By Marc Myers
Marcia Gay Harden in New York City in March. Photo: Axel Dupeux for The Wall Street Journal
Marcia Gay Harden, 58, is an Oscar-winning actress who has appeared in more than 50 films, including “The First Wives Club,” “Pollock,” “Mystic River” and “Fifty Shades of Grey.” She is the author of “The Seasons of My Mother” (Atria). She spoke with Marc Myers.
BY SAM JENKINS
MARCIA GAY HARDEN is famous for playing strong, resourceful women — including Dr. Leanne Rorish on the hit CBS medical drama Code Black. For this television role, and her many others in lm and theater, the actress has looked to her mother, Beverly Harden, for inspiration. “I can’t help but bring my mom into everything I do,” says Harden. “In The Spit Fire Grill, my character, Shelby, at first didn’t have a voice. But during the course of the movie she develops one. I thought of my mom, standing up for her own ideas.”
Your new memoir, The Seasons of My Mother, celebrates your mom, Beverly, who battles Alzheimer’s disease. People with Alzheimer’s have lived incredibly rich, full, determined, loving lives, and their legacy is lost to their disease. I want my mother to be remembered for the beauty she brought to our family and the change she made in the world. It’s a tribute to her.
by Marcia Gay Harden
For years, mom and I had talked about writing a book together. A book about ikebana, the Japanese art of flower arranging. A big coffee table book with beautiful pictures of flowers, like the calla lily and fern she’d arranged at the alter for my wedding. Mom said calla lilies were a symbol of holiness, faith and purity. The book would have been full of the information she conveyed so well, as she did at the ikebana class she taught for my friends in California while we awaited the birth of my oldest daughter.
