The daughter of Greek....
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 contemporary plays, mostly in East Coast productions. From 1967-70 and again from 1974-83, she taught acting at New York University. In 1973, she was a founding member and artistic director of The Whole Theater Company in Montclair, NJ, a post she held until 1988 when the theater folded (ironically just as her career was on the ascent).
Dukakis made her feature film debut in Robert Rossen's "Lilith" as a patient in a mental institution. Many of her subsequent roles were as Jewish or Italian mothers to actors from Dustin Hoffman ("John and Mary" 1969) to Joseph Bologna ("Made for Each Other" 1971) to Ray Sharkey ("The Idolmaker" 1980). Mike Nichols hired her to be Meryl Streep's mother in "Heartburn" (1986) but her scenes were not in the finished film. In compensation, Nichols hired Dukakis to co-star as an elderly woman with a penchant for literally chewing the scenery in the Broadway comedy "Social Security" (1986). That performance caught the attention of Norman Jewison who cast her in "Moonstruck". Dukakis earned a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her portrait of a complex, middle-aged wife and mother and her career shifted into high gear. She was briefly seen in Nichols' "Working Girl" (1988), was Kirstie Alley's mother in "Look Who's Talking", Jack Lemmon's aging wife in "Dad" and an elegant widow in "Steel Magnolias" (all 1989). She had a rare lead in "The Cemetery Club" (1993) before taking on roles as varied as a mother proud of her pre-operative transsexual son in "Jeffrey" to a member of the chorus in Woody Allen's "Mighty Aphrodite" to the disapproving high school principal in "Mr. Holland's Opus" (all 1995).
Dukakis has worked infrequently on the small screen as well. Her TV-movie debut was as a member of a close-knit Greek family in the failed pilot "Nicky's World" (CBS, 1974). Other notable roles include an aging actress desirous of a comeback in "The Last Act Is a Solo" (A&E, 1991), for which she won a CableACE Award, the mother of actor-singer Frank Sinatra in the CBS miniseries "Sinatra" (1992) and the eccentric landlady with a secret in "Armistead Maupin's 'Tales of the City'" (PBS, 1994). She reprised the latter role in the 1998 Showtime miniseries "Armistead Maupin's 'More Tales of the City'".