By Mary Shaffer
and Jerry Bunin
The Tribune

Sissy Spacek's Best Actress Oscar nomination for "In the Bedroom" continues her stretch of exceptional performances breathing life into ordinary people caught in extraordinary circumstances.

She has done this as an innocent child seduced by a romantic killer, an abused teenager with telekinetic powers, a liberal wife confronting her husband's disappearance and her conservative father-in-law doubts, and a backwoods teenage bride who becomes country-western superstar Loretta Lynn.

"In the Bedroom," Spacek plays a grieving mother and wife coping with a family tragedy arising from her only son's affair with an older woman. The role earned Spacek, 52, her sixth Best Actress Academy Award nomination. She won for "Coal Miner's Daughter" (1980) and was nominated for "Carrie" (1976), "Missing" (1982), "The River" (1984) and "Crimes of the Heart" (1986).

Spacek has earned critical acclaim, a Golden Globe and numerous other awards for "In the Bedroom," and will compete for her second Oscar on Sunday, March 24, against Halle Berry, Nicole Kidman, Judi Dench, and Renee Zellweger.

Born Mary Elizabeth Spacek in Quitman, East Texas, she moved to New York City after high school to pursue a short-lived career as a singer-songwriter. Her cousin, actor Rip Torn, and his wife, actress Geraldine Page, introduced 17-year-old Spacek to theatre and the Actor's Studio, leading to work as an extra in Andy Warhol's "Trash" (1970) and her film debut in "Prime Cut" (1972).

Spacek has since appeared in more than 40 feature and television films, including seven with art director Jack Fisk whom she married in 1974 after they worked together on "Badlands" (1973).

In 1986, at the height of her stardom, she took time off to raise two daughters on the family's Virginia horse farm before successfully returning to the screen in 1990.

"I just love a well-drawn drama and a well-told story," Spacek told another newspaper in December. A few thumbnail sketches of her many standout performances shows the range of roles she's played, characters that are unassuming yet strong, compelling and credible, no matter what age, era or social or economic class they inhabit.

In her first major film, visionary filmmaker and fellow Texan Terence Malick's "Badlands," Spacek is haunting as the 15-year-old narrator accompanying James Dean-wannabe Martin Sheen on a murderous, aimless journey across stark rural landscapes.

Spacek made the cover of Newsweek and was dubbed "most promising new actress" for "Carrie," Brian de Palma's hit film adaptation of Stephen King's novel. The former homecoming queen perfectly captures Carrie's vulnerability and power, eliciting both terror and sympathy when she exacts revenge on her tormentors.

"Coal Miner's Daughter" marked Spacek's transition to adult roles. Lynn chose the freckle-faced redhead for the part and was so impressed by her performance that she claimed, "I think me and Sissy were probably twin sisters in a past life."

Spacek and Beverly de Angelo as Patsy Cline did their own singing as Spacek seamlessly ages Lynn from 13 to middle age. The script, direction, and performances by the two actresses and Levon Helm and Tommy Lee Jones as Lynn's father and husband elevate this traditional rags-to-riches "biopic" into a quintessential American story.

Spacek is equally effective as an intelligent and worried young wife in "Missing," director Costa-Gavras' gripping political film based on a true story about the U.S. government's cover-up of American citizens executed in a South American coup. The story centers on Spacek's relationship with Jack Lemmon, the victim's father, as they begin at odds but ultimately unite to uncover the truth.

In "Affliction" (1997), Paul Schrader's bleak adaptation of Russell Banks' grim, wintry tale about a violent, paranoid sheriff (Oscar nominee Nick Nolte) and his abusive father (Oscar winner James Coburn), Spacek gives a subtle yet crucial performance as Nolte's waitress girlfriend and last link to reality and stability.

David Lynch, who directed his friend Spacek in "The Straight Story" (1999) as the nearly unrecognizable, inarticulate, mentally disabled daughter of Best Actor nominee Richard Farnsworth, said, "Sissy is a chameleon. She can play anything."

That diversity and skill could easily help earn her a second Oscar Sunday night.

Other Spacek Films Worth Renting

• "3 Women" (1977)
• "Verna: USO Girl" (TV-1978)
• "Heart Beat" (1980)
• "Raggedy Man" (1981)
• "Marie" (1985)
• "The Long Walk Home" (1990)
• "JFK" (1991)
• "The Grass Harp" (1995)
• "Beyond the Call" (TV-1996)
• "If These Walls Could Talk" (TV-1996)
• "Blast From the Past" (1999)