A few years before Jessica Tandy won an Oscar for playing Daisy Werthan in Driving Miss Daisy, I discovered her in a movie called Best Friends that starred Goldie Hawn and Burt Reynolds. Best Friends is one of those 80’s romantic comedies that played on a constant loop on HBO when I was growing up and Jessica Tandy was the reason I watched it every time it aired. I didn’t know who she was or that she’d originated the role of Blanche Du Bois in A Streetcar Named Desire on Broadway, all I knew is that she was in the scene in the movie that made me laugh every time I watched it. I would rewind the scene over and over so I could hear her say the line again and again. Why did it make me laugh so much, who knows? For whatever reason, it tickled my funny bone. I was pretty excited to find the clip on Youtube; I had to do some serious sleuthing to find it. The video quality is poor and the movie is a little dated, but when she got to the line, I laughed out loud. And then I rewound it and watched it again.
Oh Jessica! I’ve never seen “Best Friends,” but she’ll always be Ninny (“Fried Green Tomatoes”) and Faye (“batteries not included”) to me.