A celebrated stage actress whose occasional forays into TV and rare steps into feature films have been accomplished with a choosy selective process, Sada Thompson, with her full figure, no-nonsense aura, and eyes that speak a thousand emotions without moving a facial muscle, has been cast in many "mother roles", to be sure, but is equally adept at playing mothers we love and mothers we don't. In fact, even her first role on a semi-professional stage was as a mother, in a college production of "The Time of Your Life".

Thompson made her professional stage debut in Mashpee, Massachusetts, in a