There are numerous actresses who gave radiant performances this year, all of them at least a generation, if not two, younger than our winning pick. But our heart goes out to theater veteran, and consummate pro, Jeannette Clift George. Playing obsessed, drab Carrie Watts in Horton Foote's masterpiece The Trip to Bountiful, George oozed humanity, compassion and humility as she fought her doughy son and unsympathetic daughter-in-law to realize her dream of visiting her family's Gulf Coast farm. Wily trooper that she is — and has been for decades — George ran with Foote's overflowing, impressionistic drama as if an Olympian; she didn't even get winded. What Foote didn't supply, George showed. A mesmerizing, distinctive stage presence, always vividly alive on stage, she brightens the theater and gives tasty lessons to all her younger colleagues, as she so bountifully demonstrates for those lucky spectators in the audience.