Meryl Streep Actress, National Board of Review Award for Best Supporting Actress and National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actress for her collective work in her three film releases of 1979. Both "The Deer Hunter" and "Kramer vs. Kramer" were major commercial successes and were consecutive winners of the Academy Award for Best Picture. In 1979, Streep began workshopping "Alice in Concert", a musical version of "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland", with writer and composer Elizabeth Swados and director Joseph Papp; the show was put on at New York's Public Theater from December 1980. Frank Rich of "The New York
Meryl Streep role in which Streep became "arguably the first middle-aged actress to be taken seriously by Hollywood as a romantic heroine". Streep played the estranged sister of Bessie (Diane Keaton), a woman battling leukemia, in "Marvin's Room" (1996), an adaptation of the play by Scott McPherson. Streep recommended Keaton for the role. The film also featured Leonardo DiCaprio as the rebellious son of Streep's character. Roger Ebert stated that, "Streep and Keaton, in their different styles, find ways to make Lee and Bessie into much more than the expression of their problems." The film was well received, and Streep earned another