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Misspent Youth: Kate Nelligan


Looking back at the pop culture mainstays of this Gen Xer's gloriously misspent youth.

I first laid eyes on screen and stage actress Kate Nelligan watching John Badham's Dracula (1979) a few years after its release. Even at that time, at a very young age of seven or eight, I was captivated by her. I understood nothing about romance or attraction yet, but I could still see why Frank Langella's Dracula wanted to sink his teeth into that neck. There was something in her eyes—an attractive melancholy that I'd be increasingly drawn to as I got older and became more melancholy myself. She had a pensive, thoughtful look. Something about her face felt safe and comforting to little me: "This," some omniscient narrator declared in my head, "is what quiet beauty looks like, kid."

Nelligan was heartbreakingly good as Lucy in Dracula.

That must've been the early 1980s, probably during the brief halcyon period when my parents subscribed to HBO, before abruptly cancelling when they figured out I was watching R-rated movies. I don't recall Dracula being particularly naughty (deliciously Gothic, yes), and the "Parents' Guide" on IMDb confirms that it's mostly "lots of kissing as Dracula seduces women, but nothing explicit." Well, there was also some horror violence, of course, but like most red-blooded Americans my folks seemed most concerned with the pernicious effects of sex and profanity, when it came to my movie habits (even though my mother swore like a sailor when she got upset).

Nelligan and her exquisitely pensive stare in Dracula is a look she would deploy with great power regularly in her career.

Drac indeed seduced a lot of women, including my favorite in the film, Nelligan as Lucy. Who could resist that face? To my young eyes, she had a classic face, one that reminded me of silver screen stars from days gone by, in the black and white movies I caught on WPIX 11 sometimes. She seemed ethereal and untouchable in that movie, so of course I wanted to know more about her. Not even Lucy's descent into vampirism could scare me away. Yeah, I was smitten, although I doubt I even knew Nelligan's name yet.

This look screams the '90s and you better believe I absolutely crushed on Nelligan in Fatal Instinct because of this fact.

Then I kept growing up, and Kate Nelligan kept appearing in films I was watching, left and right. There was the heart-wrenching abduction drama Without a Trace (1983), in which Nelligan starred alongside another favorite, Judd Hirsch. I must've caught her in a half dozen television movies during those years, too. Then, riding the early 1990s erotic thriller wave, she starred alongside Armand Assante and Sean Young and in the extremely silly spoof Fatal Instinct (1993), where she played a sexy, money-hungry wife getting more than just her car tuned up by the local mechanic, if you know what I mean.

Fatal Instinct cast its spoof net far and wide.

Also, and not for nothing, but she's always been linked in my mind to my favorite Queen, Michelle Pfeiffer, because they made three movies together: Frankie and Johnny (1991), Wolf (1994), and Up Close and Personal (1996). Frankie and Johnny, especially, is a splendid showcase for their strong chemistry. Nelligan's Cora has a big personality. She likes her skirts short and tight, and her men to be satisfied in bed but also hit the road when the deed is done. Pfeiffer's Frankie is introverted, shy, and cynical. She has retreated inward after too many terrible relationships. The actresses show how well the two get along, despite these differences, thanks to the shared common language of diner waitresses the world over: sarcasm. Plus, they both sleep with Al Pacino's Johnny. Heyo!

"People think I'm a tough bitch. But it ain't true." I love Cora and Frankie so much it almost hurts.

Cora might well be my favorite Nelligan character. Nelligan's performance is so beautiful: Cora is ribald and sweet, and funny and thoughtful, and so much more. Cora is a real woman. The running gag about her sexy red high heeled pumps is one of the funniest bits in the movie, and she and Nathan Lane (as Frankie's best friend and neighbor Tim) in the bowling alley are a forever mood and a life goal, all wrapped into one.

Sometimes I dream about going bowling with the Gyromaniacs from the Apollo Cafe.

Nelligan won a BAFTA for Best Supporting Actress for playing Cora. She deserved an Academy Award, too, but wasn't even nominated. That's because she was nominated for her other 1991 performance, The Prince of Tides. She's wonderful in that film, but Cora is one of the great roles of her career, no question.

A beautiful shot from The Prince of Tides.

Kate Nelligan's last film was 2007 and her last television appearance 2010. She'll turn seventy in 2020. I hope she didn't stop acting for reasons all too familiar—roles for women "of a certain age" are few and far between, even today. I certainly miss seeing her grace the screen on a regular basis, as she often did during my youth. Whenever I spotted her in a film, I knew at the very least I was in for a treat during her scenes.


I spent a lot of time in front of the television and inside my head as a kid (still do). Gen X only child, after all. When I latched on to someone in a movie or a show, it was usually because they ignited some part of my imagination; they were so interesting and exciting, the sort of people I dreamed of meeting when I grew up and got out into the world. That's basically what happened that night back in the early 1980s, in the den of my parents' house. I'm seven or eight years old, sitting on the floor, watching Kate Nelligan in Dracula, and I'm mesmerized. She's so glamorous, I thought. And pretty. And perfect.

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  1. Paul SOctober 23, 2019 at 3:21 AM

    I envy you getting to enjoy Kate and Michelle in 3 films together. Looking at her filmography I don't think I've seen any of her films outside of her collaborations with Pfeiffer. I also hadn't realised she appeared in the classic British television series The Onedin Line.

    ReplyDelete
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    1. Words Seem Out of PlaceOctober 23, 2019 at 6:15 AM

      Kate is always a bright spot in any film in which she appears, that's for sure.

      Delete

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