Auntie Mame
1958 Nominee

100 Words
It’s hard to describe, but I will try. Maybe it’s her accent. Maybe it’s her ease with raising boys. Maybe it’s her worldliness or her wordiness. Maybe it’s the cigarette or the dark hair or her sparkling wardrobe, but something about Mame reminded me of my grandmother. Here was a woman who smiled even when she was terminally ill and walked everywhere and said hello to everyone. She could melt ice around a frozen heart and I know that because she did it to mine.

Maybe it was that she called everyone, “Darling,” and that she meant it, every time.