Julie Hagerty

Julie Hagerty treats the romance in Airplane (1980) seriously enough for a disco parody to interrupt it. As Elaine Dickinson, opposite Robert Hays's Ted Striker, she keeps the couple's melodrama clear while the film throws jokes across it. We laughed hard when the bar flashback turned towards disco, because they had given the romance enough weight to make the silliness count. They give us a couple to follow through all the jokes, however ridiculous things become.

Her breathy soprano and wide-eyed manner are useful comic tools, but she never signals that she knows better than the woman she is playing. She stays earnest while the others add to the chaos. Jim Abrahams, David Zucker and Jerry Zucker use that seriousness across the cast of Airplane to keep the jokes coming without exhausting the story. The wordplay can be painfully corny, and some lines owe their survival to the people delivering them.

Her breakthrough lead was followed by Airplane II: The Sequel (1982), before the career settled increasingly into supporting roles. Lost in America (1985) paired her with Albert Brooks, also its director, and What About Bob? (1991) cast her as Fay Marvin. From the 2000s, character parts became the main business, including Instant Family (2018) and Marriage Story (2019). Wives, mothers and grandmothers make sense as casting, though they risk making her contribution seem cosier and smaller than the early lead suggests.

The danger is that casting her becomes a shortcut: a soft voice, an innocent face, a quick laugh, and no further demands. We would welcome more roles that ask her to sustain a scene, as Elaine does, rather than merely add a little eccentricity. Start with Airplane and pay as much attention to the romance as to the jokes.