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LAST WEEK’S RESULTS:

Title: “Man Seeking Woman”
Prompt: This week’s contest answer is an Oscar-winning actress of the 1970s.
Answer: CLORIS LEACHMAN
Correct entries: 375 overall, of which 301 were solo

Tricky for a Week 2. First insight was that if you add the word “man” to the first word of each theme entry you get the surname of a famous actress:

PORT OF SPAIN = Natalie PORTman
KID AROUND = Nicole KIDman
ELF OWLS = Jenna ELFman
NEW GUINEA = Laraine NEWman. Maybe the least famous of the bunch, but if you’re one of the seven original cast members of “Saturday Night Live” then your fame lives on even if your career fades.
Although she was very good on an episode of “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”
HUFF AND PUFF = Felicity HUFFman

That’s gotta be right, but now what? Second insight: There are five clues mentioning an “actor” where one of these five -man actresses would also be a valid answer. Following the order of our theme entries, they are:

41-D: [“Closer” actor] is Jude LAW, but could also be Natalie Portman
49-D: [“Days of Thunder” actor] = Cary ELWES, but could also be Nicole Kidman
12-D: [“Grosse Pointe Blank” actor] = Alan ARKIN, but could also be Jenna Elfman
38-D: [“SNL” original cast actor] = Chevy CHASE, but could also be Laraine Newman
24-D: [“Reversal of Fortune” actor] = Uta HAGEN, but could also be Felicity Huffman

The first letters of those actor entries yield LEACH; add -man again as the theme required and you’ve
got contest answer Cloris LEACHMAN, who won Best Supporting Actress for 1971’s “The Last Picture Show.”

Obviously that’s not from “The Last Picture Show.”

Laura M. says:

Didn’t realize until Googling that she’d passed away, and so recently. Very funny lady!

Yep, January 27th of this year at age 93. Was an active (and funny) Tweeter up until the end.

And LuckyGuest says:

Man, I was wondering how to break the tie!

Meaning the choice between Cloris Leachman and the other -man Oscar-winning actress in the 1970s, Ingrid Bergman. 27 solvers noticed the -man thing but not the five relevant clues in the grid and lost the coin flip by submitting Ingrid. Especially tricky since “Ingrid” looks like a crosswordy hint of “in-grid”!

THIS WEEK’S INSTRUCTIONS:

This week’s 12-letter answer describes where some creatures can go and others cannot.

NOTE: Due to the late publication, the deadline for this puzzle is Wednesday, May 26th at noon ET.

Solve well, and be not led astray by words intended to deceive.