Betty Buckley

In Carrie (1976), Betty Buckley is Miss Collins, the sympathetic gym teacher alongside Sissy Spacek’s bullied schoolgirl. It is a good introduction to the supporting work we value in her: an adult whose authority allows for kindness. We were frightened by Carrie because Spacek makes us care about the girl being bullied. Brian De Palma’s camera sometimes pays more attention to the girls’ bodies than their suffering warrants. Buckley’s kindness is welcome in a film that gives us so much reason to worry about its schoolgirl.

Carrie was her film debut, but the career has never been confined to films. Television brought wider recognition with Abby Abbott in Eight Is Enough (1977–81), while Grizabella in Cats (1983) made her vocal power central to her stage reputation. Her musical performances treat songs as lived stories. That is the quality worth carrying across to her screen work: a teacher or a psychiatrist needs a life beyond the job description.

The Happening (2008) supplies the caution. As Mrs. Jones, Buckley joins M. Night Shyamalan for a thriller whose frightening opening gives way to awkward dialogue and performances we struggle to believe. Our objection is to the film’s failure to sustain its tension, and a supporting actor cannot reasonably be expected to repair that. There are troubling images worth acknowledging, but we would not recommend it as an evening’s viewing. It is a poor place to start with Buckley.

Shyamalan’s second collaboration with her, Split (2017), casts her as psychiatrist Dr. Karen Fletcher. Her contribution there is the sort of measured supporting work we look for, giving another professional figure some weight. Teachers, psychiatrists and grandmothers recur in her casting; the danger is that authority becomes the whole character. Start with Carrie: the sympathetic teacher is worth noticing even when the frightened pupil rightly holds our attention.