A Woman of Independent Means

Last updated
A Woman of Independent Means
Based onA Woman of Independent Means
by Elizabeth Forsythe Hailey
Screenplay byCindy Myers
Directed by Robert Greenwald
Starring
Composer Laura Karpman
Country of originUnited States
Original languageEnglish
No. of episodes3
Production
Executive producerSally Field
ProducerRobert Greenwald
CinematographySteven Shaw
EditorÉva Gárdos
Running time360 minutes
Production companies
  • Robert Greenwald Productions
  • Fogwood Films
Original release
Network NBC
ReleaseFebruary 19 (1995-02-19) 
February 22, 1995 (1995-02-22)

A Woman of Independent Means is a 1995 American period drama television miniseries directed and produced by Robert Greenwald from a teleplay by Cindy Myers, based on the 1978 book of the same name by Elizabeth Forsythe Hailey. The miniseries stars Sally Field (who also served as an executive producer), with Ron Silver, Tony Goldwyn, Jack Thompson, Sheila McCarthy, Brenda Fricker, and Charles Durning in supporting roles. It follows for some seven decades the story of Bess Alcott, from her Dallas marriage to her fourth-grade sweetheart to the birth of three children to the fussings with grandchildren. [1]

Contents

The miniseries received four Primetime Emmy Award nominations, including Outstanding Miniseries and Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Special for Field, winning one for its costume design. Field was also nominated for a Golden Globe Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award for her performance.

Cast

Episodes

No.TitleDirected byWritten byOriginal release date [2]
1"Part I" Robert Greenwald Cindy MyersFebruary 19, 1995 (1995-02-19)
2"Part II"Robert GreenwaldCindy MyersFebruary 20, 1995 (1995-02-20)
3"Part III"Robert GreenwaldCindy MyersFebruary 22, 1995 (1995-02-22)

Reception

Critical response

A Woman of Independent Means received praise for the performances of the cast, particularly that of Field. Tony Scott of Variety stated that "Greenwald, with the reminiscing Bess as his constant object, directs Field and the large cast with admirable skill". [3] Ken Tucker of Entertainment Weekly gave the miniseries a grade of B, writing that it "has a pleasingly diffuse, almost aimless structure" and "is stubbornly, intriguingly true to its title". [4] Tom Shales of The Washington Post described it as "an absurdly lengthy parade of episodes, some of them admittedly moving, that fails to achieve any kind of meaningful cumulative impact". [5]

Accolades

YearAwardCategoryNominee(s)ResultRef.
1995
Artios Awards Best Casting for TV Mini-SeriesWendy KurtzmanNominated [6]
Primetime Emmy Awards Outstanding Miniseries Sally Field, Robert Greenwald, Philip Kleinbart,
Preston Fischer, and Steve Saeta
Nominated [7]
Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Special Sally FieldNominated
Outstanding Individual Achievement in Casting Wendy KurtzmanNominated
Outstanding Individual Achievement in Costume Design for a Miniseries or a Special Julie Weiss (for "Part I")Won
1996
Golden Globe Awards Best Actress in a Miniseries or Motion Picture Made for Television Sally FieldNominated [8]
Screen Actors Guild Awards Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Miniseries or Television Movie Nominated [9]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sam Waterston</span> American actor (born 1940)

Samuel Atkinson Waterston is an American actor. Waterston is known for his work in theater, television, and film. He has received numerous accolades including a Primetime Emmy Award, Golden Globe Award, and Screen Actors Guild Award as well as nominations for an Academy Award, a Tony Award, and a BAFTA Award. His acting career has spanned over five decades acting on stage and screen. Waterston received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2010 and was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 2012.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sally Field</span> American actress

Sally Margaret Field is an American actress. Known for her extensive work on screen and stage, she has received many accolades throughout her career spanning five decades, including two Academy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, and three Primetime Emmy Awards, in addition to nominations for a Tony Award and two British Academy Film Awards. She was presented with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2014, the National Medal of Arts in 2014, the Kennedy Center Honor in 2019, and the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award in 2023.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">George Pérez</span> American comic book artist and writer (1954-2022)

George Pérez was an American comic book artist and writer, who worked primarily as a penciller. He came to prominence in the 1970s penciling Fantastic Four and The Avengers for Marvel Comics. In the 1980s he penciled The New Teen Titans, which became one of DC Comics' top-selling series. He penciled DC's landmark limited series Crisis on Infinite Earths, followed by relaunching Wonder Woman as both writer and penciller for the rebooted series. In the meantime, he worked on other comics published by Marvel, DC, and other companies into the 2010s. He was known for his detailed and realistic rendering, and his facility with complex crowd scenes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Laura Linney</span> American actress (born 1964)

Laura Leggett Linney is an American actress. She is the recipient of several awards, including two Golden Globe Awards and four Primetime Emmy Awards, and has been nominated for three Academy Awards and five Tony Awards.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Patricia Clarkson</span> American actress

Patricia Davies Clarkson is an American actress. She has starred in numerous leading and supporting roles in a variety of films ranging from independent film features to major film studio productions. Her accolades include a Golden Globe Award and three Primetime Emmy Awards, in addition to nominations for an Academy Award and a Tony Award.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Janet McTeer</span> English actress (born 1961)

Janet McTeer is an English actress. She began her career training at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art before earning acclaim for playing diverse roles on stage and screen in both period pieces and modern dramas. She has received numerous accolades including a Tony Award, a Olivier Award, a Golden Globe Award and nominations for two Academy Award and Primetime Emmy Award. In 2008 she was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for her services to drama.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lauren Ambrose</span> American actress (born 1978)

Lauren Ambrose is an American actress.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tony Goldwyn</span> American actor and director (born 1960)

Anthony Howard Goldwyn is an American actor, singer, producer, director, and political activist. He made his debut appearing as Darren in the slasher film Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives (1986), and had his breakthrough for starring as Carl Bruner in the fantasy thriller film Ghost (1990), which earned him a nomination for the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor. He went on to star as Harold Nixon in the biographical film Nixon (1995), which earned him a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination, and as Neil Armstrong in the HBO miniseries From the Earth to the Moon (1998).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Greenwald</span> American filmmaker

Robert Greenwald is an American filmmaker, and the founder of Brave New Films, a nonprofit film and advocacy organization whose work is distributed for free in concert with nonprofit partners and movements in order to educate and mobilize for progressive causes. With Brave New Films, Greenwald has made investigative documentaries such as Uncovered: The War on Iraq (2004), Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism (2004), Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price (2005), Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers (2006), Rethink Afghanistan (2009), Koch Brothers Exposed (2012), and War on Whistleblowers (2013), Suppressed 2020: The Fight to Vote (2020), Suppressed and Sabotaged: The Fight to Vote (2022), Beyond Bars: A Son's Fight for Justice (2022) as well as many short investigative films and internet videos.

Geraldine James OBE is an English actress.

Anna Maria Manahan was an Irish stage, film and television actress.

<i>Porgy and Bess</i> (film) 1959 American musical film

Porgy and Bess is a 1959 American musical drama film directed by Otto Preminger, and starring Sidney Poitier and Dorothy Dandridge in the titular roles. It is based on the 1935 opera Porgy and Bess by George Gershwin, DuBose Heyward and Ira Gershwin, in turn based on Heyward's 1925 novel Porgy, as well as Heyward's subsequent 1927 non-musical stage adaptation, co-written with his wife Dorothy. The film's screenplay, which turned the operatic recitatives into spoken dialogue, was very closely based on the opera and was written by N. Richard Nash. In 2011, the film was chosen for inclusion in the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tony Daniel</span> American comic book writer and artist

Tony S. Daniel is an American comic book writer and artist, known for his work on various books for DC Comics, including Teen Titans, Flash: The Fastest Man Alive, and Batman and Deathstroke and Nocterra as well as many other books as well as many covers for both Marvel and DC Comics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mare Winningham</span> American actress and singer-songwriter (born 1959)

Mary Megan Winningham, known professionally as Mare Winningham, is an American actress and singer-songwriter. She is the recipient of two Primetime Emmy Awards and has been nominated for an Academy Award, two Golden Globe Awards and two Tony Awards.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Danny Huston</span> American actor, director and screenwriter

Daniel Sallis Huston is an American actor, director and screenwriter. A member of the Huston family of filmmakers, he is the son of director John Huston and half-brother of actress Anjelica Huston.

<i>Truman</i> (1995 film) 1995 film

Truman is a 1995 American biographical drama television film directed by Frank Pierson and written by Thomas Rickman, based on David McCullough's Pulitzer Prize-winning 1992 book, Truman. Starring Gary Sinise as Harry S. Truman, the film centers on Truman's humble beginnings, his rise to the presidency, World War II, and his decision to use the first atomic bomb. The film's tagline is "It took a farmer's hand to shape a nation." The film aired on HBO on September 9, 1995.

The Miss Pennsylvania USA competition is the pageant that selects the representative for the state of Pennsylvania in the Miss USA pageant. It has been previously known as Miss Pennsylvania Universe. This pageant is independently conducted and produced by Proctor Productions based in Cincinnati, Ohio. It was produced by Sanders & Associates, Inc., dba- Pageant Associates based in Buckhannon, West Virginia from 2001 to 2020. Since 2020 the pageant based in Cincinnati, Ohio.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Miniseries or Television Movie</span>

The Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Television Movie or Limited Series is an award given by the Screen Actors Guild to honor the finest acting achievements in Miniseries or Television Movie.

Hope Clarke is an American actress, dancer, vocalist, choreographer, and director. Clarke performed as principal dancer with the Katherine Dunham Company and the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, 1960s; actress on stage, film, and television, 1970s–1980s; choreographer and director, 1980s--. Clarke served on the Tony Awards Nominating Committee for the 2011–12 Broadway season. Clarke made history in 1995 when she became the first African American, as well as the first African-American woman, to direct and choreograph a major staging of the opera-musical Porgy and Bess. Clarke's production of the George Gershwin classic was staged in celebration of the work's 60h anniversary, and it toured not only major American cities but Japan and Europe as well. Clarke drew critical acclaim for her commitment to staging the show as a monument to African-American community and pride, giving a more hopeful, positive aura to a story that has been criticized for its stereotypes. As for the director herself, the success of Porgy and Bess is just the latest accolade in a long career devoted to dance and drama.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eliza Scanlen</span> Australian actress (born 1999)

Eliza Jane Scanlen is an Australian actress. She rose to prominence portraying Tabitha Ford in the Australian soap opera Home and Away (2016), before receiving critical acclaim by playing a troubled teenager in the HBO miniseries Sharp Objects (2018). In 2022, she starred in the Showtime series The First Lady as young Eleanor Roosevelt.

References

  1. "TV WEEKEND; Sally Field in Three Nights and Seven Decades". The New York Times . February 17, 1995. Retrieved March 8, 2023.
  2. Sumner, Jane (February 19, 1995). "ON THE SET WITH THE AUTHOR". Los Angeles Times . Retrieved March 8, 2023.
  3. Scott, Tony (February 15, 1995). "A Woman of Independent Means". Variety . Retrieved March 8, 2023.
  4. Tucker, Ken (February 17, 1995). "A Woman of Independent Means". Entertainment Weekly . Retrieved March 8, 2023.
  5. Shales, Tom (February 19, 1995). "BELLE OF THE BAWL". The Washington Post . Retrieved March 8, 2023.
  6. "1995 Artios Awards". Casting Society of America. October 11, 1995. Retrieved March 8, 2023.
  7. "A Woman of Independent Means". Academy of Television Arts & Sciences . Retrieved March 8, 2023.
  8. "A Woman of Independent Means". Golden Globe Awards . Retrieved March 8, 2023.
  9. "The 2nd Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards". Screen Actors Guild Awards . Retrieved March 8, 2023.