Movie Quote of the Day (‘Crossing Delancey,’ As a Young Woman Meets a Matchmaker)

Isabelle “Izzy” Grossman [played by Amy Irving] [Objecting to a surprise appointment with a matchmaker]: “Excuse me, but I don't know what you think you're doing.”

Bubbie Kantor [played by Reizl Bozyk]: “First you'll listen, then you'll talk.”

Hannah Mandelbaum [played by Sylvia Miles]: “Very nice, very nice girl. She lives by her parents?”

Bubbie: “Naaaah, they live in Florida with Red Buttons. All the social security checks under one roof—you can have it!”

Hannah: “So, Isabella, you got your own apartment?”

Bubbie: “Naaaaah, she lives alone in a room, like a dog. A dog should live alone, not people... a dog!”

Isabelle: “It is not a room, it's an apartment, a very nice apartment. You know, you've been there, there's a bedroom, a bathroom...”

Bubbie: “Sure, with bars on the windows like a prison. Someone should crawl in at night, I'm always thinking!”

Isabelle: “Stop thinking!”—Crossing Delancey (1988), screenplay by Susan Sandler, directed by Joan Micklin Silver

One of the best parts of the offbeat rom-com Crossing Delancey was the performance of Sylvia Miles (far left, seated next to Amy Irving), who practically walked off with the picture as matchmaker Hannah Mandelbaum.

But then again, it wasn’t the first time that the actress—born on this day 98 years ago in New York as Sylvia Scheinwald —made a major impression in a subsidiary role. She was nominated twice for Best Supporting Actress Oscars in dramatic roles—as an aging kept woman in Midnight Cowboy and as an alcoholic in Farewell, My Lovely.

Yet for as long as she lived—until her death two years ago—she couldn’t help mourning the roles that got away—including the role of sitcom writer Sally Rogers, which she played in a pilot but lost out to Rose-Marie for the regular run of The Dick Van Dyke Show.