Five miles, with the last mile all up hill, with a 12 pound child seat and a 39 pound child. But Thomas and I went for our first bike ride together yesterday. There will be pictures later.
For the moment, I’m interrupting my top 100 novels to break in with another film list, continuing the acting lists with the Top 10 Performances by an Actress in a Leading Role. The fascinating thing about this, is that even though it is “common knowledge” that women don’t get good roles as they age and men do, the average age on this list is a good five years older than the forthcoming Best Actor list. While the Actors have three on the list who are 30 or younger and only one over the age of 48, the Actress list has three who are over 50 and the youngest is 32. Anyway, here’s the list, once again in chronological order.
1950 – Gloria Swanson (Sunset Boulevard)
“I am big. It’s the pictures that got small.”
1950 – Bette Davis (All About Eve)
“Fasten your seatbelts. It’s going to be a bumpy night.”
1951 – Vivien Leigh (A Streetcar Named Desire)
“I wanna kiss you softly and sweetly on the mouth.”
1961 – Audrey Hepburn (Breakfast at Tiffany’s)
“Cross my heart and kiss my elbow.”
1966 – Elizabeth Taylor (Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf)
“I swear to God, George, if you even existed, I’d divorce you.”
1968 – Katharine Hepburn (The Lion in Winter)
“I even made poor Louis take me on Crusade. How’s that for blasphemy. I dressed my maids as Amazons and rode bare-breasted halfway to Damascus. Louis had a seizure and I damn near died of windburn… but the troops were dazzled.”
1972 – Liv Ullmann (Cries and Whispers)
“You’ve changed. Is there someone else?”
1982 – Meryl Streep (Sophie’s Choice)
Sophie: Stingo, you look… you look very nice, you’re wearing your cocksucker.
Stingo: That’s my “seersucker.”
1996 – Frances McDormand (Fargo)
“And that must have been your partner back there in the wood chipper.”
2006 – Helen Mirren (The Queen)
“That’s the way we do things in this country, quietly, with dignity.”
The Academy did a pretty good job with this list. Leigh, Hepburn, Taylor, Steep, McDormand and Mirren all won the Oscar, and the others, except Ullmann were nominated. With the long weekend ahead, I’ll probably put up Best Actor and 50-26 of the 100 Best Novels list.
News from the San Diego Becks 
31 May, 2015 at 12:17 am
Great List really! All those(except 1) are magnificent achievements by the respective actresses. But i can’t possibly agree with Audrey Hepburn. She had charisma, she had style, she had that magnificent screen presence( as evident in Breakfast) but she was never a great actress. She obviously was a limited actress. And her performance in breakfast while enjoyable, doesn’t lend itself to be called one of tthe greatest of all time.