An afternoon with Olympia Dukakis

Rose's shoes on the Wimberly Theatre stage

Olympia Dukakis came to town early to do a little promotion for her engagement in Rose this week at the Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA. She had agreed to do an hour of live television (Wired with Jim Braude and Leslie Gaydos) on NECN, so I met her at Logan and accompanied her to the studio, after we made a quick stop at her hotel. On our way, we covered the usual niceties one covers when picking up an artist: How was the flight? Can you believe this weather? Here are the sales figures so far for your show, etc.

Once we had settled in other subjects flowed. Forced on to the topic of sports by our driver's amiable football playoffs questions, she switched to the Red Sox 2004 championship. "Wasn't it wonderful?" Then, conspiratorially, "I always root for the Boston teams."

She reminisced of playing hockey on the frozen ponds in and around Arlington (she is a graduate of Arlington High School). "Everybody played. This was before they built all the big rinks. We played on the ponds...someone would make a bonfire and..."

"Did you play?"

With mock dismay (and a little smile), "Of course I played."

The NECN interview was both predictable and predictably interesting. She talked about everything - from originating Rose in London to the Armenian Genocide; from her not minding the attention her performances in Moonstruck and Steel Magnolias always receive ("sometimes I'll be walking down the street, a little blue, and someone will shout a line of mine out to me, and it picks me up a little") to how she is a voting member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, yet rarely attends the Oscar telecast. She was a pro and so were her hosts. It wasn't James Lipton, but it was fun and interesting publicity.

After securing a skim milk capuccino from Starbucks, she relaxed a bit. We looked for some music on the radio for our car ride back to Boston; something "not too agitato, please." We found WPLM, out of Plymouth, Mass. Stevie Wonder was singing "Isn't She Lovely" and Ms. Dukakis was pleased.

"You found what I was looking for," she told the driver.

"This station also has a nice all-Sinatra show on Saturday nights" I said.

"SINATRA [almost a shout]!! [pause] Can you believe Sinatra is gone?" At first I thought it was a rhetorical question, but she looked at me for a response. I mumbled something about losing a face from Mount Rushmore. Then I realized she had actually worked with the man - and then played his mother. I tried to think of something relevant to say, but she had moved on. We had just entered the South End and Olympia was looking out the window admiring the houses. "You know, they tore a lot of them down around St. Botolph Street when I lived there. Boston usually takes care of things like [these houses]...so beautiful."