Match the Best Supporting Actress - 1980s Quiz

Answer: Mary Steenburgen

With her first Academy Award nomination, Mary Steenburgen won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her role as quirky Lynda Dummar in "Melvin and Howard". The film was based on the true story of perennial loser Melvin Dummar (Paul Le Mat) who alleged that he was bequeathed over $100 million from Howard Hughes' will after he rescued Hughes from the Nevada desert.

The film only covered the period from the rescue of Hughes (Jason Robards) to the initial court proceedings over the will and focused more on Dummar's lower-class life. Lynda was Dummar's dance-happy first wife who left him over his irresponsible financial behavior.

The other nominees in the category were Eileen Brennan ("Private Benjamin"), Cathy Moriarty ("Raging Bull"), Diana Scarwid ("Inside Moves"), and Eva Le Gallienne ("Resurrection"), who was the last Academy Award acting nominee to have been born in the 1800s, having been born in 1899.

Answer: Maureen Stapleton

Maureen Stapleton won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her portrayal of disillusioned revolutionary Emma Goldman in "Reds". She had three previous nominations, all in the same category, for "Lonelyhearts" in 1959, "Airport" in 1971, and "Interiors" in 1979. "Reds" was Warren Beatty's historical drama about American radical journalist John Reed (Beatty) who covered the Russian Revolution. Anarchist Goldman was one of his early influences but by the time he encountered her in Russia, to where she had been deported from the U.S., she had lost her enthusiasm for the Russian revolution because of the oppression she saw from the Bolsheviks.

The other contenders for the award were Melinda Dillon ("Absence of Malice"), Jane Fonda ("On Golden Pond"), Joan Hackett ("Only When I Laugh"), and Elizabeth McGovern ("Ragtime").

Answer: Jessica Lange

At the fifty-fifth Academy Awards ceremony, Jessica Lange was nominated in both the Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress categories, and she picked up the Oscar in the latter category for her role as daytime drama star Julie Nichols in "Tootsie". She was nominated in the Best Actress category for "Frances" but lost to Meryl Streep for "Sophie's Choice". "Tootsie" starred Dustin Hoffman as blackballed actor Michael Dorsey who resorted to cross-dressing as Dorothy Michaels to get a role on a daytime drama. Complications arose when he fell in love with Nichols and when her father (Charles Durning) fell in love with Dorothy.

The other nominees for the Best Supporting Actress Oscar were Glenn Close ("The World According to Garp"), Teri Garr ("Tootsie"), Kim Stanley ("Frances"), and Lesley Ann Warren ("Victor/Victoria").

Answer: Linda Hunt

With her first Academy Award nomination, Linda Hunt won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Billy Kwan in "The Year of Living Dangerously". She was the first performer to win an Oscar for portraying a character of the opposite sex as Billy Kwan was a man.

The character in the novel was a Chinese-American little person, and although a man was originally cast in the role, director Peter Weir recast the role for better chemistry with lead actor Mel Gibson. The diminutive Hunt was convincing in the role, with film critic Roger Ebert stating that she "enters the role so fully that it never occurs to us that she is not a man". "The Year of Living Dangerously" followed a novice journalist Guy Hamilton (Gibson) who was desperate to get a big story during a potential communist takeover of Jakarta in the early 1960s. Kwan became his friend and helped him meet the right contacts but became disillusioned with Hamilton's obsession for a story at all costs.

The other contenders for the award were Cher ("Silkwood"), Glenn Close ("The Big Chill"), Amy Irving ("Yentl"), and Alfre Woodard ("Cross Creek").

Answer: Peggy Ashcroft

With her sole Academy Award nomination, Peggy Ashcroft picked up the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her role as the kind and liberal-minded Mrs. Moore in "A Passage to India". At seventy-seven years of age, she was the oldest actress to win the Best Supporting Actress Oscar to that date. Mainly a stage actress, Ashcroft wasn't keen on doing the film because of her age: "I thought, 'Oh dear, I really don't want to do it', but it's very difficult to turn down a [David] Lean film." In the film, which was set in 1920s India, Mrs. Moore was the mother of a British civil servant (Nigel Havers) in Chandrapore, and she traveled to India along with her son's intended fiancée Adela (Judy Davis) to see him.

The women's socially progressive views were at odds with the local British community, which came to a head when Adela was assaulted while visiting nearby caves with an Indian doctor and a guide.

The other nominees in the category were Glenn Close ("The Natural"), Lindsay Crouse ("Places in the Heart"), Christine Lahti ("Swing Shift"), and Geraldine Page ("The Pope of Greenwich Village").

Answer: Anjelica Huston

Another winner on her first nomination, Anjelica Huston won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Maerose Prizzi in "Prizzi's Honor", a film directed by her father, John Huston. She became the first third generation Oscar winner; grandfather Walter Huston had an acting Oscar for "The Treasure of Sierra Madre" and father John had two Oscars for that same film for directing and writing.

In "Prizzi's Honor", Maerose was the disgraced granddaughter of mob boss Corrado Prizzi (William Hickey).

She had run off with a man the family didn't approve of and now was trying to get back in their good graces by proving that the wife (Kathleen Turner) of her ex-boyfriend Charley (Jack Nicholson), who happened to be one of the family's hit men, was involved in robbing one of their casinos. Ultimately both Charley and his wife became liabilities, and each received contract hits on the other ordered by different members of the family.

The other Best Supporting Actress contenders were Margaret Avery ("The Color Purple"), Amy Madigan ("Twice in a Lifetime"), Meg Tilly ("Agnes of God"), and Oprah Winfrey ("The Color Purple").

Answer: Dianne Wiest

Dianne Wiest also picked up the Best Supporting Actress Oscar on her first nomination for her role as self-absorbed but insecure Holly in "Hannah and Her Sisters". In the Woody Allen film, Holly was the flighty sister of Hannah (Mia Farrow) who was intimidated by Hannah's seemingly perfect life.

After abandoning several career choices, she decided to become a writer, but her subject choice of Hannah and her husband Elliott (Michael Caine) exposed Elliott's infidelity with their other sister Lee (Barbara Hershey).

The other nominees in the category were Tess Harper ("Crimes of the Heart"), Piper Laurie ("Children of a Lesser God"), Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio ("The Color of Money"), and Maggie Smith ("A Room with a View").

Answer: Olympia Dukakis

At the sixtieth Academy Award ceremony, Olympia Dukakis, the cousin of former presidential candidate Michael Dukakis, won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role as stoic Rose Castorini in "Moonstruck". It was her first Academy Award nomination. "Moonstruck" was set in an Italian neighborhood in New York where Rose had to deal with her philandering plumber husband (Vincent Gardenia) and her newly-engaged daughter (Cher) who was having a dalliance with her fiance's brother (Nicolas Cage). The other Best Supporting Actress contenders were Norma Aleandro ("Gaby: A True Story"), Anne Archer ("Fatal Attraction"), Anne Ramsey ("Throw Momma from the Train"), and Ann Sothern ("The Whales of August").

Answer: Geena Davis

Another winner with her first nomination, Geena Davis picked up the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her role as quirky dog trainer Muriel Pritchett in "The Accidental Tourist". When his marriage broke down, strait-laced travel guide writer Macon Leary (William Hurt) gradually embarked on a relationship with the kooky Pritchett, but when his wife (Kathleen Turner) returned to give their marriage another try, he had to chose between the two.

The other nominees in the category were Joan Cusack ("Working Girl"), Frances McDormand ("Mississippi Burning"), Michelle Pfeiffer ("Dangerous Liaisons"), Sigourney Weaver ("Working Girl").

Answer: Brenda Fricker

And yet another winner with her first nomination, Brenda Fricker won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her portrayal of devoted mother Bridget Fagan Brown in "My Left Foot". Based on a true story, the film followed the life of Irish artist and author Christy Brown (Daniel Day-Lewis), who had been born with severe cerebral palsy. Unable to walk or talk, he learned to use his left foot, the only part of his body that he could control, to write and paint.

In the film, his mother Bridget was his greatest champion, even from the early days when the rest of his large family thought him incapable of learning.

The other contenders for the Oscar were Anjelica Huston ("Enemies, A Love Story"), Lena Olin ("Enemies, A Love Story"), Julia Roberts ("Steel Magnolias"), and Dianne Wiest ("Parenthood").