Hollywood is full of Famous Discovery Stories. The idea that Lana Turner was discovered at the soda counter at Schwab’s Pharmacy, for example, is so pervasive (despite not entirely being true) that it’s even referenced in Fame, though the character who does so is immediately embarrassed about having done it. If Mary Steenburgen were a bigger star, I think we’d hear more often about Jack Nicholson’s having seen her in the Paramount office in New York and casting her. Though perhaps it’s also less exciting than the idea that you could just be out on the street one day and famous the next, because after all she was in the reception area at a major studio’s New York office, and how many of us are ever there?
Still, we are lucky she was there that day and that Jack Nicholson noticed her. Maybe, if it hadn’t been him, it would’ve been her one-time New York neighbour Steve Martin. Either way, she started a career that might not be the flashiest but is one of the most solid in an ephemeral industry. She, like many of the women we’ve discussed here, plays strong, supportive women with a little bit of grit to them, and she plays them well.
For example, while I’m not sure that what you get when you cross her and Joe Mantegna is Amber Tamblyn, but the family dynamic of Joan of Arcadia worked, and it worked in no small part because of her performance. Helen Girardi was perhaps more identifiable a character for the show’s diehard viewers than the network wanted her to be—I was closer to Joan’s age than Helen’s and was still older than the network wanted the audience to be, and a lot of the audience was older than I am—but one of the reasons Joan was able to do what she did was that she knew her mother was there for her.
Really, there are very few times Mary Steenburgen hasn’t played a character you’d want to have there for you. At least in the work of hers that I’ve seen. Maybe she’s not a milk-and-cookies mom, but she’s still willing to sit and listen, and if you need a good butt-kicking, she’s there for that, too. One of the things I liked about Joan of Arcadia was that it gave her character development and interests of her own; the best shows about high school characters are unafraid to develop the parents. You even got to see the physical attraction the parents had for one another.
As for Steenburgen the person, she’s a tireless advocate for the arts—a definite similarity with Helen—and seems to really get along with her kids. At least well enough to have a running in-joke with one of her sons on social media. She has two children from her first marriage, to Malcolm McDowell, one of whom is director Charlie McDowell. At least, I hope the whole running “my mom is Andie MacDowell” thing is something she finds funny, too!
