Jobeth Williams: her stardom was brief

Two huge films back to back: Poltergeist and The Big Chill then flops and nothing of note.

She turned down The Natural for some reason. Got G an Oscar nom.

(She's pretty great in Poltergeist. Really dynamic performance considering how much experience she had at the time--not much.)

She was really quite beautiful too. I watched Poltergeist the other day and was struck that I never noticed how pretty she is. (since she's mostly in frumpy mom mode or covered in glop.)

She had a part in Kramer vs. Kramer as Dustin Hoffman's one night stand. His kid catches her nude in the hallway.

I enjoyed American Dreamer.

For some odd reason we owned American Dreamer (we weren't a "movie" family and the movies that ended up in our collection were strange and made no sense) as a kid. Man, I loved that movie. Which made me love JoBeth.

Meryl auditioned for that part first r3. I'm sort of surprised by that. You'd think she wouldn't want to be nude at that point in her career. Then when Kate Jackson couldn't do Kramer Meryl got the bigger part with Dustin pushing her for it. (Although he got her the role he would terrorize her while making it. He'd whisper John Cazale, who had just died to her when she had emotional scenes. She was not happy.)

She wasn't just pretty great in Poltergeist; she was outstanding and deserved an Oscar nomination. And, yes, she deserved to be nominated along with M for Sophie's Choice.

I think American Dreamer flopping hurt her career although she was perfectly fine in it.

She's also really good in Desert Bloom (so underrated).

Yes. She should have been nominated over either Julie Andrews, Debra Winger or Sissy Spacek.

Did she get any push from the studio? (ads and stuff?)

She is so great in "Poltergeist." The scene where she shows Craig T. Nelson that the supernatural forces can make Carol Ann scoot across the kitchen floor (and she doesn't realize yet how dangerous they are), is just superb because she makes it so real.

And the scene that has rightly been much celebrated in the past on DL is when they're searching for Carol Ann after the tornado and she suddenly realizes (while looking under the beds) that Carol Ann might have ended up in the unfinished swimming pool. Even thought he audience at this point knows full well Carol Ann is NOT in the swimming pool, Williams's mounting terror that her tiny daughter may have drowned makes you scared, even though rationally you know she's been spirited away by the ghosts hidden in the closet.

[quote]he supernatural forces can make Carol Ann scoot across the kitchen floor (and she doesn't realize yet how dangerous they are), is just superb because she makes it so real.

I like the line there where she tells him to reach back into his past when he still had an open mind.

Her reaction (with help from the music) to Tangina telling her that it is the beast is chilling.

I don't know if JoBeth got support or push from the studio for an Oscar nom for Poltergeist. I assume that because of the film's horror elements, it seemed like an uphill battle, especially since getting nominated for a horror film is still difficult to this day (Silence of the Lambs being one of the main exceptions).

Two things I hate about Poltergeist and wished they'd fixed.

She tells Steven to not drop the rope. Then he panics and does when that head comes out. (it is an odd moment all around because you sort of get the feeling that Tangina has turned on them and with her cross over children stuff.) I just hate that he drops the rope when he has told her NEVER! minutes before.

The pot scene is also so odd. They are supposed to be a typical middle class family. A conservative one too. He's reading a bio of Ronald Reagan in that scene. They didn't seem like the type to be buying an ileagal drug back then.

(and of course there's the odd thing that the make the mother 32 and the eldest daughter 16. That seemed odd too. Dunne would have been believable as 15 and Williams could have been 35 or so. )

I think the thinking was that Tope Hopper was inserting those little odd things to mess with Spielberg's wholesome family desires.

The Freelings were hippies turned Reagan conservatives.

R15, Spielberg was a big pot head at the time .

There was humor in the paradoxical scene lol

I loved American Dreamer.

She was quite good in Teachers, a movie that is never shown anymore.

Odd fact: Murphy Brown was developed for JoBeth. But she ended up turning it down -- she didn't want to do TV, she was a star! (Just like Thomas Jane turned down Madmen -- he's was too big for tv.)

JoBeth picked bad projects. Although you never know whether it's the star or her staff who makes the bad choices.

R21, she probably had little to choose from. This was the period of the farm epics and if she was competing at all, it would’ve been with Lange, Spacek, Field, Winger, Streep, Keaton plus an entire 2nd string of Close, Basinger, etc. and an entire field of younger actresses like Diane Lane. Williams played a mom in Poltergeist - where was she supposed to go from there as a leading lady?

I love her performance in The Big Chill. Looks a lot like Natalie Wood.

WHET to Christine Lahti, who reminded me of JoBeth?

R15 The freaky Freelings pot scene reminds me of almost every one of my friends parents, including mine, (albeit, single mother) and through to this day they're almost all still potheads. But they'd have to have been the couple to have had their eldest daughter wandering around at Woodstock.

Her role in TBC also had that demographic of hippie-turn-yuppies that never fully left the party. Hell, the ones still alive are all back at the party thanks to their local dispensaries.

She has had a great deal of career longevity, the camera loved her, she was beautiful and a great , believable presence on camera. Her filmography is quite lengthy and varied. She has worked steadily through the mid/late 2010s. Although only a few were really memorable characters, too many forgettable performances, although I haven't seen all of her projects. (She seems to have gone behind the camera too with some critical success).

I always liked Jobeth, but the last thing I saw her in (Dexter, as Rita's mom) she came across as a grating harridan, which I guess was the point, but it was unpalatable.

Her biggest career mistake, IMO? Was showing her unfortunate, little ugly titties in "Teachers" (1983?), with Nick Nolte, complete with the theme song from 38 Special. Egads.

'Teachers' was uneven but I do remember liking it, though I don't feel the need to see it again. Overall I wonder if she had/has the career she wants. Lots of character arcs on relevant-for-the-time TV shows, not having to commit to big movies, go on location, etc. She's a working actress. Maybe she just likes to go home at the end of a workday, put her feet up and fire up a doobie. Jobeth can go to Whole Foods and not be mobbed. A lot of aspiring or would have been actresses would love to have her level of fame.

Part of the point of "Poltergeist"--and what makes it so great--is that in the end it's really a critique of what shitty parents the Freelings are. The older daughter is running around having affairs with married men in motels off the freeway, and the parents don't even realize it because they're so self-absorbed. It's basically an indictment of Boomers as parents. They let Carol Ann watch TV at all hours, and they seem oblivious to Robbie's fears other than that he has them. When Tangina asks them which of them punishes the kids, they're horrified--they would never be so vulgar and old-fashioned.

All they can give the kids is the big house and lots of things that clutter it up, and so of course the house and the things turn on them and try to take the children away from them.

There's a Blake Edwards film from the late 80s which is absolutely awful except for one scene where Williams, as a burned-out aging wealthy woman, walks into a building wearing a huge fur coat and is stopped by a PETA protestor who says, "Pardon me, ma'am, but do you know how many animals had to die to make that coat?" and without even stopping her stride or looking at the protestor, she sneers back, "Do you know how many animals I had to fuck to get it?"

It's the only funny thing in the whole movie because she delivers the line so expertly. Does anyone remember which film this is?

Never mind, I just looked it up: it's :Switch."

What a stupid movie, although it's the only movie that ever took advantage of how sexy Jimmy Smits was in his heyday. I wish he had had a bigger career than he did--he was so gorgeous once.

Very insightful post r28. I always noticed how cluttered the house was but never made that connection.

I will add that having a shitty name like Jobeth harmed Jobeth’s career. Louis B Mayer would have never allowed it.

She could have had Ellen Barkin's career.

Interesting, R21. She starred in the pilot for a series called Gloria Vane that wasn't picked up. The pilot is from 1993, five years after Murphy Brown started. I like the pilot. The supporting cast is excellent.

She was very beautiful and had “it”.

She was also in The Day After which was huge.

She spent time on Guiding Light and did K vs K while on the soap. My mom loved her on Guiding Light and swears she knew she’d be a star. She played a whore nurse.

The last thing I saw her on was an episode of Frasier.

I liked her in Interiors.

The Freelings are also very young parents. In their early thirties with a teenage daughter, two young children, and a new home in the LA suburbs. Stephen is a real estate agent and Diane a stay at home mom. They're living the Boomer dream.

I always felt Diane Freeling was still liberal while her husband(shocker) turned conservative.

Her performance made Poltergeist. She had several crucial scenes, all very different. I agree about the scene in the kitchen-you smiled along with her performance.

I also liked the scene where she said she could smell Carole Ann.

Craig T. Nelson made me feel all funny down there when I saw the first Poltergeist movie as a young teen.

Amazing to read so much extravagant praise for a perfectly accomplished actress of modest range. The last thing I watched with her in it was the SYBIL remake in which she was *unbelievably* miscast as the evil mom in the flashback scenes. It made me realize that I hadn't missed her.

At the end of Poltergeist, I never understood why she puts that hideous grey streak through her hair.

She got typecast as the grieving mom. She played the mother of murder victim Adam Walsh in the TV movie Adam.

R48 YES! I forgot. She was great in that.

That was fun, r34. Wish it had been picked up.

Jo Beth and Dominique Dunne became friends on set .

She's also very good in Baby M a tv miniseries about surrogate mothers.

Oh she was also in Adam a very acclaimed TV movie right around the time of The Big Chill. Forgot about that one. Emmy nominations for both.

r47 she got the gray hair from her walk near Satan to get Carol Ann. In the end she is going to dye it when the house strikes again.

That's another odd thing. They are all moved out but leave the beds and they are going to sleep at the Holiday Inn (prompting Dunne's I remember that place.

So why didn't the movers take the beds and why are the kids being put to sleep if they are going to go to a hotel. Sloppy plight device to have another closet scene.

Dominique was not happy with the hickie on her neck for “ what’s happening “ scene . She told jo Beth it’s tacky and jo said no one will notice with all the excitement around .

Her theater credits from imdb

Bonnie Franklin and Merideth Baxter!!!!! We have a DL bingo!!!!

(2005) She acted in John Pielmeier's play, "Agnes of God," in a Classic Contemporary American Play production at the Boston Court Performing Complex in Los Angeles, California with Meredith Baxter and Eden Riegel in the cast. Jenny Sullivan was the director. (2001 - 2002) She acted Tennessee Williams' play, "Summer and Smoke," in the first inaugural Bonnie Franklin's Classic Contemporary American Play production at the Ford Theatre in Los Angeles, California with Bruce French, K Callan, Philip Casnoff, Dakin Matthews, Misty Cotton, Zilah Mendoza, Winston Rocha, Jennifer Williams, Charlie Dell, Marsha Kramer, and Michael Weston in the cast. Steve Albrezzi was director.

I could never figure out why the mother in POLTERGEIST was only 32 and the eldest daughter 16. When I rewatched it, I looked for clues that Dominique Dunne's character was Diane's stepdaughter, but didn't find any.

As a child of the early 80s, this couple rang true. They would exhibit remnants of late '60s/ early '70's behavior while growing increasingly conservative. It's pretty much the Boomer trajectory and the movie nailed it.

In fact, Craig T. Nelson has apparently morphed into a crazed Trumper.

I remember reviews pointed out and complained about the inconsistencies. Critics felt that all the stuff we've mentioned (the age, the pot, the daughter's trampiness) were inconsistent with the theme of the movie where they are these standard suburbanites who live in a development where every house looks the same. It was just an odd distraction from the main plot.

Margaret JoBeth Williams (born December 6, 1948) ; 72.

How are those things inconsistent with the movie? Life is not a perfect bow. I felt those things gave it authenticity. Parents l like those did smoke pot and the daughter was your typical 16 year old. It was obvious Diane got knocked up in high school when abortion wasn’t legal, had her, and married the father. Again, very typical of the time.

She's actually my cousin's cousin. We sent Christmas cards to her grandmother when I was a kid.

R54 It's not just the beds. The kids room is still filled with toys including that clown doll. Why were they not packed with the rest of the stuff ?

For some reason it seems Poltergeist holds up better than E.T.; theyre kind of companion pieces. And I feel like Jobeth Williams’ mom character is more memorable than Dee Wallace’s, although E.T. was the clear giant of that time.

I also love that Poltergeist and E.T. are each kind of a snapshot of early 80s Southern California suburban life. I was a kid there at that same time, and the underlying theme of building, development and brand new neighborhoods everywhere is what i remember about that time as well.

I feel like Dee Wallace's mom was in support of the children's character, particularly Henry Thomas (and the alien), whereas, the parents in Poltergeist are front and center to the narrative. Wallace's performance is sweet, but not particularly memorable nor was it supposed to be. Williams on the other hand gave an outstanding performance, one of the best of that year by an actress easily. She also had a lot more screen time and material to work with than Wallace did, too.

The eldest daughter was there to imply that the Freelings had been sixties hippies, had a child while teenagers, then grew up and sold out to the man.

God, does everything have to be explained to you.

[quote]For some reason it seems Poltergeist holds up better than E.T.; theyre kind of companion pieces

This is an interesting comment that I agree with, but I think it is not so much that it holds up better, but that as we age we become more attuned to the sociological commentary of Poltergeist which, as this thread proves, is extremely rich and textured; meanwhile, ET is very much a child's adventure film which offers less satisfying dividends to adults.

Dominique Dunne was beautiful

So hostile r67. Why so smug?

Diane would have had the baby in 1966. Wasn't the real summer of love stuff later?

(and there is nothing else to imply that they were once sixties radicals. No posters, records. etc.)

If they wanted to show them as 60s radicals why not have Diane hum a sixties song at the beginning instead of the product placement of the Miller's Beer theme song.

In Poltergeist 2 we find out the Freelings song was If I Fell by The Beatles.

ET was a child's dream, r65, and Poltergeist a child's nightmare.

God, I love JoBeth. She deserved an Oscar for the moment at 2:35 in the scene below. Her laugh/euphoria/mourning crying is just … ::chef’s kiss::

“She went through my SOUL!”

She deserved an Oscar nom at the least.

POLTERGEIST is a great movie, and JoBeth is a huge part of that. She was just fantastic.

This thread makes me want to watch AMERICAN DREAMER again. I probably haven’t seen it since high school. I need to see if it’s streaming anywhere.

Beatrice Straight's only major role after Network and an Oscar

Jimmy Smits (Switch) was still kind of hot in one season of Dexter,.

R77, I'm appalled. "Beatrice Straight's only major role after Network and an Oscar"? How dare you forget TWO OF A KIND?!?!?!?

Supposedly Shirley MacLaine was supposed to do Poltergeist?

I always thought they meant in the Beatrice Straight role but sites say it was the mother.

She turned it down because she was afraid it would portray the occult in a negative way.

Really? Shirley was supposed to play the mother of two young children?

I've heard MacLaine mention it that she was sought after for the role. It would have been a stretch for her to pull off being the mother of a 4 year old. (maybe she was offered it a few years before it actually got made.)

that stupid notstarring website says Streisand and Lily Tomlin turned it down too. Doubtful Susan Sarandon also. (that one I might believe.)

It doesn't seem like they were looking for stars though. Craig T. Nelson wasn't known. Neither was Dee Wallace in ET and I'm sure the casting of those two films since they came out at the same time both from Spielberg had a lot of women going back and forth auditioning for both.

I did read Lucie Arnaz was offered it in that recent Sue Mengers bio. Mengers told her she'd have to do all that stuff in the mud and instead insisted she do some romcom that was barely ever released. (and this went the little bit of movie career traction Arnaz had built up with The Jazz Singer.)

E.T. started out as a horror film. It morphed into a child’s film later. You can see the horror elements at the beginning.

I can’t agree with R45 at all. Jobeth gives a brilliant performance in Poltergeist. She’s an iconic eighties Spielberg mother. It’s unforgettable. She and Tangina hold that movie together. She believes every single second of it. “She went through my SOULLL.”

I get chills just thinking about it. I also lived in the Valley in the early eighties where some of E.T. was shot, and then moved to Agoura where the opening of Poltergeist was shot so both are powerful touchstones for me.

It's interesting though how a 32 year old woman was portrayed. (I think Jobeth was actually 34.)

She was a woman. Today's 30something actresses (Jennifer Lawrence, Portman, Scarlet) all seem like aging teenagers.

Kathleen Turner was 25 when she did Body Heat. Nowadays 25 is like 15.

32 year old women in the 80s were more likely to be wives and mothers.

I'm not saying that r86. I just mean that actresses playing that age range looked like adult woman. Somewhere along the way teen types became the norm. It's sort of perverted and Harveyish.

Can you imagine Portman, Lawrence or Scarlet having the depth to be a mother of three kids, running a house and literally walking thru hell to get their child back?

I guess there are some who seem adult. Nicole Kidman and Catherine Zeta-Jones (age jokes aside) always seemed like adult women even in their twenties.

Back then it was normal to accept once you graduated you started to dress and act like you were already 80. That’s hyperbolic but barely. Now, aging is not accepted and it is not necessarily bad. My grandma has looked 80 in dress and hairstyle for 50 years.

R45 is right. No one is all that great in "Big Chill" other than William Hurt who basically played himself. Without the sound track, it would have seemed like a tv movie with its cartoon-ish characters and flat direction.

R84 that article is interesting. It basically explained that Spielberg had developed one script which was eventually bifurcated into two movies, ET and Poltergeist. I never realized those two movies originated from one source document

There is an ongoing debate as to who directed Poltergeist: Tobe Hooper (credited) or Spielberg? Obviously, Spielberg had more influence because he was the co-producer and co-writer.

I think they were being filmed at the same time; it might have been difficult to direct two films at once, though Spielberg’s influence over Poltergeist is clearly there.

This picture makes me very wistful for my childhood.

Drew Barrymore said she initially auditioned for Poltergeist but was cast in E.T., she seemed a bit too goofy to play Carol Ann, but Spielberg was obviously casting both at about the same time. I've also never been able to get over how much the son in the first movie looked like Olympic gymnast Kerri Strug.

JoBeth would have been good in the Kathleen Turner role in Kasdan’s “The Accidental Tourist” opposite Hurt. Did he ever cast her again?

I don't think so r95.

Kasdan wasn't especially loyal to his actors. On her youtube show Meg Tilly talked about how she was pretty much told she would get the Geena Davis part in The Accidental Tourist and then suddenly he cast Davis.

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