On Twenty Years of "Six Feet Under"

Today, I'm celebrating the actress Frances Conroy. Why? It's the twentieth anniversary of the premier of HBO's "Six Feet Under."

I half-watched most of this series, years ago, and in my view, Conroy was the standout. (She won a Golden Globe for her work as Ruth.) I know this show had a prominent gay male character, but mostly I didn't care about him. I cared about Ruth.

We should let gay men invent TV series--regardless of a gay man's creative limitations--because this move means that we may see Conroy, Kathy Bates, Lili Taylor, Patricia Clarkson, Lauren Ambrose, and Rachel Griffiths on-screen. All of these women had opportunities to chew scenery on "Six Feet Under." (Bates and Conroy then went on to work with another gay power broker, Ryan Murphy, on "American Horror Story.")

In "Six Feet Under," Conroy sometimes seemed to be reinventing another iconic Alan Ball figure--Annette Bening's tightly-wound "Carolyn," from "American Beauty." With Conroy, you'd sense someone teetering on the edge. Occasionally, Conroy's eyes would get crazy, and her voice would drop six octaves--and, in a thrilling way, she'd lose control.

Though the Times skips this, my favorite SFU moment is when Conroy erupts in front of her self-absorbed sister, Patricia Clarkson. And Clarkson fires back with a memorable line: "You think my life wasn't hard? ....IT'S *ALL* HARD."

Hats off to Conroy (and you can also see her being odd and frightening in "The Tale," with Laura Dern). Ms. C. is an inspiration to me.

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