Ask Me Again Tomorrow: A Life in Progress [Hardcover]

Olympia Dukakis (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 8, 2003

From her fame as the Oscar-winning actress who uttered the famous line in Moonstruck, "I know who I am," to her lauded role as Mrs. Madrigal, the landlord of indeterminate gender in Tales of the City, to being the cousin of presidential candidate Michael Dukakis, Olympia Dukakis has captured the imagination of a broad audience. Known for her straightforward talk, her lack of pretension, and her ongoing quest to explore ever more aspects of herself and her art, she is a role model to women of all ages.

Olympia Dukakis's award-winning role in Moonstruck made her a household name, but before that overnight success came twenty-eight years of hard work. For nineteen of those years, she was an integral part of running the Whole Theatre Company in Montclair, New Jersey, while she and her husband raised their three children. She managed to "have it all" -- career, family, home -- before having it all became fashionable (even if she did root for the wrong team at her sons' soccer games -- "We're in the blue shirts, Mom"). She also managed to care for her aging mother, who developed Alzheimer's and moved into the family home, completing Olympia's three-generation family.

In Ask Me Again Tomorrow, this internationally renowned film and stage star reveals her struggle to assimilate as a first-generation Greek-American, her long alienation from her mother and how that finally resolved itself, her battles with addiction and her volatile personal relationships, and the efforts it took for her to overcome all of this and achieve excellence in her professional calling. A story told with honesty, humor, and the sincere desire to be shared, Ask Me Again Tomorrow is more than a celebrity memoir -- it's a book that will endure.

During a career that has spanned more than forty years, Olympia Dukakis has worked as an actress, director, producer, teacher, and activist. She received an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, the New York Film Critics Award, the Los Angeles Film Critics Award, and the Golden Globe Award for her work in the Norman Jewison film Moonstruck. A highly sought-after lecturer on women's issues, on living with osteoporosis (her own) and other health issues, Olympia resides in New York City with her husband, actor Louis Zorich. They have three children, Christina, Peter, and Stefan, and two granddaughters, Isabella and Sofia.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Who can forget Rose Castorini, the feisty Italian mother Dukakis played in 1988's Moonstruck? Dukakis won an Academy Award for her performance and went on to star in Steel Magnolias, Mighty Aphrodite and other films. But most viewers are unaware of Dukakis's laudable stage career of more than 40 years (she's appeared in over 125 productions). In this uplifting autobiography, the first-generation Greek-American recounts her life and work. Dukakis-born in 1931 and a cousin of one-time presidential hopeful Michael-grew up in Lowell, Mass. She and her brother, Apollo, staged plays in the backyard while their parents worked difficult factory jobs. After high school, Dukakis wanted to pursue acting seriously and figured the best way to do it was to make a lot of money doing something-it turned out to be working as a physical therapist-and then moving to New York to act. And that's exactly what she did. Battling low self-esteem, feelings of sorrow and rejection, and facing ethnic and gender biases, Dukakis eventually made it as an actor and, in 1973, launched a theater company with her husband in New Jersey. Playing Rose in Moonstruck changed her life ("Just a few weeks before I had been clipping coupons and shopping for bargain jeans, while working 10 to 12 hour days at the theater. Now I was checking into the Four Seasons"). Although the memoir leaves a few questions unanswered and Dukakis's prose is sometimes vague, this is still a fine portrait of a hardworking, dedicated, proud and inspiring woman, by turns affecting and laugh-out-loud funny. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Her "overnight success," which was 30 years in the making, came in 1988, when Dukakis won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her portrayal of Rose Castorini in Moonstruck. Although it was not her most challenging role, she recognized why it fit her so well: the ethnicity, the attitude, and the confidence of a matriarchal caregiver. The late 1980s were a fabulous time to be a Dukakis--not only did Olympia win an Oscar but her first cousin Michael was the Democratic nominee for president. Being an Oscar-winning actress meant the phone started to ring continually (she took advantage of her good fortune by constantly promoting the local theater company she and her husband ran), and for the first time, she did not have to worry about how they'd pay the mortgage on their sizable home. Olympia artfully unfolds what makes her tick, from her complex relationship with her pessimistic mother to what it was like to mingle with such greats as Shirley MacLaine ("as high-spirited and generous as she seems") and Julia Roberts ("absolutely no formal training and held her own"). With a heavy promotion schedule planned, expect demand. Mary Frances Wilkens
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Harper; 1 edition (July 8, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060188219
• ISBN-13: 978-0060188214
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,782,367 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Passion to Act!, July 30, 2003

By 

Donald Mitchell "Jesus Loves You!" (Thanks for Providing My Reviews over 109,000 Helpful Votes Globally) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Ask Me Again Tomorrow: A Life in Progress (Hardcover)

Long before Olympia Dukakis became well-known for her Academy-Award-winning supporting role as Rose Castorini in Moonstruck, I was a fan of hers based on the outstanding performances she often gave at the Charles Playhouse in Boston in the 1960s. One of the misperceptions that I had about her was that her remarkable control on stage was a reflection of a rock-solid personality. Ask Me Again Tomorrow helped me to see how acting has helped her to get control over her life. It was an unexpected twist for me.

The book opens with the experience of becoming an "overnight" success after thirty years when she won the Academy Award. The event doesn't seem worth dwelling on, except that Ms. Dukakis clearly showed her values were in the right place by using her success to help the Whole Theater, which she had been involved with for 18 years in New Jersey.

For me, the book became interesting when she recounted the story of her family's life before she was born. Several friends of mine who are Greek-Americans say that non-Greek-Americans can never understand what it is like in their families. As I read about Ms. Dukakis's family, I began to get a sense of what they mean. A dominant story from her childhood was about a teenage girl in Greece who had lost her virtue to an overseer. To avenge the dishonor, her brother shot and killed her. The pressure on her to be a "good" Greek-American daughter was unrelenting. Her relationship with her mother was very difficult as a result. Ms. Dukakis was a free spirit as a child, teen and a young adult which set her up for lots of family problems.

Having several family members who would like to act for a living, I also wondered what had drawn her to the profession and what had made her so good at it. The story is very much one of a late bloomer, but a determined one. I was surprised to learn that she had become a physical therapist helping polio patients as a way to pay for her education. During those terrible days, she even contracted a mild case of polio herself. Her story about this work is gripping, and added much to my understanding of that period in time before vaccines more or less eliminated polio.

Lastly, I was curious how a hard-working actress balanced home and family over the years. With difficulty . . . is the answer.

Ms. Dukakis also reveals a lot about how her self-discovery has occurred, especially through her reactions to roles she has been asked to play, therapy and seeking out the origins of Goddess-based spiritual beliefs.

I came away from this book having even more respect for Ms. Dukakis, both as a person and as an actress. I think you will, too.

My main reservation about the book is that Ms. Dukakis is a bit overly circumspect about how much she chooses to reveal about herself in many places. You just get a sense that something might be going on, and . . . you are pushed off into another subject. For instance, after first being married, Ms. Dukakis and her husband Louis Zorich had an "open" marriage. After becoming pregnant, the open marriage was closed for all time. I was left wondering why it was ever open in the first place.

After you finish reading this fine story, think about where your conflicts with family and friends can inspire you to take on larger challenges in areas that are meaningful to you. Have the passion to act!

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful, September 8, 2003

By 

Duke Marine (Newbury Park, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ask Me Again Tomorrow: A Life in Progress (Hardcover)

She is a beautiful woman and that is a beautiful book. Truly inspiring, this isn't the story of an "overnight success". Olympia deals with alot of adversity, both from outside and her own inner struggles. A surprisingly meaty book. The last few chapters actually had me crying.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Memoir In Progress, August 25, 2003

By 

Andrew McCaffrey "The Grumpy Young Man" (Satellite of Love, Maryland) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Ask Me Again Tomorrow: A Life in Progress (Hardcover)

I'll admit that I haven't seen very many of the films that Olympia Dukakis has performed in. If I hadn't received a complimentary copy of this book from HarperCollins (there's my interests declared), I would probably not even have thought about picking up this volume. But pick it up I did, although I was worried for a bit. The quotes on the back cover were ominous: most of them seemed to be compliments from her Hollywood friends explaining how wonderful she was, but paying only lip-service to the book itself. The introduction and prologue are similarly worrying in that Dukakis repeated states that she didn't want to write an autobiography and that she doesn't really know who she is from day to day (hence the title of the book). But fortunately, while this wasn't the best celebrity memoir I've read, it's certainly entertaining enough.

The memoir begins with Dukakis recalling her Academy Award nomination (and win) for her portrayal of Rose Castorini in "Moonstruck". After covering this period of her life, she jumps back to her early childhood and spends a lot of time dealing with what it meant to be a first generation Greek-American. She details some of her early acting work, although much of it has a vaguely superficial feel to it. Towards the end of the book, the sections dealing with her more recent thoughts, she outlines her religious views, which (and I'm not quite sure I picked up on all the details) seem to revolve around the idea of a female goddess. Her religious thoughts and meditations obviously mean a great deal to her, although I'm not sure she quite conveyed why they have such a huge impact on her. She merely tells us how important these things are to her and asserts their relevance repeatedly, but we don't really get to see the impact for ourselves.

Dukakis has a love for the theatre, and most of her book discusses various roles she's played both on and off stage. Helping to run a local theatre gives her a unique perspective on the business and the art, so it makes for quite interesting reading when she discusses how difficult it was for them to make ends meet. She keeps coming back to her theatre, time and time again, and her enthusiasm for her subject is contagious.

The one thing that struck me was that Dukakis didn't quite seem to know how personal she wanted to be. She included some very intimate details, but provided almost no elaboration or context. She mentions a couple of suicide attempts in her early adulthood, but doesn't really explain what brought this depression on other than a few family-related stresses. She discusses having an open marriage, and then closes the subject after a couple of paragraphs. Most stories or thoughts of this nature tend to have their beginning, middle and end all take place within the same page, and then are never discussed again. I honestly do not blame her for not wishing to delve too deeply into what are obviously painful or personal subjects, but I do wonder why she wanted to include them in the first place.

This is a fairly slender book. It clocks in at just under two hundred pages, and has suspiciously wide margins. This makes it a fairly quick read for anyone interested in what Olympia Dukakis has to say. Dukakis has an unfortunate habit of telling rather than showing, and it contributes to the feeling that we have more a collection of facts here than a warm, human story. Still, I can't complain too much; I knew nothing about her when I began this book, but the writing style kept me reading the whole way through. She seems like a fascinating person underneath it all, but we never really feel as though she has taken the reader into her confidence.