of the film. When I came back to Los Angeles, I told the producers I did not have Meryl’s interview. I was sent back to New York to interview Meryl Streep, where I picked up a crew and met her at a hotel on Madison Avenue. When I returned to do the interview, she was comfortable with me. Maybe it was because she saw me often during the three-week period on the film; maybe it was because I had been honest with her and said, “Please don’t do the interview with wet hair and no makeup and glasses.”

For our next interview, the studio provided Meryl with her personal hair and makeup person at the cost of $1,500. About a third of the way through the interview, she put her hand through her hair and got it all messed up, undoing the work of her expensive stylist. I kept my mouth shut because the interview was going really well. The same stylist, J. Roy Helland, won an Oscar in the Hair and Makeup category for turning Meryl into Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady. When he accepted his Oscar, he thanked Meryl for keeping him employed for over 30 years. Meryl gave me a very revealing, hour-long interview about the woman she was, what made her tick, and what was important in her life. “I still get nervous, very nervous, when I have to audition,” she told me, which is probably not something she has to do anymore since she is considered one of the most talented and respected actresses of our time.

I wasn’t interested in doing a biopic on Anna; I was interested in her position in her company. I wanted to take on the burdens she had to carry, along with having to look nice every day. Absolute power corrupts absolutely…. I liked that there wasn’t any backing away from the horrible parts of her, and the real scary parts of her had to do with the fact that she didn’t try to ingratiate, which is always the female emollient in any situation where you want your way – what my friend Carrie Fisher used to call “the squeezy and tilty” of it all. [Miranda] didn’t do any of that. (Meryl Streep, Entertainment Weekly)

If looks could kill, then for 15 years The Devil Wears Prada has been a serial threat. Director David Frankel’s adaptation of Lauren Weisberger’s Faustian yarn – inspired by the author’s time working under Vogue editor in chief Anna Wintour – emerged as a modern classic through its mélange of impossibly chic clothes, scorching dialogue, and pointed portrayal of women in power. In time, the movie has become a beacon for gender parity, too, with its ice-queen Runway editor Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep) occupying a delectably unapologetic position of power in a male-dominated world and, as a Hollywood antihero, a rare kind of leading lady. The film struck a chord with its feminist-tinged, broadly appealing story, and has endured largely thanks to the spectacular chemistry among Streep, Anne Hathaway (who plays Miranda’s assistant-turned protegée Andy Sachs), and scene-stealers Emily Blunt, Stanley Tucci, and Adrian Grenier. For the first time since the film’s release in June 2006, EW has gathered those stars (and more) for a fierce reunion as they dig their heels into Devil’s legacy. You can watch the full 30 minutes reunion exclusively on Entertainment Weekly’s website.

Whenever I plan to post “a couple of old pictures” and go through my files to see if there’s something else, I come up with a couple dozen of pictures that have never made it to the archives before. I have no idea where they were all hiding, but I’m glad to share those new additions with you. Updates go back as early as 1980 with appearances at the Academy Awards Luncheon for “Kramer vs. Kramer” and the Obie Awards, a bunch of press conferences throughout the 1980s for “Silkwood” and “A Cry in the Dark” and some lesser-publicised appearances in the late 1990s, including the Telluride and Toronto Film festivals. For a complete list of updates, have a look at the previews below. Enjoy the pictures and have a nice weekend everybody.

Update: Meryl Streep and Kevin Kline will perform “Dear Elizabeth” at the Spotlight on Plays virtual benefit series from June 17 to June 21, 2021. Based on the compiled letters between poets Robert Lowell and Elizabeth Bishop, Dear Elizabeth maps the relationship of the two poets from first meeting to an abbreviated affair – and the turmoil of their lives in between. Directed by Kate Whoriskey. Here’s the original press release from March: According to Deadline, Meryl Streep, Mary-Louise Parker and Carla Gugino have joined the line-up of actors taking part in this year’s virtual Spotlight on Plays series benefitting The Actors Fund, with Streep reuniting with her Sophie’s Choice co-star Kevin Kline on Sarah Ruhl’s Dear Elizabeth. Parker is set to perform in Paula Vogel’s The Baltimore Waltz. Gugino will be teamed with the previously announced Ellen Burstyn in Lillian Hellman’s Watch on the Rhine. Others previously announced, in addition to Kline and Burstyn, are Kathryn Hahn, Keanu Reeves, Debbie Allen, Bobby Cannavale, Audra McDonald, Phylicia Rashad, Heidi Schreck, Alia Shawkat, Heather Alicia Simms and Alicia Stith. The Spotlight on Plays series, launched last year on the Broadway’s Best Shows website, features actors performing the works remotely, with the readings pre-recorded and edited. The series, which begins Thursday, benefits The Actors Fund. The series begins Thursday, March 25, with Larissa FastHorse’s The Thanksgiving Play at 8pm ET/5pm PT, and continues wit Pearl Cleage’s Angry, Raucous and Shamelessly Gorgeous on Thursday, April 8 at 8pm ET/5pm PT. Additional casting and dates will be announced soon. The Spotlight on Plays events are livestreamed on Stellar and available for a strictly limited amount of time. Season subscriptions and individual ticket information is available on the Broadway’s Best Shows website. Many thanks to Glenn and Alvaro for the heads-up.