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Kim Stanley
Photograph by Carl Van Vechten, 1961
Born	Patricia Reid (1925-02-11)February 11, 1925 Tularosa, New Mexico, U.S.
Died	August 20, 2001(2001-08-20) (aged 76) Santa Fe, New Mexico, U.S.
Alma mater	Actors Studio University of New Mexico
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1950–1985
Spouse	Bruce Hall (1945–1946; divorced) Curt Conway (1949–1956; divorced) 2 children Alfred Ryder (1958–1964; divorced) 1 child Joseph Siegel (1964–1967; divorced)

Kim Stanley (February 11, 1925 – August 20, 2001) was an American actress, primarily in television and theatre, but with occasional film performances.

She began her acting career in theatre, and subsequently attended the Actors Studio in New York City, New York. She received the 1952 Theatre World Award for her role in The Chase (1952), and starred in the Broadway productions of Picnic (1953) and Bus Stop (1955). Stanley was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Play for her roles in A Touch of the Poet (1959) and A Far Country (1962).

During the 1950s, Stanley was a prolific performer in television, and later progressed to film, with a well-received performance in The Goddess (1959). She was the narrator of To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) and starred in Séance on a Wet Afternoon (1964), for which she won the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress. She was less active during the remainder of her career; two of her later film successes were as the mother of Frances Farmer in Frances (1982), for which she received a second Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actress, and as Pancho Barnes in The Right Stuff (1983). She received an Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress – Miniseries or a Movie for her performance as Big Mama in a television adaptation of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1985).

Last years[link]

She did not act during her later years, preferring the role of teacher, in Los Angeles, California, and later Santa Fe, New Mexico, where she died in 2001, of uterine cancer.

Early life[link]

Stanley was born Patricia Reid in Tularosa, New Mexico, the daughter of Ann (née Miller), an interior decorator, and J. T. Reid, a professor of philosophy and education at the University of New Mexico, located in Albuquerque.^[1] Her father was of Irish or Scottish descent, born and raised in Texas, where he met her mother (who was of German and English ancestry). She had three brothers (Howard Clinton Reid, a psychiatrist; Kenneth Reid, killed in pilot training during World War II; and Justin Truman Reid, a lawyer); and a half-sister, Carol Ann Reid.^[1] She was a drama major at the University of New Mexico and later studied at the Pasadena Playhouse and adopted her maternal grandmother's surname as her stage name.^[1]

Career[link]

Stanley was a successful Broadway actress with only a few film roles. She was singled out by The New York Times critic Brooks Atkinson for her early work. She eventually attended the Actors Studio, studying under Elia Kazan and Lee Strasberg. She received the 1952 Theatre World Award for her performance as Anna Reeves in The Chase,^[2] and starred in such Broadway hits as Picnic (1953), playing Millie Owens (which she never felt received the credit it deserved) and Bus Stop (1955), playing Cherie.

She was nominated for the 1959 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for A Touch of the Poet and the 1962 Tony for Best Actress in a Play for her portrayal of Elizabeth von Ritter in Henry Denker's A Far Country. Stanley also portrayed Maggie "The Cat" in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in the original London production of the play. She was a leading lady of live television drama, which flourished in New York City during the 1950s. Among her many starring roles was Wilma, a star-struck 15-year-old girl from the U.S. Gulf Coast of Texas in Horton Foote's A Young Lady of Property, which aired on The Philco-Goodyear Television Playhouse on April 5, 1953. Following a savaging by English critics after her London performance of "Masha" in an Actors Studio production of Anton Chekhov's play The Three Sisters (1965) she vowed never to perform on stage again, a vow she kept for the rest of her life.^{[citation needed]}

Film[link]

Her first film was The Goddess (1958), playing a tragic movie star modeled on Marilyn Monroe (though she and director, John Cromwell, would forever deny Marilyn's influence, using Rita Hayworth as being more accurate). She starred in Séance on a Wet Afternoon (1964), winning both the National Board of Review Award for Best Actress and the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress, and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress and the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role.

A filmed version of Strasberg-directed Three Sisters (1966) opened with Stanley reprising the role of Masha, and is the only time one can see her perform in a film alongside Geraldine Page, Sandy Dennis, Shelley Winters and other well-known names of the Actors Studio. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture for her performance as Frances Farmer's possessive mother in Frances (1982). She also played Pancho Barnes in The Right Stuff (1983). Stanley was the uncredited narrator in the drama film To Kill a Mockingbird (1962). As the narrator, she represents the character Jean Louise Finch ("Scout") as an adult. Mary Badham portrays Scout as a child in the film.

She received an Emmy Award for Outstanding Single Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role for her appearance in the episode, "A Cardinal Act of Mercy" (1963), of the television series, Ben Casey (1961–1966), and an Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited Series or a Special for her appearance in Tennessee Williams's Southern melodrama Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1985), this time as Big Mama.

Personal life[link]

Stanley was married four times – Bruce Hall (1945–1946), Curt Conway (1949– 1956), Alfred Ryder (1958–1964) and Joseph Siegel (1964–1967) – with all four marriages ending in divorce. She had three children, one by Conway, one by Brooks Clift (brother of Montgomery Clift) while she was married to Conway, and one by Ryder. During her marriage to Ryder, Stanley converted to Judaism.^[3]

Death[link]

Stanley died of uterine cancer while living in a Santa Fe, New Mexico, nursing home at the age of 76. She was survived by her first husband, Bruce Hall, her brother Justin, her three children, and several nephews and nieces. A biography, Female Brando: the Legend of Kim Stanley (2006), by Jon Krampner, was published by Back Stage Books, a division of Watson-Guptill.

See also[link]

	Biography portal
	Film portal
	Theatre portal
	Television portal

• List of American film actresses
• List of American television actresses

References[link]

External links[link]

• Kim Stanley at the Internet Broadway Database
• Kim Stanley at the Internet Movie Database
• Biographer Jon Krampner KimStanley.net Website
• Telegraph obituary
• Documentary film-in-progress THE NEEDS OF KIM STANLEY Kim Stanley at the Internet Movie Database

Look up kim in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Kim may refer to:

Names[link]

• Kim (given name)
• Kim (surname)
• Kim (Korean name)
• Kim, Vietnamese form of Jin (surname)

Places[link]

• Kim, Colorado, United States
• Camp Kim, Seoul, South Korea, a military facility
• Kimberley Airport, IATA code KIM
• Kim, a town near Surat, Gujarat, India

Media[link]

• Kim (novel), by Rudyard Kipling
• Kim (film), a 1950 American adventure film
• Kim (TV film), a 1984 British film
• "Kim" (song), by Eminem

Other uses[link]

• Kim (food)
• Kim people
• Kim language
• Tropical Storm Kim (disambiguation), eight tropical Pacific Ocean cyclones
• KIM-1, a microcomputer
• Kingdom Identity Ministries, a Christian organization

See also[link]

• Kim's Game
• Kem (disambiguation)
• Khim
• KIMM (disambiguation)
• Kimberly (disambiguation)

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

John Garfield
Warner Bros. publicity photo, c. late 1930s
Born	Jacob Julius Garfinkle (1913-03-04)March 4, 1913 New York City, New York
Died	May 21, 1952(1952-05-21) (aged 39) New York City, New York
Spouse	Roberta Seidman (1935–1952)
Children	Katherine Garfield (died, age 7), Julie Garfield, John Garfield Jr.

John Garfield (March 4, 1913 – May 21, 1952) was an American actor adept at playing brooding, rebellious, working-class character roles.^[1] He grew up in poverty in Depression-era New York City and in the early 1930s became an important member of the Group Theater. In 1937 he moved to Hollywood, eventually becoming one of Warner Bros.' major stars. Called to testify before the U.S. Congressional House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC), he denied Communist affiliation and refused to "name names", effectively ending his film career. Some have claimed that the stress of this incident led to his premature death at 39 from a heart attack.^[2] Garfield is acknowledged as a predecessor of such Method actors as Montgomery Clift, Marlon Brando, and James Dean.

Youth[link]

Jacob Julius Garfinkle

Jacob Garfinkle was born in a small apartment on Rivington Street in Manhattan's Lower East Side, to David and Hannah Garfinkle, Russian Jewish immigrants. In early infancy a middle name—Julius—was added, and for the rest of his life those who knew him well called him Julie. His father, a clothes presser and part time cantor, struggled to make a living and to provide even marginal comfort for his small family. When Garfield was five, his brother Max was born and their mother never fully recovered from what was described as a "difficult" pregnancy. She died two years later and the young boys were sent to live with various relatives, all poor, scattered across the boroughs of Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx. Several of these relatives lived in tenements in a section of East Brooklyn called Brownsville and there Garfield lived in one house and slept in another. At school he was judged a poor reader and speller, deficits that were aggravated by irregular attendance. He would later say of his time on the streets there, that he learned "all the meanness, all the toughness it's possible for kids to acquire."^[3]

His father remarried and moved to the West Bronx where Garfield joined a series of gangs. Much later he would recall: "Every street had its own gang. That's the way it was in poor sections... the old safety in numbers." He soon become gang leader. At this time people started to notice his ability to mimic well-known performers, both bodily and facially. He also began to hang out and eventually spar at a boxing gym on Jerome Avenue. At some point he contracted scarlet fever, (it was diagnosed later in adulthood) causing permanent damage to his heart and causing him to miss a lot of school. After being expelled three times and expressing a wish to quit school altogether, he parents sent him to P.S. 45, a school for difficult children. It was under the guidance of the school's principal—the noted educator Angelo Patri—that he was introduced to acting.^[2] Noticing Garfield's tendency to stammer, Patri assigned him to a speech therapy class taught by a charismatic teacher named Margaret O'Ryan. She gave him acting exercises and made him memorize and deliver speeches in front of the class and, as he progressed, in front of school assemblies. O'Ryan thought he had natural talent and cast him in school plays. She encouraged him to sign up for a city-wide debating competition sponsored by the New York Times. To his own surprise, he took second prize.

With Patri and O'Ryan's encouragement he began to take acting lessons at a drama school that was part of The Heckscher Foundation and began to appear in their productions. At one of the latter he received back-stage congratulations and an offer of support from the Yiddish actor Jacob Ben-Ami who recommended him to the American Laboratory Theater. Funded by the Theatre Guild, "the Lab" had contracted with Richard Boleslavski to stage its experimental productions and with Russian actress and expatriate Maria Ouspenskaya to supervise classes in acting. Former members of the Moscow Art Theater, they were the first proponents of Stanislavsky's "system" in the United States. Garfield took morning classes and began volunteering time at the Lab after hours, auditing rehearsals, building and painting scenery, and doing crew work. He would later view this time as beginning his apprenticeship in the theater. Among the people becoming disenchanted with the Guild and turning to the Lab for a more radical, challenging environment were Stella Adler, Lee Strasberg, Franchot Tone, Cheryl Crawford and Harold Clurman. All would become strongly influential in Garfield's later career.

After a stint with Eva Le Gallienne's Civic Repertory Theater and a short period of vagrancy involving hitchhiking, freight hopping, picking fruit, logging in the pacific northwest (Preston Sturges conceived the film Sullivan's Travels after hearing Garfield tell of his hobo adventures^[3]) Garfield made his Broadway debut in 1932, in a play called Lost Boy. It ran for only two weeks but gave Garfield something critically important for an actor struggling to break into the theater: a credit.

New York theater and The Group[link]

Garfield received feature billing in his next role, that of Henry the office boy, in Elmer Rice's play Counsellor-at-Law starring Paul Muni. The play ran for three months, made an eastern tour and returned for an unprecedented second return engagement, only closing when Muni was contractually compelled to return to Hollywood to make a film for Warners. At this point the Warner company expressed an interest in Garfield and sought to arrange a screen test. He turned them down.

Garfield's former colleagues Crawford, Clurman and Strasburg had begun a new theater collective, calling it simply "the Group", and Garfield lobbied his friends hard to get in. After months of rejection he began frequenting the inside steps of the Broadhurst Theater where the Group had its offices. Cheryl Crawford noticed him one day and greeted him warmly. Feeling encouraged, he made his request for apprenticeship. Something intangible impressed her and she recommended him to the other directors. They made no dissent.

Clifford Odets had been a close friend of Garfield from the early days in the Bronx. After Odets' one-act play Waiting for Lefty became a surprise hit, the Group announced it would mount a production of his full length drama Awake and Sing. At the playwright's insistence, Garfield was cast as Ralph, the sensitive young son who pled for "a chance to get to first base." The play opened in February 1935 and Garfield was singled out by critic Brooks Atkinson for having a "splendid sense of character development." Garfield's apprenticeship was officially over; he was voted full membership by the company. Odets was the man of the moment and he claimed to the press that Garfield was his "find"; that he would soon write a play just for him. That play would turn out to be Golden Boy and when Luther Adler was cast in the lead role instead, a disillusioned Garfield began to take a second look at the overtures being made by Hollywood.^[4]

Warner Bros.[link]

From the trailer for the film Four Daughters (1938)

Garfield had been approached by Hollywood studios before—both Paramount and Warners offering screen tests—but talks had always stalled over a clause he wanted inserted in his contract, one that would allow him time off for stage work. Now Warner Bros. acceded to his demand and Garfield signed a standard feature-player agreement—seven years with options—in Warner's New York office.^[5] Many in the Group were livid over what they considered his betrayal. Elia Kazan's reaction was different, suggesting that the Group did not so much fear that Garfield would fail, but that he would succeed.^[3] Jack Warner's first order of business was a change of name to John Garfield.

After many false starts he was finally cast in a supporting, yet crucial role as a tragic young composer in a Michael Curtiz film titled Four Daughters. After the picture's release in 1938, he received wide critical acclaim and a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. The studio quickly revised Garfield's contract—designating him a star player rather than a featured one—for seven years without options. They also created a name-above-the-title vehicle for him titled: They Made Me a Criminal. Before the breakout success of Daughters Garfield had made a B movie feature called Blackwell's Island. Not wanting their new star to appear in a low budget film, Warners ordered an A movie upgrade by adding an additional $100,000 to its budget and recalling its director Michael Curtiz to shoot newly scripted scenes.

Garfield's debut had a cinematic impact difficult to conceive in retrospect. As biographer Lawrence Swindell put it:

"Garfield's work was spontaneous, non-actory; it had abandon. He didn't recite dialogue, he attacked it until it lost the quality of talk and took on the nature of speech. The screen actor had been dialogue's servant, but now Julie had switched those roles. Like Cagney he was an exceptionally mobile performer from the start of his screen career. These traits were orchestrated with his physical appearance to create a screen persona innately powerful in the sexual sense. What Warners saw immediately was that Garfield's impact was felt by both sexes. This was almost unique."^[3]

From the trailer for the film Gentleman's Agreement (1947)

His "honeymoon" with Warners over, Garfield entered a protracted period of conflict with the studio, they attempting to cast him in crowd-pleasing melodramas like Dust Be My Destiny and he insisting on quality scripts that would offer a challenge and highlight his versatility. The result was often a series of suspensions, Garfield refusing an assigned role and Warners refusing to pay him. Garfield's problem was the same problem shared by any actor working in the studio system of the 1930s: by contract the studio had the right to cast him in any project they wanted to. But, as Robert Nott explains, "To be fair, most of the studios had a team of producers, directors, and writers who could pinpoint a particular star’s strengths and worked to capitalize on those strengths in terms of finding vehicles that would appeal to the public – and hence make the studio money. The forces that prevented him from getting high quality roles were really the result of the combined willpower of the Warner Bros., the studio system in general, and the general public, which also had its own perception of how Garfield (or Cagney or Bogart for that matter) should appear on screen."^[6] A notable exception to this trend was Daughters Courageous, the sequel to his debut film. Now considered a late 1930s classic, the film did well critically but failed to find an audience, the public dissatisfied that it was not a true sequel (hard to pull of since the original character Mickey Borden died in the first picture). The director Curtiz called the film "my obscure masterpiece".^[3]

At the onset of World War II, Garfield immediately attempted to enlist in the armed forces, but was turned down because of his heart condition.^[4] Frustrated, he turned his energies to supporting the war effort. He and actress Bette Davis were the driving forces behind the opening of the Hollywood Canteen, a club offering food and entertainment for American servicemen. He traveled overseas to help entertain the troops, made several bond selling tours and starred in a string of popular, patriotic films like Air Force, Destination Tokyo and Pride of the Marines (all box office successes). He was particularly proud of the latter film based on the life of Al Schmid, a war hero blinded in combat. In preparing for the role Garfield lived for several weeks with Schmid and his wife in Philadelphia and would blindfold himself for hours at a time.

After the war Garfield starred in a series of successful films such as The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946) with Lana Turner, Humoresque (1946) with Joan Crawford, and the Oscar-winning Best Picture Gentleman's Agreement (1947). In the latter film, Garfield took a featured, but supporting, part because he believed deeply in the film's exposé of antisemitism in America. In 1948, he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for his starring role in Body and Soul (1947). That same year, Garfield returned to Broadway in the play Skipper Next to God. A strong-willed and often verbally combative individual, Garfield did not hesitate to venture out on his own when the opportunity arose. In 1946, when his contract with Warner Bros. expired, Garfield decided not to renew it and opted to start his own independent production company, one of the first Hollywood stars to take this step.

The Red Scare[link]

Long involved in liberal politics, Garfield was caught up in the Communist scare of the late 1940s and early 1950s. He supported the Committee for the First Amendment, which opposed governmental investigation of political beliefs. When called to testify before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, which was empowered to investigate purported communist infiltration in America, Garfield refused to name communist party members or followers, testifying that, indeed, he knew none in the film industry. Garfield rejected Communism, and just prior to his death, in hopes of redeeming himself in the eyes of the blacklisters, wrote that he had been duped by Communist ideology, in an unpublished article "I Was a Sucker for a Left Hook", a reference to Garfield's movies about boxing.^[7] However, his forced testimony before the committee had severely damaged his reputation. He was blacklisted in Red Channels, and barred from future employment as an actor by Hollywood movie studio bosses for the remainder of his career.^[2]

With film work scarce because of the blacklist, Garfield returned to Broadway and starred in a 1952 revival of Golden Boy, finally being cast in the lead role denied him years before.

Death[link]

John Garfield's grave in Westchester Hills Cemetery

John Garfield's footstone

On May 9, 1952 Garfield moved out of his New York apartment for the last time, indicating to friends it was not a temporary separation. He confided to columnist Earl Wilson that he would soon be divorced. Close friends speculated that it was his wife's opposition to his plotted confession in Look magazine that triggered the separation. He heard that a HUAC investigator was reviewing his testimony for possible perjury charges. His agent reported that 20th Century wanted him for a film called Taxi but would not even begin talks unless the investigation concluded in his favor. Three actor friends Canada Lee, Mady Christians and J. Edward Bromberg had all recently died after being listed by the committee.^[3]

In the morning of May 20 Garfield, against his doctor's strict orders, played several strenuous sets of tennis with a friend, mentioning the fact that he had not been to bed the night before. He met actress Iris Whitney for dinner and afterward became suddenly ill complaining that he felt chilled. She brought him to her apartment where he refused to let her call a doctor and instead went to bed. The next morning she found him dead. Long-term heart problems, allegedly aggravated by the stress of his blacklisting,^[8] had led to his death at the age of 39.

The funeral was the largest in New York since Rudolph Valentino with over ten thousand persons crowding the streets outside. His estate, valued at "more than $100,000", was left entirely to his wife. Shortly afterward, ironically, the HUAC closed its investigation of John Garfield, leaving him in the clear. Garfield is interred at Westchester Hills Cemetery in Hastings-on-Hudson, Westchester County, New York.

In 1954, the widowed Roberta Garfield married attorney Sidney Cohn, who died in 1991. She died in January 2004.^[9]

Personal life[link]

He and Roberta Seidman married in February 1935. Though his wife had been a member of the Communist Party,^[10] there was no evidence that Garfield himself was ever a Communist. They had three children: Katherine (1938–1945), who died of an allergic reaction on March 18, 1945, David (1943–1994), and Julie (born 1946), the latter two later becoming actors themselves.^[4]

Awards and nominations[link]

Garfield was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for Four Daughters in 1939 and Best Actor for Body and Soul in 1948.

He was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7065 Hollywood Boulevard.

Cultural references[link]

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.

Doc Sportello, the protagonist in Thomas Pynchon's Inherent Vice, discusses his film appearances throughout the book. The John Prine song "The Late John Garfield Blues" is inspired by Garfield.

Filmography[link]

Features[link]

Short subjects[link]

• Swingtime in the Movies (1938)
• Meet the Stars #1: Chinese Garden Festival (1940)
• Show Business at War (1943)
• Screen Snapshots: The Skolsky Party (1946)
• Screen Snapshots: Out of This World Series (1947)

Documentary[link]

• The John Garfield Story (2003) (available on Warner Home Video's 2004 DVD of The Postman Always Rings Twice)

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Morris, George. John Garfield. New York, Jove Publications, 1977 ISBN 0-15-646250-8
• McGrath, Patrick J. (2006). John Garfield: The Illustrated Career in Films And on Stage. North Carolina: McFarland & Co., Inc.. pp. 273. ISBN 978-0-7864-2848-9. http://books.google.com/books?id=YfRpu4IB89AC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false. 

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: John Garfield

• John Garfield at the Internet Movie Database
• John Garfield at the Internet Broadway Database
• John Garfield – The first Rebel
• John Garfield at Find a Grave

Elaine Stritch
Elaine Stritch, in 2009
Born	Elaine Stritch (1925-02-02) February 2, 1925 (age 87) Detroit, Michigan
Occupation	Actress/Vocalist
Years active	1944–present
Spouse	John Bay (m.1973-1982; his death)

Elaine Stritch (born February 2, 1925) ^[1] is an American actress and vocalist. She has appeared in numerous stage plays and musicals, feature films, and many television programs. She is known for her performance of "The Ladies Who Lunch" in Stephen Sondheim's 1970 musical Company, her 2001 one-woman show, Elaine Stritch at Liberty, and recently for her role as Jack Donaghy's mother Colleen on NBC's 30 Rock. She has been nominated for the Tony Award five times in various categories, and won once, for Elaine Stritch at Liberty. Stritch is also a three-time Emmy Award winner.

Biography[link]

Early years[link]

Elaine Stritch was born in 1925^[2] in Detroit, Michigan to Mildred (née Jobe; 1893-1987), a homemaker, and George Joseph Stritch (1892-1987), an executive with B.F. Goodrich.^[3] Her family was wealthy and devoutly Roman Catholic.^[4][5] Stritch's father was of Irish descent and her mother was of Welsh descent. Samuel Cardinal Stritch, former Archbishop of Chicago, was one of her uncles.^[6]

Stritch trained at the Dramatic Workshop of The New School in New York City under Erwin Piscator;^[7] other students at the Dramatic Workshop at this time included Marlon Brando and Bea Arthur.^[8]

Beginning stage career[link]

Stritch made her stage debut in 1944. However, her Broadway debut was in Loco in 1947, directed by Jed Harris,^[9] followed soon after by Made in Heaven (as a replacement) ^[10]and then the revue Angel in the Wings (1947) in which she performed comedy sketches and the song "Civilization".^[11]

Stritch understudied Ethel Merman for Call Me Madam, and, at the same time, appeared in the 1952 revival of Pal Joey, singing "Zip".^[11] Stritch later starred in the national tour of Call Me Madam, and appeared in a supporting role in the original Broadway production of William Inge's play Bus Stop. She was the lead in Goldilocks.

She starred in Noël Coward's Sail Away on Broadway in 1961. Stritch started in the show in a "relatively minor role and was only promoted over the title and given virtually all the best songs when it was reckoned that the leading lady ... although excellent, was rather too operatic for a musical comedy."^[12] During out-of-town tryouts in Boston, Coward was "unsure about the dramatic talents" of one of the leads, opera singer Jean Fenn.^[13] "They were, after all, engaged for their voices and...it is madness to expect two singers to play subtle 'Noel Coward' love scenes with the right values and sing at the same time."^[13] Joe Layton suggested "What would happen if ... we just eliminated [Fenn's] role and gave everything to Stritch? ... The show was very old-fashioned, and the thing that was working was Elaine Stritch ... every time she went on stage [she]was a sensation. The reconstructed 'Sail Away' ... opened in New York on 3 October."^[13]. In 1966, she played Ruth Sherwood in the musical Wonderful Town at New York's City Center, and appeared in an Off Broadway revival of Private Lives in 1968.

Stritch became known as a singer with a brassy, powerful voice, most notably originating on Broadway the role of Joanne in Company (1970). After over a decade of successful runs in shows in New York, Stritch moved in 1972 to London, where she starred in the West End production of Company.

On tour and in stock, Stritch has appeared in such musicals as No No Nanette, The King and I, I Married an Angel, and both as Vera Charles (opposite Janet Blair) and Mame Dennis in Mame.

Television[link]

Elaine Stritch in 1973, by Allan Warren.

Her earliest television appearances were in The Growing Paynes (1949) and the Goodyear Television Playhouse (1953–55). She also appeared on episodes of The Ed Sullivan Show in 1954. She was the first and original Trixie Norton in the pilot for Honeymooners sketch with Jackie Gleason, Art Carney and Pert Kelton. The character was originally a burlesque dancer, but the role was rewritten and recast with Joyce Randolph playing the character as an ordinary housewife.^[7]

Stritch's other television credits, include a number of dramatic programs in the 1950s and 1960s, including Studio One. In the 1960 television season, Stritch appeared in the role of writer Ruth Sherwood in the CBS sitcom My Sister Eileen, opposite Shirley Bonne as her younger sister, Eileen Sherwood, an aspiring actress. The sisters, natives of Ohio, live in a brownstone apartment in Greenwich Village.

In 1975, Stritch starred in the British LWT comedy series Two's Company opposite Donald Sinden. She played Dorothy McNab, an American writer living in London who was famous for her lurid and sensationalist thriller novels. Sinden played Robert, her English butler, who disapproved of practically everything Dorothy did and the series derived its comedy from the inevitable culture clash between Robert's very British stiff-upper-lip attitude and Dorothy's devil-may-care New York view of life. Two's Company was exceptionally well-received in Britain and ran for four seasons until 1979, despite being buried in the "graveyard slot" of Sundays at 10:30pm. In 1979, both Stritch and Sinden were nominated for a BAFTA TV Award for Two's Company, in the category "Best Light Entertainment Performance", losing out to Ronnie Barker. Stritch and Sinden also sang the theme tune to the programme.

Other British television appearances included Roald Dahl's Tales of the Unexpected. Although she appeared several times in different roles, perhaps her most memorable appearance was in the story "William and Mary", in which she played the wife of a man who has cheated death by having his brain preserved. In his introduction to the episode, Dahl observed that humor should always be used in horror stories, in order to provide light to the shade, and that was why Stritch had been cast, as "an actress who knows a lot about humor". Stritch became a darling of the British chat show circuit, appearing with Michael Parkinson and Terry Wogan many times, usually ending the appearance with a song. She appeared on BBC One's children's series, Jackanory, reading, among other stories, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl.

After returning to the U.S., she appeared on The Edge of Night as vinegary nanny Mrs. DeGroot, then was cast as a regular on the short-lived The Ellen Burstyn Show in 1986. She appeared as the stern schoolteacher Mrs. McGee on three episodes of The Cosby Show (1989–1990). She followed later with appearances on Law & Order (1992, 1997) as Lainie Steiglitz; as Judge Grace Lema on Oz (1998); and as Martha Albright (mother of Jane Curtin's character) on two episodes of 3rd Rock From the Sun (1997, 2001), alongside her Broadway co-star George Grizzard, who played George Albright (the names George and Martha were a play on the characters Stritch and Grizzard played in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf).

Stritch was reportedly considered for the role of Dorothy Zbornak on The Golden Girls but, as she related in her show Elaine Stritch at Liberty, she "blew her audition".^[14] The role was subsequently cast with Bea Arthur (who had appeared with Stritch in 1956 in the television series Washington Square).

More recently, she was seen on One Life to Live (1993), replacing fellow stage legend Eileen Heckart as Wilma Bern. She has had recurring roles on Law & Order (1992, 1997) and 3rd Rock from the Sun (1997, 2001).^[15] On April 26, 2007, she began guest appearances on the NBC sitcom 30 Rock as Colleen, the fearsome mother of Alec Baldwin's lead character, Jack Donaghy.^[16] In 2008, Stritch appeared as herself in an episode during the second season of The Big Gay Sketch Show. She was spoofed during the first season as well as the second season.

Movie roles[link]

While Stritch has made it clear she prefers working on the stage,^{[citation needed]} she has in recent years appeared in more films than the early part of her career. In an interview in 1988, it was noted that "Making movies is challenging to Stritch since she considers herself a novice." She said: "I'm fascinated with it. And I want to do more of them." She was asked why she waited so long to make movies since she apparently enjoys it so much. "You do a movie for, like, three months and then you're finished. You do a part in a play and it's like going into a roomful of audiences for a year."^[17]

Early in her career, she appeared in Three Violent People (1956) starring Charlton Heston, as the hotel proprietor pal of Anne Baxter,^[18]and then co-starred opposite Rock Hudson and Jennifer Jones in the David O. Selznick remake of A Farewell to Arms (1957) as Hudson's nurse.^[19] In The Perfect Furlough, she co-starred opposite Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh. She had a showy role as the lesbian proprietor of a bar in the cult film Who Killed Teddy Bear (1965) which starred Sal Mineo.^[20] She played the role of the "tough-as-nails" nurse in the remake of The Spiral Staircase (1975)^[21] and was praised for her performance^{[citation needed]} in the comedy-drama Providence (1977).^[22]

When she returned to the United States in the mid 1980's from London, Woody Allen cast her as the former movie star mother in his drama September (1987). People Magazine called her performance "acclaimed" and wrote "Though the movie has received mixed reviews, Stritch's roaring presence, like Godzilla in a stalled elevator, can't be ignored."^[23] Allen later cast her in his comedy Small Time Crooks (2000) in which she played a "snobby socialite". Rex Reed wrote of her performance: "Elaine Stritch can still stop you in your tracks with a meaningless, drop-dead one-liner (which is all she gets here)."^[24]

She joined the ensemble of Cocoon: The Return (1988) as the earthy waitress who helps widowed Jack Gilford get over his wife's death. Among her her co-stars were former Goldilocks co-star Don Ameche and Gwen Verdon.^[17] She appeared in Out to Sea (1997) as Dyan Cannon's wise-cracking mother and "danced up a storm" with the other characters.^[25] She played Winona Ryder's loving grandmother in the film Autumn in New York.^[26] Stritch had a rare co-starring role in the comedy Screwed (2000) playing the nasty Miss Crock who becomes the intended victim of a kidnapping by her disgruntled butler (Norm Macdonald).^[27]

BBC Radio[link]

In 1982, Stritch appeared on an edition of the long running BBC Radio comedy series Just a Minute alongside Kenneth Williams, Clement Freud and Barry Cryer. The show was described by long-time chairman Nicholas Parsons as being among the most memorable because of the way Stritch stretched the show's rules. It was on this occasion that Stritch famously described Kenneth Williams as being able to make "one word into a three-act play".^[28] She also appeared as Martha in a radio adaptation of Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (she understudied Uta Hagen in the same role during the show's original Broadway run, performing during matinees before taking over the role entirely).

Later stage work[link]

After John Bay's death from brain cancer in 1982,^[29] Stritch returned to America. After a lull in her career and struggles with alcoholism, Stritch began performing again in the 1990s. She appeared in a one-night only concert of Company in 1993 and as Parthy in a Broadway revival of the musical Show Boat in 1994. In 1996 she played Claire in a revival of Edward Albee's A Delicate Balance, with Variety writing: "Equally marvelous is Stritch, with a meatier role than her recent foray as Parthy in 'Show Boat.' To watch her succumb to the vast amounts of alcohol Claire ingests, folding and refolding her legs, slipping -- no, oozing -- onto the floor, her face crumpling like a paper bag, is to witness a different but equally winning kind of thespian expertise. It's a master class up there."^[30]

Her one-woman show, Elaine Stritch at Liberty, a summation of her life and career, premiered at New York's Public Theater, running from November 7 to December 30, 2001.^[31] It then ran on Broadway at the Neil Simon Theatre from February 21 to May 27, 2002. Newsweek noted:

Now we see how At Liberty, the amazing one-woman show Stritch is moving to Broadway from the Public Theater this week, acquired the credit, "Constructed by John Lahr. Reconstructed by Elaine Stritch". "The reconstruction means I had the last say", she says. "Damn right I did." ... In case you didn't notice, Stritch is not the kind of woman who goes in for the sappy self-indulgence that pollutes most one-person shows. In fact, At Liberty is in a class by itself, a biting, hilarious and even touching tour-de-force tour of Stritch's career and life. Almost every nook and cranny of "At Liberty" holds a surprise. Turns out she dated Marlon Brando, Gig Young and Ben Gazzara, though she dropped Ben when Rock Hudson showed an interest in her. "And we all know what a bum decision that turned out to be", she says. And then there were the shows. A British writer recently called Stritch "Broadway's last first lady", and when you see her performing her signature numbers from Company and Pal Joey and hear her tell tales of working with Merman, Coward, Gloria Swanson and the rest, it's hard to argue. Especially since she does it all dressed in a long white shirt and form-fitting black tights. It's both a metaphor for her soul-baring musical and a sartorial kiss-my-rear gesture to anyone who thinks there isn't some life left in the 76-year-old [sic] diva. "Somebody said to me the other day, 'Is this the last thing you're going to do?'", says Stritch. "In your dreams! I can't wait to get back into an Yves Saint Laurent costume that isn't mine--but will be when the show is over.^[32]

Elaine Stritch at Liberty played to British audiences in 2002-03. She reprised Elaine Stritch at Liberty at Hartford Stage in June 2008.

She appeared in the Broadway revival of the Sondheim-Wheeler musical A Little Night Music, from July 2010 to January 2011, succeeding Angela Lansbury in the role of Madame Armfeldt,^[33][34] the wheelchair-bound mother who remembers her life as a courtesan in the song "Liaisons". The AP reviewer of the musical (with the two new leads) wrote "Devotees of Stritch, who earned her Sondheim stripes singing, memorably, "The Ladies Who Lunch" in Company 40 years ago, will revel in how the actress, who earned a huge ovation before her very first line at a recent preview, brings her famously salty, acerbic style to the role of Madame Armfeldt."^[35] The theatre critic for The Toronto Star wrote:

"Stritch offers a sophisticated gloss on her by now patented, plain-talking woman who reveals all the home truths everyone ever wanted (or didn't) to hear about themselves. When Stritch tears into her big set-piece, 'Liaisons', about all the affairs in her life, it's not just a witty catalogue of indiscretions but a deeply moving fast-forward through a life filled equally with love, loss, joy and regret."^[36]

Cabaret[link]

Stritch has been performing a cabaret act at the Cafe Carlyle in New York City since 2005 (she is a resident of the Carlyle Hotel). Her first show at the Carlyle was titled "At Home at the Carlyle". The New York Times reviewer wrote

Amazingly, none of the 16 songs she performs have ever been in her repertory, and just as amazingly, you don't miss signature numbers... [L]etting them go has allowed her to venture into more sensitive emotional territory. Interpreting stark, talk-sing versions of Rodgers and Hart's "He Was Too Good to Me", "Fifty Percent" from the musical Ballroom, and Kurt Weill and Ogden Nash's "That's Him", she comes into her own as a dramatic ballad singer.^[37]

Between musical numbers, Stritch told stories from the world of stage and screen, tales from her everyday life and personal glimpses of her private tragedies and triumphs. She most recently performed at the Cafe Carlyle in early 2010 and in fall 2011 in At Home at the Carlyle: Elaine Stritch Singin' Sondheim…One Song at a Time.^[38]

Personal life[link]

Her late husband, John Bay, was part of the family that owns the Bay's English Muffins company, and Stritch sends English muffins as gifts to friends. Said John Kenley: "Every Christmas, she still sends me English muffins."^[39][40] When she was based in London, instead of renting or buying a property Stritch and her husband lived at the Savoy Hotel.^[7] She is good friends with gossip columnist Liz Smith, who shares the same birthday (February 2) as Stritch.^[41]

Stritch has been candid about her struggles with alcohol. She took her first drink at 13, and began using it as a crutch prior to performances to vanquish her stage fright and insecurities. Her drinking worsened after Bay's death, and she sought help after experiencing issues with effects of alcoholism, as well as the onset of diabetes. Elaine Stritch at Liberty discusses the topic at length.^[5]

Popular culture[link]

Stritch's voice and vocal delivery are spoofed in the Forbidden Broadway songs "The Ladies Who Screech" and "Stritch," parodies of "The Ladies Who Lunch" and "Zip", songs she performed in the musicals Company and Pal Joey. In 2009, a parody by Bats Langley entitled "How the Stritch Stole Christmas" (loosely based on "How the Grinch Stole Christmas") appeared on YouTube. On The Big Gay Sketch Show, she was spoofed as a Wal-Mart greeter who's still a theater gal at heart. ("I'm heeere. I'm still heeeerrre." "Here's to the ladies who shop... at Wal-Mart!") This draws inspiration from footage of D.A. Pennebaker's documentary film, Company: Original Cast Album, in which she says "I'm just screaming", self-critiquing during recording "The Ladies Who Lunch". The sketch also spoofs Elaine Stritch Live at Liberty in which she refers to her feat, as a young stage actress and understudy for Ethel Merman in Call Me Madam, where she had to check in with Merman at half hour to curtain in New York, then commute to Connecticut for the out of town tryout of Pal Joey, and on some days make the round trip twice when there was a matinee and evening performance of both shows. In a subsequent episode of The Big Gay Sketch Show, Stritch is spoofed as an airport security guard, who's still "on" and isn't able to tone down her over-the-top antics. In yet another episode, "Stritch" is promoting her self-titled perfume, "Stritchy" in dramatic fashion when she's confronted by the real-life Elaine Stritch, who makes a cameo appearance.^{[citation needed]}

Honors and awards[link]

Tony Nominations[link]

Stritch has been nominated for the Tony Award five times, winning one.

• Best Featured Actress in a Play for Bus Stop, 1956
• Best Actress in a Musical for Sail Away, 1962, as Mimi Paragon
• Best Actress in a Musical for Company, 1971
• Best Actress in a Play for A Delicate Balance, 1996

In 2002, her one-woman show Elaine Stritch at Liberty won the Tony Award for Best Special Theatrical Event and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding One-Person Show. In Elaine Stritch at Liberty she shared stories and songs from her life in theatre and observations on her experiences with alcoholism. The D.A. Pennebaker documentary of Elaine Stritch at Liberty (2004) combined rehearsal elements and her stage performance to win several Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Achievement in a Variety or Music Program. Because each of the nominated shows in the Best Special Theatrical Event category were "one-man" or "one-woman" shows in 2002, the American Theatre Wing changed the rules for this category to allow the artist to be included with the producers as a recipient of the award, thus Stritch was eligible to receive the Tony.^{[citation needed]}

Emmy Nominations[link]

Stritch has earned seven Emmy nominations , winning three.

• Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie for An Inconvenient Woman - 1991
• Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series for Law & Order - 1993 {Won)
• Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety Program for Elaine Stritch: At Liberty - 2004 (Won)
• Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series for 30 Rock - 2007 (Won)
• Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series for 30 Rock - 2008
• Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series for 30 Rock - 2009
• Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series for 30 Rock - 2010

Work[link]

Stage[link]

• Loco (October 16 - November 16, 1946)
• Angel in the Wings (December 11, 1947 - September 4, 1948)
• Yes, M'Lord (October 4 - December 18, 1949)
• Call Me Madam (October 12, 1950 - May 3, 1952) (understudy for Ethel Merman) (replaced by Nancy Andrews when on national tour)
• Pal Joey (Revival) (January 3, 1952 - April 18, 1953) (replaced by Betty O'Neil)
• On Your Toes (Revival) (October 11 - December 4, 1954)
• Bus Stop (March 2, 1955 - April 21, 1956)
• The Sin of Pat Muldoon (March 13–16, 1957)
• Goldilocks (October 11, 1958 - February 28, 1959)
• Sail Away (October 3, 1961 - February 24, 1962)
• Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (October 13, 1962 - May 16, 1964) (replacement for Uta Hagen starting in 1963)
• Company (April 26, 1970 - January 1, 1972) (replaced by Jane Russell in 1971)
• Love Letters (October 31, 1989 - January 21, 1990) (replacement for Kate Nelligan)
• Company (April 11 and April 12, 1993) (concert staging)
• Show Boat (Revival) (October 2, 1994 - January 5, 1997) (replaced by Carole Shelley)
• A Delicate Balance (Revival) (April 21 - September 29, 1996)
• Angela Lansbury - A Celebration (November 17, 1996) (benefit concert)
• Elaine Stritch at Liberty (February 21 - May 27, 2002)
• Endgame, Brooklyn Academy of Music, (April 25 - May 17, 2008)
• The Full Monty, Papermill Playhouse, (June 10 - July 12, 2009)
• A Little Night Music (Broadway Revival), (July 13, 2010 - January 9, 2011) (replacement for Angela Lansbury)^[42]

Filmography[link]

• The Scarlet Hour (1956)
• Three Violent People (1956)
• A Farewell to Arms (1957)
• The Perfect Furlough (1958)
• Kiss Her Goodbye (1959)
• Who Killed Teddy Bear? (1965)
• Too Many Thieves (1967)
• Pigeons (1970)
• The Spiral Staircase (1975)
• Providence (1977)
• September (1987)
• Cocoon: The Return (1988)
• Cadillac Man (1990)
• Out to Sea (1997)
• Krippendorf's Tribe (1998)
• Screwed (2000)
• Small Time Crooks (2000)
• Autumn in New York (2000)
• Broadway: The Golden Age, by the Legends Who Were There (2003) (documentary)
• The Needs of Kim Stanley (2005) (documentary)
• Monster-in-Law (2005)
• Romance & Cigarettes (2005)
• Broadway: Beyond the Golden Age (2011) (documentary)
• ParaNorman (2012) (voice)

References[link]

External links[link]

• Elaine Stritch at the Internet Broadway Database
• Elaine Stritch at the Internet Off-Broadway Database
• Elaine Stritch at the Internet Movie Database
• Tommasini, Anthony (January 7, 2006). "A Broadway Legend's Lessons for Singers". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/07/theater/newsandfeatures/07stri.html?ex=1294290000&en=955daffdc51ec330&ei=5090. Retrieved May 1, 2010. 
• Just A Minute Transcript
• Father Beck interviews Elaine Stritch
• Elaine Stritch interview: Performance Working in the Theatre CUNY-TV video by the American Theatre Wing, September 1989