The film, including a tragic scene in which her character must make an unthinkable choice between her two children, established Streep as an actress unafraid to dive into the more troublesome aspects of human nature. The Academy lauded Streep’s performance with another Oscar. Her masterful performances continued with Silkwood (1983) and Sydney Pollack’s Out of Africa with Robert Redford. Mike Nichol’s Heartburn and the tragic Ironweed, both co-starring Jack Nicholson, met less box office and critical success, although Streep’s performances were consistently stellar. Unfortunately, Streep hit some rough spots in the early 1990s, including She-Devil with Roseanne Bar, Death Becomes Her, and The House of Spirits. However, her professional dry spell called attention to the lack of quality roles for women in Hollywood, and Steep began to publically raise much-needed concern about the male-dominated film industry. Striving for new challenges, she took on her first action film and learned to navigate Class V rapids for The River Wild, co-starring a menacing Kevin Bacon. However, in 1995, a role landed on Streep’s doorstep that would reestablish her as one of the most talented and versatile actresses of her day. In Clint Eastwood’s The Bridges of Madison County, Streep played Francesca, a strangely misplaced Italian woman living in the Midwest as a farmer’s wife. Her portrayal of a wife and mother struggling on the border between loyalty and undying passion earned her yet another Oscar nomination. In somewhat of a career renaissance, films such as Before and After, Marvin’s Room, Dancing at Lughnasa, and the emotionally harrowing One True Thing, in which she played a woman dying of cancer, have thoroughly exhibited Streep’s dramatic range. In 1997, she took her first stab at executive production in the made-for-television movie …First Do No Harm about a mother of a child with severe epilepsy. Although 1999’s Music of the Heart was largely panned by critics and audiences alike, Streep’s performance was recognized as one of its only saving graces. She received her twelfth Oscar nomination in 22 years, tying Katherine Hepburn for the greatest total number of acting Academy Award nominations.