Sparkle (1976)

Mary Alice: Effie

Photos 

Quotes 

• Delores : Oh, Mom, you don't have to iron our clothes. We're old enough to iron for ourselves. You iron enough for them people you work for. You ain't our maid.

  Effie : Well, I enjoy ironing clothes for those I love.

  Delores : I suppose you love them crackers you work for out on Long Island too.

  Effie : You better hush your mouth. Go get your homework before I give you this iron in a place you won't forget.

• Effie : [Effie comes in and hears a hallway door close]  Delores? Is that you?

  Delores : Yeah, Mama.

  [coming in the front room with a suitcase] 

  Effie : Where you going?

  Delores : I'm leaving, Mama.

  Effie : You're leaving for where?

  Delores : I'm leaving and I'm going away.

  Effie : What do you mean?

  Delores : I mean... I can't live like this anymore, Mama. I gotta find another way.

  Effie : Well, whatever troubles you got here

  [crossing to the living room and taking off her coat] 

  Effie : are going right with you and that suitcase.

  [she sits on the couch] 

  Delores : You don't understand, Mama.

  [sets down her suitcase] 

  Delores : Like, there's education like there never was before. Mama, we don't have to slaves to the white establishment anymore.

  [Effie gets up and starts straightening up the room] 

  Delores : We don't have to live off what the white man throws our way. Thanking him for his chicken-shit pay and chicken-shit jobs. We don't have to run around shining his shoes and driving his cars and cleaning his floors and being his ma - ...

  Effie : [facing Delores]  Go on, now, say it. Being their maid. Hmm?

  Delores : Yeah, Mama. Being their maid.

  [near tears] 

  Delores : Mama, I seen you, ever since I was a little kid, getting up in the middle of the night to take the subway to ride for two hours to go to their house, to do their cooking and to do their ironing and do their cleaning and wash the shit out of their toilet. And for what, Mama? For WHAT?

  [Delores picks up her suitcase and heads for the door] 

  Delores : Bye.

• Sister : Theatrical makeup is terrible for my face, Momma.

  Effie : [Effie sees the bruises on Sister's face]  Sister.

  [Effie turns Sister's face with her hands] 

  Effie : Baby. He's just going to drag you... to the gutter...

  Sister : The...

  Effie : ...with him.

  Sister : ...gutter?

  Effie : Um-hum.

  Sister : How can you say that? He's as big time as you can get.

  Effie : I've lived in Harlem all my life. I do know a rat when I see one.

  Sister : You don't understand, Momma, you don't understand.

  Effie : Well... I've said my piece. I'm going home.

• Effie : I told you a long time ago. I said: "Spark, a man's got to do what he's got to do."