Didinger's Top 10 Actresses in Sports Movies

Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Posted: 12 p.m.

By Ray Didinger
CSNPhilly.com

It was no great surprise that Sandra Bullock won the Oscar for Best Actress in The Blind Side. The film was the surprise hit of the year, earning more than $  250 million and Bullock is a nice story, an actress whose star had faded in recent years but saw this role as her ticket back to the big time.

The Academy voters probably felt they had to reward the success of The Blind Side in some way, but it would have been a little much to give it the Oscar for Best Picture. It was nominated, but never was a serious challenger to The Hurt Locker and Avatar. But Bullock’s role was Oscar-bait all the way and, to her credit, she nailed it.

I wasn’t as enamored with The Blind Side as most people. I found it rather cloying, and I didn’t think the football action was very convincing. Michael Oher goes from a kid who can’t block anyone to a human bulldozer in a matter of minutes; all it takes is a talking to from Bullock, his adoptive mom. So I have some quibbles.

But Bullock is the best thing about The Blind Side – the true story of a homeless black teenager (Oher) who is taken off the streets of Memphis and raised by a wealthy white family. The film revolves around her. When she snaps her cell phone shut and marches off in her Jimmy Choos, you can’t take your eyes off her.

Seeing Bullock accept the Oscar on Sunday made me think of other great performances by actresses in sports movies. I saw a lot of them when I was researching The Ultimate Book of Sports Movies, which I co-authored with Glen Macnow. Here is my top 10:

1. Hilary Swank (Million Dollar Baby)

Swank won the Oscar for Best Actress for this 2004 film. She plays Maggie Fitzgerald, a diner waitress who is determined to become a boxer. She convinces a crusty old trainer played by Clint Eastwood (who also directed the film) to teach her the ropes and together they find success and ultimately tragedy.

Swank trained with a real boxing coach for three months and packed on 20 pounds of muscle to play Maggie. She is simply great, balancing the poor waif Maggie (scraping up the pennies and nickels that pass for tips) with the ferocious Maggie we see in the ring. Her on-screen chemistry with Eastwood is wonderful.

2. Talia Shire (Rocky)
    
Her transformation from the mousey girl in the pet store to the woman who steals Rocky’s heart is one of the reasons we love the original film. There are so many great scenes: when Rocky removes her glasses before their first kiss, when he takes her to the empty skating rink on their first date and, most of all, the night before the big fight when he tells her he can’t beat Apollo Creed.

“What are we going to do?” she asks softly.

Not “What are you going to do?” but “What are we going to do?”

Perfect.

3. Susan Sarandon (Bull Durham)

The ultimate Baseball Annie. In fact, her name in the film is Annie Savoy and she spends her summers quoting William Blake and mentoring – OK, sleeping with – a member of the Durham Bulls of the Carolina League.

Sarandon has never been sexier on screen, and she must have been pretty hot off-screen, too, because she wound up in a long-term relationship with co-star Tim Robbins. They were together for 20 years (yes, the movie is that old) before finally splitting up a month ago.

4. Cathy Moriarty (Raging Bull)

Moriarty was just 20 years old and appearing in her first film when she played Vicki LaMotta, wife of middleweight champion Jake LaMotta, portrayed by Robert DeNiro. It is hard to believe someone so young and inexperienced could hold her own on the screen with the likes of DeNiro and Joe Pesci, but she did. She was nominated for an Oscar as Best Supporting Actress.

Blonde and drop-dead gorgeous, Moriarty looked like a sure bet for major Hollywood stardom, but for some reason it never happened. Within a few years, she was doing bit parts in movies like Kindergarten Cop and occupying one of the boxes on Hollywood Squares. Today, she does mostly guest roles on TV series such as Law and Order.

5. Geena Davis (A League of Their Own)

Hard to believe, but Davis was not the original choice to play the lead in the film about the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. Debra Winger was hired to play the role of Dottie Hinson, but she hurt her back and Davis was called in at the last minute.

Watching the film now, it is hard to imagine anyone other than Davis, the statuesque, red-haired beauty, in the role of Hinson. She was the pinup girl of the AAGPBL, The Queen of Diamonds whose combination of baseball ability and good looks helped sell the girls’ league in America during World War II.

6. Sandra Bullock (The Blind Side)

She is quite good as the wealthy suburbanite who takes in the withdrawn Oher – who just finished his rookie season as a starting tackle with the Baltimore Ravens – and helps him realize his potential on the football field and in the world.

It is worth noting Bullock was the original choice to play Maggie Fitzgerald in Million Dollar Baby, but she pulled out due to a scheduling conflict. If she had taken the role, who knows, she might have two Oscars on her shelf today.

7. Bonnie Bedelia (Heart Like a Wheel)

This 1983 biopic told the story of Shirley (Cha-Cha) Muldowney, the first woman to compete in the National Hot Rod Association, taking on the macho likes of Don (Big Daddy) Garlits, Connie (The Bounty Hunter) Kalitta and Don (The Snake) Prudhomme.

Bedelia, who is best known for playing Bruce Willis’ wife in the Die Hard series, was chosen to play Muldowney because of her strong resemblance to the racer. Bedelia is very good in portraying the sexy, tough-as-nails Muldowney who survived several horrific crashes to earn a place in the International Motor Sports Hall of Fame.

8. Susan Tyrrell (Fat City)

Fat City is an underrated 1972 film directed by John Huston starring Stacy Keach and Jeff Bridges (who just won his first Oscar for Crazy Heart). It is a boxing film set amid the flop houses and gambling halls of Stockton, Calif.

Tyrrell plays a drunken harpy named Oma who moves in with Billy Tully, played by Keach. She spends her days wrapped in Billy’s boxing robe, guzzling wine and bemoaning her life. It is depressing as hell, but Tyrrell is excellent. She was nominated for an Oscar as Best Supporting Actress.

9. Teresa Wright (The Pride of the Yankees)

Wright was the lovely actress who played Eleanor Gehrig, wife of Yankee great Lou Gehrig, who died of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), what we now call Lou Gehrig’s Disease. The 1942 film is as much a love story as it is a sports biography. Wright and Gary Cooper, who plays Lou, are wonderful together.

The most touching scene is when Eleanor sees Lou, who is dying but won’t admit it, struggling to knot his tie as he prepares to leave for his final tribute at Yankee Stadium. She knots the tie for him, all the while carrying on a conversation as if nothing is wrong.

10. Marisa Tomei (The Wrestler)

Most of the acclaim for this sleeper hit focused on Mickey Rourke and his performance as Randy “The Ram” Robinson, a one-time wrestling star who is reduced to working for chump change in school gyms and VFW halls.

Rourke deserved the praise, he was excellent, but Tomei was his equal playing a stripper named Cassidy who refuses to commit to a relationship – she won’t date the customers – but cares about him. The awkward “Will- you-go-out-with-me?” “You-know-I-can’t” is beautifully played by the two actors. Both were nominated for Oscars.

Ray Didinger is a football analyst for Comcast Sports Net. He appears on Eagles Pre-Game Live and Post-Game Live and he writes regularly for CSNPhilly.com. His book, The Ultimate Book of Sports Movies, is available in stores and on-line at Amazon.com.

E-mail Ray Didinger at viewfromthehall@comcast.net

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