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She originated the role of Blanche DuBois in the 1947 production of Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire, and Broadway gave her the first of her three Tony Awards. (The other two were for The Gin Game and Foxfire.) But it was Vivien Leigh whom Hollywood later tapped to play poor, doomed Blanche in the screen version of Streetcar. Driving Miss Daisy has belatedly righted that old wrong. It has transformed Tandy into a movie star, and she is thrilled by the acclaim, which is even sweeter because it is so unexpected. "Oh, it's wonderful!" she exclaims. "It's just wonderful! I never before had a part like Miss Daisy in a movie. I always played almost cardboard characters."
Born in London, Tandy knew early on what she wanted to be. Her father, who worked for a company that sold rope, died when she was twelve; yet despite hardships at home, her mother put together enough money to send her to an acting academy. Before the '20s were over she was acting in the West End, and in 1932 she married a colleague, the late Jack Hawkins. She appeared in several Broadway productions during the '30s but immigrated to the U.S. only in 1940, bringing her five-year-old daughter Susan with her.
Cronyn, who is 78, was also born in London -- London, Ont., that is -- but his family was as rich as Tandy's had been poor. His father was one of Canada's most prominent businessmen, as well as a Member of Parliament; his mother was a Labatt, as in Labatt's beer. After making a brief bow to family sensibilities by attending McGill University, he headed south in the early '30s, to Manhattan, where he studied acting. The great George Abbott gave him his first big break and taught him the rough-and-tumble art of farce, an athletic, physical approach to his craft that he has since used in more cerebral roles. Cronyn has also picked up his share of honors, including an Academy Award nomination for The Seventh Cross in 1944 and a Tony for playing Polonius in the 1964 production of Richard Burton's Hamlet.
He too married within the profession -- he met his first wife in acting school -- but by 1940 he was divorced and free to court Tandy, which he did with his customary persistence and energy. After Tandy's divorce from Hawkins in 1942, she and Cronyn were married in California, and it was there that they had two children. Christopher, 46, is a movie production manager. Tandy, 44, who was given her mother's last name as her first name, went into the family business: she is an actress, and a good one. Through some miracle of casting she was even given the part of her father's daughter in Age-Old Friends.
Home for the Cronyns, besides scores of dressing rooms in the U.S. and Britain, is a house in Connecticut, an apartment in Manhattan and a rented house on the Bahamian island of Great Exuma.
A small, wiry man with wispy hair, a fringe of white beard and seemingly inexhaustible energy, Cronyn is the organizer and designated worrier in the family, the one who moves them from place to place. "When we like to be rude, we call Hume 'the Cruise Director,' " says Cooper. "Because if you're not careful, he will plan your whole day for you. He sometimes frets a bit too much, but Jessica is used to it, and I think she enjoys it. He's the one who has always made things work in their lives."