Her banter with Cher was among the film’s highlights, including a scene in which Dukakis scolded her daughter during a kitchen dissection of her love life. “Your life’s going down the toilet,” Dukakis said in her throaty voice. At another point, she tells Cher it is good she did not love her fiance. “When you love them, they drive you crazy because they know they can.” “Moonstruck,” considered one of Hollywood’s great romantic comedies, won three Academy Awards, including Cher as best actress, and was nominated in three other categories, including best picture. It also was one of the highest-grossing films of 1987. In accepting her Oscar as best supporting actress in April 1988, when her cousin was battling to become the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee, she thanked Jewison, her husband and a few others. She then raised the golden statuette over her head and shouted to the worldwide TV audience, “OK, Michael, let’s go.” Michael Dukakis won the nomination but lost badly in the general election to Republican George H.W. Bush. Olympia Dukakis embraced liberal views like her cousin, advocating for causes including women’s rights, gay rights and the environment. Dukakis was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, on June 20, 1931 and continued to act into her 80s. Referring to becoming a movie star at an age when many actresses have a hard time finding good roles, Dukakis told the Guardian newspaper in 2012, “Who knows how that happened? Chance, fate or a bit of both. But I’m very glad I did ‘Moonstruck.’ It meant that I woke up the next day and was finally able to pay the bills.” Dukakis said she enjoyed her fame after “Moonstruck.” “The fun part is that people pass me on the street and yell lines from my movies,” she told the Los Angeles Times in 1991. “For ‘Moonstruck’ they say, ‘You’re life is going down the toilet.'” Her TV appearances included playing a transgender landlady in the 1993 miniseries “Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City” and its 1998 and 2001 follow-ups. Other films included “Cloudburst” (2011) playing a foul-mouthed lesbian, “Away from Her” (2006) with Julie Christie, “The Event” (2003), “Better Living” (1998) with Roy Scheider, “Never Too Late” (1996) with Cloris Leachman, and “Dad” (1989) with Jack Lemmon and Ted Danson.
