10- The Michigan Daily - Weekend etc. - Thursday, September 15, 1994

Enduring
star is lost
By Scott Plagenhoef
Jessica Tandy, beloved and ver-
satile star of stage, film, and televi-
:sion died Sunday morning at the age
of 85 after a four-year battle with
ovarian cancer.
Tandy's remarkable ability and
uncompromising love for her craft
allowed her to enjoy a career which
spanned six decades, Tandy com-
manded a unique respect from her
industry and peers which ensured her
the opportunity to distinguish herself
in challenging and respectable roles
well into her later years in a field
which typically relegates the elderly,
particularly women, to novelty roles.
* Tandy began her career as a per-
former on both the British and Ameri-
can stage. Dubbed by Helen Hayes as
the "First Lady of Broadway," Tandy's
early theatrical accomplishments in-
cluded numerous roles in
Shakespetean plays as well as her
portrayal of Mary Tyrone in "Long
.Day's Journey into Night." Tandy's
best-known theatrical role, however,
was as the original Blanche DuBois,
opposite Marlon Brandoin Tennesse
Williams' "A Streetcar Named De-
sire," (1948) for which she was given
her first Tony Award. Tandy would
laterearn two additional Tonys for her
performances in "The Gin Game"
(1978) and "Foxfire" (1982). A tele-
vision film version of "Foxfire"
would, six years later, earn Tandy her
sole Emmy Award.
To contemporary audiences,
Tandy is best remembered for her
strong, charismatic film career, par-
ticularly over the past decade. Her
performance as an old-fashioned and
lonely southern woman opposite
Morgan Freeman in the 1989 film

JESSICA TANDY
1909-1994

Career of
excellence
Jessica Tandy's carrer spanned
more than 65 years, during
which time she built a long and
distinguished list of credits.
Here are but a few.
FILM
The Seventh Cross (1944)
Forever Amber (1947)
September Affair (1950)
The Desert Fox (1951)
The Light in the Forest
(1958)
The Birds (1963)
Butley (1974)
Still of the Night (1982)
The World According to
Garp (1982)
The Bostonians (1984)
Cocoon (1985)
Driving Miss Daisy (1989)
Fried Green Tomatoes
(1991)
THEATER
Hamlet (1934)
King Lear (1940)
Portrait of Madonna (1946)
A Streetcar Named Desire
(1947)
The Fourposter (1951)
Five Finger Exercise (1959)
The Gin Game (1977)
Foxfire (1982)
The Glass Menagerie (1983)
The Petition (1986)
TELEVISION
Foxfire (1987)
The Story Lady (1991)
To Dance with the White
Dog (1993)

GENERAL
Continued from page 1

music section is relatively good.
Now, how about Tower. World-
wide symbol of corporate music
stores, the Ann Arbor branch approxi-
mately doubled its size over the sum-
mer. First they altered their old clas-
sical music area into a new periodical
room. The ultimate space creation
came with building a place to com-
fortably house their pop/rock, jazz,
and world music CDs as well as their
video games, clothes, videos and
laserdiscs. This left increased area for
classical, soundtracks, vocals and
books in the old space.
Tower certainly has more of the
basement feel than Borders, but it's
skylight view of clouds lends a much
more free feel than the previously
explained constricting, nearly win-
dowless environment, presenting a
bit of a paradox. Maybe each store
simply was allowed a certain percent-
age of the basement feel: Borders the
windows, Tower the walls.
Tower essentially makes an inter-
nal circle, and through means not en-
tirely clear exudes an atmosphere
much more akin to that of someplace
you would feel comfortable sitting
down on the floor. They should really
be more careful about fostering that
feeling, since eventually someone will
make a bonfire in the middle of one of
the rooms and sing campfire songs.
Still, Tower's music selection has
not really altered. It remains very
good, but there has been no advance-
ment.
The most evolution can be seen in
the stock of movies, video games,
books, magazines and , uh, clothes.
The presence of Tower grungewear is
perhaps the worst corporate touch to
be found in this little music store. The
glutted stupidity is reprehensible and
only serves to draw more of the wrong
crowd. Of course, the wrong crowd
has money and so the chain interests
don't care. If it really offends you,
perhaps you should write letters to the
manager. Sure you will, ya slacker.
In opposition to the generally per-

ceived corporate stereotype of trying
to be like every other corporate store
after the same demographics, there
are large differences between the two
stores. The overall look is very differ-
ent in the two stores and their ap r-
ent marketing techniques diffe as
can be inferred from the art i
stores).
The strangest difference between
Tower and Borders is in the maga-
zines. One would expect the boolt-
store to have the finer selection. Nev-
ertheless Tower seemsto havestocjed
better magazines, and not just music
related ones. From soft core porn, to
art rags, Tower is the clear winner.
Finally, of course, there's
Wherehouse. It didn't really cha
that much except for moving setiins
around a bit and adding posters toits
stock. It's the same old loft tht it
always was, it's just a little bit diffet-
ent on the inside.
So what can we learn froMnall
this? Well, the big chains are altering
their Ann Arbor links into bigger and
better things. This leads to things be-
ing harder and harder to find until y
understand the increasingly complex
systems (or maybe that's random sys-
tems) which each store has created.
And each system has led to its wn
vagaries against good taste in spite of
a generally good outcome.
Remember that big businesses
have a tendency to try to engulAas
much as they possibly can so they an
make as much money as they can.
In order to do that they nee49
expand. This last summer's const
tion can be seen in that light. The g
chains are expanding their stores 4
order to gain bigger shares of ihe
marketplace.
One would be hard pressed to see
if there was actually an increased de-
mand for service or if the clientelle i
expected to come from other stores'
consumers. This is not good or bad*
simply is.
Get out there and vote with your
wallet.
BOOKS
Continued from page 6
guest speakers, a definite highlight of
the store. Earlierthis weekBretEast n
Ellis of "Less Than Zero" and "Ameri-
can Psycho" fame read from his neG
book to an appreciative audience,.and
proved to be quite charming and sort
of like a big cuddly teddy bear who
happens to write a lot about greedy
drug addicted serial killers. Other big
name authors like Naomi Wolf and
Tom Robbins are also reading soon 'as
part of an impressive Borders series.
Both stores have their own nib-
and seem to be doing nicely in a tog
that already has enough bookstdrs
and record stores. At the very least
there is something for every fetish.

"Driving Miss Daisy" earned her an
Academy Award as Best Actress and
became her most visible, and there-
fore, signature role.
Tandy's comeback of sorts into
the art of motion pictures began ear-
lier in the decade with roles in "The
World According to Garp," (1982)



oooo

"The Bostonians," (1983) and "Co-
coon" (1985).
Earlier film accomplishments in-
clude the obsessive mother in Alfred
Hitchcock's "The Birds" (1963), "The
Desert Fox" (1951) and "Forever
Amber" (1947).
Following her title role in "Driv-
ing Miss Daisy," Tandy was diag-
nosed as having cancer. Despite her
condition, she continued to work in
numerous made-for-television mov-
ies as well as feature films, most no-
tably in the 1991 comedy, "Fried
Green Tomatoes." Fittingly, the night
Tandy passed on she was being hon-
ored as an Emmy Award nominee for
a role in the television film "To Dance
with the White Dog."
Jessica Tandy is survived by her
husband of 52 years, actor Hume
Cronyn, with whom she often worked.
Their long-lasting union, a uniquely
successful one in a business often
stereotyped by infidelity, is further
proof of her distinguished character
and an ingredient in her almost uni-
versal admiration and respect. She
will be missed.



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