Sydney Pollack — one of Meryl Streep's collaborators time and again — once proclaimed her the most gifted film actress of the late 20th century. Most insiders would concur with this assessment. To avid moviegoers, she represents the essence of onscreen dramatic art, and classifying her as a contemporary reincarnation of Eleonora Duse or Sarah Bernhardt would not overstate the case. To be certain, Streep's filmography claims its share of near misses and outright disasters (She-Devil, Falling in Love, Death Becomes Her) — like Dustin Hoffman, she thrived in the '70s and early '80s, but seemed somewhat crippled in the late '80s and early '90s by the paucity of eloquent scripts. But the intelligence and refinement of her craft endure. For, also like Hoffman (and De Niro), she demonstrates a transcendent ability to plunge into her characters and lose herself inside of them, transforming herself physically to meet the demands of her roles. A luminous blonde with nearly translucent pale skin, intelligent blue eyes, and an elegant facial bone structure, Streep sustains a fragile, fleeting beauty that allows her to travel the spectrum between earthily plain (…  » Read more