Join us for a lively conversation with actress/author Marianne Leone and her husband, Oscar-winning actor Chris Cooper.

Marianne Leone, actress, writer, and advocate for disabled children, is the author of Five-Dog Epiphany: How a Quintet of Badass Bichons Retrieved Our Joy (Sep. 2024)— a tribute to the rescue dogs who helped her and husband Chris Cooper rediscover happiness after the tragic loss of their son Jesse, who died in 2005 at age 17 from complications of cerebral palsy. An actress in many films, including The Thin Blue Line (1988), True Love (1989), Goodfellas (1990), and The Three Stooges (2012), Leone is best known for her recurring role in the hit series The Sopranos as the mother of mobster Christopher Moltisanti.

Chris Cooper earned an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his role as backwoods “orchid poacher” John Laroche in the 2002 film, Adaptation, based on The Orchid Thief by Susan Orlean. Cooper collaborates frequently with celebrated filmmaker and Schenectady native John Sayles, appearing in Matewan (1987), City of Hope (1991), Lone Star (1996), Silver City (2004), and Amigo (2010). Other credits include American Beauty (1999), Seabiscuit (2003), Capote (2005), Syriana (2005), The Kingdom (2007), Where the Wild Things Are (2009), A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (2019), and Little Women (2019). On TV, he starred as Sheriff July Johnson in the widely acclaimed 1989 miniseries, Lonesome Dove.

Marianne Leone & Chris Cooper
Monday, September 16
7:30 p.m. Conversation/Q&A with WAMC’s Joe Donahue
Page Hall - University at Albany Downtown Campus
135 Western Avenue, Albany NY 12203
Free and open to the public
https://www.nyswritersinstitute.org/marianneleoneandchriscooper

About Five-Dog Epiphany: How a Quintet of Badass Bichons Retrieved Our Joy
Marianne Leone writes about the joy that can be summoned after a great loss, "when you look into the eyes of another damaged creature and know that your happiness is a mirror and an echo and a prayer and that the little soul reflecting all that energy is happy too, at last."

This memoir is a moving and sometimes surprisingly funny exploration of grief and the mutual healing that can occur between rescue dogs and people who have experienced a soul-crushing loss. Leone and her husband, actor Chris Cooper, lost their only child suddenly in 2005. Jesse was seventeen, a straight-A student, and a brilliant poet, who was also quadriplegic and nonverbal except with the assistance of a computer.

When six-year-old Jesse miraculously blurted "dog" to Santa, Goody appeared on his bed on Christmas morning. Goody was followed by Lucky, Frenchy, Titi, and Sugar, all rescues adopted after Jesse’s passing. After Jesse’s death, Leone grew a tumor the size of her premature son at birth, her husband disappeared into dark acting roles (Breach, Married Life), and Leone fainted during the filming of a scene in The Sopranos where she is standing in front of her television son’s coffin.

This is the story of a bereaved couple and a pack of rescue dogs finding their way to a new life, everyone licking their wounds, both corporal and spiritual, and the rediscovery of joy.

Major support for The Creative Life is provided by the University at Albany Foundation.