Judith Ivey

By JOHN EBY

Dowagiac Daily News

Judith Ivey has turned in what is “surely the performance of her career” as Amanda Wingfield in Tennessee Williams’ “The Glass Menagerie,” which ran through September and wraps Oct. 17 in Los Angeles after New York and New Haven.

That blurb, by the way, appeared in a New York Times review, which also described Ivey’s acting as “lightning lit from within” and “achingly real and often hilarious.”

With that role coming to an end, Ivey is about to begin shooting a possible recurring role as Maura Tierney’s mother in “The Whole Truth,” a new show which also stars Rob Morrow.

Ivey, coming home to Dowagiac later this month, spoke to the Daily News Monday night by phone.

When she guest-starred on “Nurse Jackie,” critics also raved about her “tour de force performance.”

Before that in 2008, Ivey portrayed advice columnist Ann Landers in the “The Lady with all the Answers.”

Daughter Margo praised Ivey as “channeling” her mother, Eppie Lederer.

The Chicago Tribune gave Ivey’s one-woman show about the Chicago icon a good review (“This highly entertaining, frequently moving play (is) destined for Chicago and beyond!” wrote Chris Jones; “No question about it — this ‘Lady’ is marvelous,” agreed the Sun-Times.)

Does she ever receive bad reviews?

“Not bad reviews, they just don’t mention me,” she said. “In recent years I’ve been fortunate.”

Ivey, 59, lived on Orchard Street from seventh grade in 1965 until the end of her sophomore year in 1968 when her father, Nathan, was Southwestern Michigan College’s first president and her mother, Dorothy, taught English at Central.

Had the Iveys not moved to Illinois, Judy would have graduated with the Union High School Class of 1970.

She might never have left art for acting, which she did in Illinois as a way to fit in at her new high school.

She ended up attending Illinois State University on an acting scholarship.

But Margaret Hunter’s former student does watercolors to pass time between shows.

About 10 years ago Ivey, who won her first Tony in 1983 for “Steaming” and her second in 1985 for “Hurlyburly” — Christine Baranski of “The Good Wife” won in between — started “entertaining” the idea of directing and took a few jobs and has been directing in earnest “six or seven years.”

Is she an actor who directs or a director who acts?

“I don’t think of it that way,” Ivey said. “It’s dangerous to say you’re one who does the other. I pride myself on not wearing the one hat when I’m wearing the other. I don’t confuse them.”

One well-known actor who became even more revered for directing is Clint Eastwood.

She appeared in his “Flags of Our Fathers.”

Eastwood “loves actors and trusts them and he doesn’t overdo anything. He’s known for one or two takes and that’s it, which I love.” Repeating take after take, “I lose my steam,” she said.

When she nailed her scene to his satisfaction, Eastwood commented, “I guess that’s why you hire professionals.”

“I really enjoyed him and talking politics,” she said. “He doesn’t waste anyone’s time — including his own.”

Ivey said driving out to Lancaster, Calif., she had been listening to NPR after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans in 2005.

While venting about what she heard on the radio, it suddenly occurred to her that Eastwood, a former mayor in California, was a Republican and she might have offended him.

His only response was that he guessed he was a Libertarian.

“I squeaked by,” she laughed.

Informed her “Evening” in Dowagiac on Friday, Oct. 29, coincides with Bob Dylan’s appearance at Western Michigan University, she said, “My feelings won’t be hurt if someone picks Bob over me.”

As for what an Evening entails with a woman whose career spans almost 30 years since 1982, “I’m working on it,” Judy said. “I’ve been playing around with clips and stills from my career. I’ve done it before. I want to make it fun and interesting, though from my standpoint I don’t know why” anyone would fine her career interesting — though her memory was certainly jogged by being “archived” for SAG, the Screen Actors Guild, which entailed a two-hour interview.

“I’m an old lady now,” she said.

Theater she keeps returning to because “I love having the audience. I’m frustrated working in the void” of television or movies, though both pay better.

“Having someone to perform for is just in my nature,” Ivey said.

Ivey was the star attraction at a Dowagiac Chamber of Commerce progress dinner during her 1990-1991 turn as a TV star, when she appeared as Katie McCrorey in “Down Home,” set in Texas.

She was born in El Paso on Sept. 4, 1951.

She also starred as Alexandra Buchanan in “The 5 Mrs. Buchanans” and as B.J. Poteet in the final season of “Designing Women,” succeeding Julia Duffy.

“Doing a half-hour sitcom is as normal a job as one will ever have in show business,” she said. “No weekend work. Very conducive to family life.”

She and her husband, Tim Braine, had two kids, Maggie and Tom.

Her son is her science guy and would like to be an astronaut.

Her daughter wanted to be an actress as a little girl, but in college is majoring in film theory and social impact and criticism.

“I don’t quite know what that means,” Maggie’s mother admitted. “I don’t know how that translates into an actual job, but she’s terribly funny and a great mimic.”

Of course, acting “wasn’t on my radar” when she lived in Dowagiac. “People come to it at different times in their lives.”

Dowagiac in her day lacked a Beckwith Theatre or today’s opportunities at Southwestern Michigan College, where she’s looking forward to working with students.

Growing up, Ivey lived in eight different towns in Texas, Colorado, including Denver, Michigan and Illinois.

“I always stayed very attached” to Dowagiac friends and her boyfriend, Chuck Sarabyn.

“I never thought I’d be a professional actress,” she said, “I did it because it was fun.”

Her first Tony vaulted Ivey into movies such as “The Lonely Guy” with Steve Martin and “The Woman in Red.”

Ted Danson, formerly bartender Sam Malone on “Cheers,” was instrumental in her getting parts in television.

Can he get her on “Seinfeld” creator Larry David’s cable hit, “Curb Your Enthusiasm?”

“I suck at improvisation,” she admitted.

In and around “The Glass Menagerie,” Ivey starting today will be shooting a guest spot on HBO’s “Big Love” as well as “The Whole Truth.”

Wednesday night Dowagiac District Library screens her movie “Brighton Beach Memoirs.”

“I loved making that movie,” she said.

The joke among the actors was that she and Gwyneth Paltrow’s mother, Blythe Danner — two “WASPy actors” — were portraying “iconic Russian Jewish women.”

“We hung out at Brighton Beach and listened to everybody,” Judy recalled. “We had a dialect coach. He said I was ‘too Jewish,’ to pull it back a little — the ultimate compliment.”

As Ivey closes in on 60, she joked that Meryl Streep — no, they’ve never worked together — “plays six of the 10 parts for women over 50 and the rest fight over the other four.”

Her wish list of actors she’d like to work with includes Cate Blanchett, Tom Hanks, Johnny Depp, Edward Norton and Eastwood.

Given the dearth of parts for older women, “Amanda Wingfield in The Glass Menagerie was like a gift,” she said, like Streep as Julia Child.

“I’m looking forward to seeing my old friends and acquaintances” and is already mobilizing luncheons and dinners through Facebook and e-mail.

She’s also sad her circle lost Marion Weaver and Herb Phillipson.

When she and her mother — her parents live in Texas — visited for Mrs. Weaver’s funeral, Judy ducked into The Marshall Shoppe, where she worked in high school.

The Wahoo was the drive-in hangout of her day.

Another memory is eating frog legs at Diamond Harbor Inn on Diamond Lake in Cassopolis.

“It will just be fun” to reconnect with Dowagiac, Ivey said. “I look forward to working with SMC students. I always learn from what I think I’m teaching.”