Olympia Dukakis had racked up hundreds of credits on stage in a thirty year career before becoming an "overnight success" as Cher's knowing mother in Norman Jewison's "Moonstruck" (1987).

The daughter of Greek immigrants, the Massachusetts native received two degrees from Boston University and supported herself as a physical therapist while amassing the first of her numerous stage credits as a founding member of the Charles Playhouse in Boston. She made her off-Broadway debut in 1960 and within two years was on Broadway in "The Aspern Papers". Dukakis went on to appear in classics and