# Maureen Stapleton

Lois Maureen Stapleton (June 21, 1925 – March 13, 2006) was an American actress. She received numerous accolades becoming one of the few actors to have achieved the Triple Crown of Acting winning an Academy Award, a Primetime Emmy Award and two Tony Awards. She has also received a British Academy Film Award and a Golden Globe Award, as well as a nomination for a Grammy Award.
Stapleton started her career in theatre making her Broadway debut in The Playboy of the Western World (1946). She went on to receive two Tony Awards for Best Featured Actress in a Play for The Rose Tattoo (1951) and for Best Actress in a Play for The Gingerbread Lady (1971). She was Tony-nominated for her roles in The Cold Wind And The Warm (1959), Toys in the Attic (1960), Plaza Suite (1971), and The Little Foxes (1981).
For her portrayal of Emma Goldman in the historical epic film Reds (1981) she received the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She was also Oscar-nominated for her roles in Lonelyhearts (1958), Airport (1970), and Interiors (1978). During her career Stapleton acted in films such as Bye Bye Birdie (1963), Plaza Suite (1971), The Fan (1981), Cocoon (1985), The Money Pit (1986), and Nuts (1987).
On television, Stapleton played a variety of roles including in the television film Among the Paths to Eden (1967) for which she won the Outstanding Single Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Drama. She was Emmy-nominated for her roles in Queen of the Stardust Ballroom (1975), The Gathering (1977), B.L. Stryker (1989), Miss Rose White (1992), and Road to Avonlea (1995). She received a Grammy Award nomination for narrating To Kill a Mockingbird in 1975. For her life achievement she was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame in 1981.

## Early life

Stapleton was born in Troy, New York, the daughter of John P. Stapleton and Irene (née Walsh), and grew up in a strict Irish American Catholic family. Her father was an alcoholic and her parents separated during her childhood.

## Career

Stapleton moved to New York City at the age of 18, and worked as a salesgirl, hotel clerk, and modeled to pay the bills, including for artist Raphael Soyer. She once said that it was her infatuation with the handsome Hollywood actor Joel McCrea which led her into acting. She made her Broadway debut in the production featuring Burgess Meredith of The Playboy of the Western World in 1946. That same year, she played the role of "Iras" in Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra in a touring production by actress and producer Katharine Cornell. Stepping in because Anna Magnani refused the role due to her limited English, Stapleton won a Tony Award for her role in Tennessee Williams' The Rose Tattoo in 1951 (Magnani's English improved, however, and she was able to play the role in the film version, winning an Oscar).
Stapleton played in other Williams' productions, including Twenty-Seven Wagons Full of Cotton and Orpheus Descending (and its film adaptation, The Fugitive Kind, co-starring her friend Marlon Brando), as well as in The Cold Wind and the Warm (Tony nomination, 1959) and Lillian Hellman's Toys in the Attic (1960), for which she received another Tony Award nomination. She was nominated for a Tony Award for Neil Simon's Plaza Suite in 1968 and won a second Tony Award for Simon's The Gingerbread Lady, which was written especially for her, in 1971. Later Broadway roles included a Tony-nominated turn as "Birdie" in The Little Foxes, opposite Elizabeth Taylor, and as a replacement for Jessica Tandy in The Gin Game.
Stapleton's film career, though limited, brought her immediate success, with her debut in Lonelyhearts (1958) earning nominations for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and a Golden Globe Award. She appeared in the 1963 film version of Bye Bye Birdie, in the role of Mama Mae Peterson, with Dick Van Dyke, Janet Leigh, Paul Lynde, and Ann-Margret. Stapleton played the role of Dick Van Dyke's mother, even though she was only five months and 22 days older than Van Dyke. She was nominated again for an Oscar for Airport (Golden Globe Award nomination, 1970) and Woody Allen's Interiors (Golden Globe Award nomination, 1978). She won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for Reds (1981), directed by Warren Beatty, in which she portrayed the Lithuanian-born anarchist, Emma Goldman. In her acceptance speech, she stated, "I would like to thank everyone I've ever met in my entire life." Her later appearances included Johnny Dangerously (1984), Cocoon (1985), and its sequel Cocoon: The Return (1988).
Stapleton won a 1968 Emmy Award for her performance in Among the Paths of Eden and was nominated for six more, for Avonlea (1996), Miss Rose White (1992), B.L. Stryker (1989), the television version of All the King's Men (1959), Queen of the Stardust Ballroom (1975), and The Gathering (1977), and Kraft Theatre (1959). She also appeared opposite Laurence Olivier and Natalie Wood in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1976).
She was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame in 1981. She was an alumna of the famous Actors Studio in New York City, led by Lee Strasberg, where she became friends with Marilyn Monroe, who was only one year younger than Stapleton. She was impressed with Monroe's talent, and always thought it was a shame that Monroe was rarely allowed to play roles beyond the ditzy blonde. By comparison, Stapleton thought herself lucky: "I never had that problem. People looked at me on stage and said, 'Jesus, that broad better be able to act.'" One of the most famously remembered scenes at the studio was when Stapleton and Monroe acted in Anna Christie together.
Despite her association with Strasberg, Stapleton cited Mira Rostova as her most influential acting teacher. She appeared with Rostova and another of Rostova's pupils, Montgomery Clift, Off-Broadway in The Sea Gull (1954). Additionally, in his book Sanford Meisner on Acting, Meisner cites Stapleton as being "a wonderful actress." The pair starred together on Broadway in The Cold Wind and the Warm.
She was nominated for a 1975 Grammy Award for the spoken word recording of To Kill a Mockingbird.
She hosted the 19th episode of Season 4 of NBC's Saturday Night Live in 1979.

## Personal life and death

Stapleton's first husband was Max Allentuck, general manager to the producer Kermit Bloomgarden, and her second was playwright David Rayfiel, from whom she divorced in 1966. She had a son, Daniel, and a daughter, Katharine, by her first husband. Her daughter, Katharine Allentuck, played a single movie role, that of "Aggie" in Summer of '42 (Stapleton herself also had a minor, uncredited role in the film as the protagonist's mother, though only her voice is heard; she does not appear on camera). Her son, Daniel Allentuck, is a documentary filmmaker.
Stapleton suffered from anxiety and alcoholism for many years, and once told an interviewer, "The curtain came down, and I went into the vodka." She also said that her unhappy childhood contributed to her insecurities, which included a fear of flying, airplanes, and elevators. A lifelong heavy smoker, Stapleton died of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in 2006 at her home in Lenox, Massachusetts.
In 1981 Hudson Valley Community College in Stapleton's childhood city of Troy, New York, dedicated a theater in her name.

## Acting credits
### Film

| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
| 1955 | Main Street to Broadway | Maureen Stapleton - First Nighter | Uncredited |
| 1958 | Lonelyhearts | Fay Doyle | |
| 1960 | The Fugitive Kind | Vee Talbot | |
| 1961 | A View from the Bridge | Beatrice Carbone | |
| 1963 | Bye Bye Birdie | Mama Mae Peterson | |
| 1969 | Trilogy | Mary O'Meaghan | Segment: "Among the Paths to Eden" |
| 1970 | Airport | Inez Guerrero | |
| 1971 | Summer of '42 | Hermie's mother | Voice, Uncredited |
| 1971 | Plaza Suite | Karen Nash | |
| 1978 | Interiors | Pearl | |
| 1979 | Lost and Found | Jemmy | |
| 1979 | The Runner Stumbles | Mrs. Shandig | |
| 1981 | On the Right Track | Mary the Bag Lady | |
| 1981 | The Fan | Belle Goldman | |
| 1981 | Reds | Emma Goldman | |
| 1984 | Johnny Dangerously | Ma Kelly | |
| 1985 | Cocoon | Marilyn Luckett | |
| 1986 | The Money Pit | Estelle | |
| 1986 | The Cosmic Eye | Mother Earth | Voice |
| 1986 | Heartburn | Vera | |
| 1987 | Sweet Lorraine | Lillian Garber | |
| 1987 | Made in Heaven | Aunt Lisa | |
| 1987 | Nuts | Rose Kirk | |
| 1988 | Cocoon: The Return | Marilyn 'Mary' Luckett | |
| 1988 | Doin' Time on Planet Earth | Helium Balloon Saleslady | |
| 1992 | Passed Away | Mary Scanlan | |
| 1994 | The Last Good Time | Ida Cutler | |
| 1994 | Trading Mom | Mrs. Cavour | |
| 1997 | Addicted to Love | Nana | |
| 1998 | Wilbur Falls | Wilbur Falls High Secretary | |
| 2003 | Living and Dining | Mrs. Lundt | Final film role |

### Television

| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
| 1954 | Medic | Evelyn Strauss | Episode: "Day 10" |
| 1954 | The Philco Television Playhouse | Daughter | Episode: "The Mother" |
| 1955 | The Philco Television Playhouse | Mrs. Johnson | Episode: "Incident in July" |
| 1956 | Armstrong Circle Theatre | Mrs. Elizabeth Steigerwald | Episode: "H.R. 8438: The Story of a Lost Boy" |
| 1956 | The Alcoa Hour | Vi Miller | Episode: "No License to Kill (II)" |
| 1956 | Studio One in Hollywood | Rachel Jackson | Episode: "Rachel" |
| 1958 | Kraft Theatre | Sadie Burke | Episode: "All the King's Men" |
| 1959 | Playhouse 90 | Pilar | Episode: "For Whom the Bell Tolls" |
| 1960 | CBS Repertoire Workshop | Tessie | Episode: "Tessie Malfitano and Anton Waldek" |
| 1961 | Car 54, Where Are You? | Gypsy Woman | Episode: "The Gypsy Curse" |
| 1961 | Naked City | Abbey Bick | Episode: "Ooftus Goofus" |
| 1962 | Naked City | Ruth Cullan | Episode: "Kill Me While I'm Young So I Can Die Happy!" |
| 1962 | The DuPont Show of the Week | Professor Gretchen Anna Thaelman | Episode: "The Betrayal" |
| 1964 | East Side/West Side | Molly Cavanaugh | Episode: "One Drink at a Time" |
| 1967 | Among the Paths to Eden | Mary O'Meaghan | Television movie |
| 1969 | Mirror, Mirror Off the Wall | Ruthie Maxwell | Television movie |
| 1974 | Tell Me Where It Hurts | Connie | Television movie |
| 1975 | Queen of the Stardust Ballroom | Bea Asher | Television movie |
| 1976 | The Lively Arts | Amanda Wingfield | Episode: "Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie" |
| 1976 | Cat on a Hot Tin Roof | Big Mama | Television movie |
| 1977 | The Gathering | Kate | Television movie |
| 1979 | Letters from Frank | Betty Miller | Television movie |
| 1979 | The Gathering, Part II | Kate Thornton | Television movie |
| 1979 | Saturday Night Live | Herself (host) | Episode: "Maureen Stapleton/Linda Ronstadt and Phoebe Snow" |
| 1982 | The Electric Grandmother | Grandmother | Television movie |
| 1982 | Little Gloria... Happy at Last | Nurse Emma Kieslich | Television movie |
| 1983 | Great Performances | White Queen | Episode: "Alice in Wonderland" |
| 1984 | Sentimental Journey | Ruthie | Television movie |
| 1984 | Family Secrets | Maggie Lukauer | Television movie |
| 1985 | Private Sessions | Dr. Liz Bolger | Television movie |
| 1988 | The Thorns | Peggy / Mrs. Hamilton | 2 episodes: "The Other Maid" / "The Maid" |
| 1988 | Liberace: Behind the Music | Frances Liberace | Television movie |
| 1989 | B.L. Stryker | Auntie Sue | Episode: "Auntie Sue" |
| 1989 | The Equalizer | Emily Rutherford | Episode: "The Caper" |
| 1992 | Last Wish | Ida Rollin | Television movie |
| 1992 | Miss Rose White | Tanta Perla | Television movie |
| 1992 | Lincoln | Sarah Bush Lincoln | Voice; Television movie |
| 1995 | Road to Avonlea | Maggie MacPhee | Episode: "What a Tangled Web We Weave" |

### Theatre

| Year | Title | Role | Venue |
| 1946–1947 | The Playboy of the Western World | Sara Tansey / Pegeen Mike (replacement) | Booth Theatre, Broadway |
| 1947–1948 | Antony and Cleopatra | Iras | Martin Beck Theatre, Broadway |
| 1949–1950 | Detective Story | Miss Hatch | Hudson Theatre, Broadway |
| 1950 | The Bird Cage | Emily Williams | Coronet Theatre, Broadway |
| 1951 | The Rose Tattoo | Serafina Delle Rose | Martin Beck Theatre, Broadway |
| 1953 | The Crucible | Elizabeth Proctoer (replacement) | Martin Beck Theatre, Broadway |
| 1953 | The Emperor's Clothes | Bella | Ethel Barrymore Theatre, Broadway |
| 1953 | Richard III | Lady Anne | New York City Center, Broadway |
| 1955 | 27 Wagons Full of Cotton | Flora Meighan | Playhouse Theatre |
| 1957 | Orpheus Descending | Lady Torrance | Martin Beck Theatre, Broadway |
| 1958–1959 | The Cold Wind And The Warm | Aunt Ida | Morosco Theatre, Broadway |
| 1960–1961 | Toys in the Attic | Carrie Berniers | Hudson Theatre, Broadway |
| 1965 | The Glass Menagerie | The Mother | Brooks Atkinson Theatre, Broadway |
| 1966 | The Rose Tattoo | Serafina Delle Rose | Billy Rose Theatre, Broadway |
| 1968–1970 | Plaza Suite | Karen Nash / Muriel Tate / Norma Hubley | Plymouth Theatre, Broadway |
| 1970 | Norman, Is That You? | Beatrice Chambers | Lyceum Theatre, Broadway |
| 1970–1971 | The Gingerbread Lady | Evy Meara | Plymouth Theatre, Broadway |
| 1972 | The Country Girl | Georgie Elgin | Billy Rose Theatre, Broadway |
| 1972 | The Secret Affairs of Mildred Wild | Mildred Wild | Ambassador Theatre, Broadway |
| 1975–1976 | The Glass Menagerie | The Mother | Circle in the Square Theatre, Broadway |
| 1977–1978 | The Gin Game | Fonisa Dorsey (replacement) | John Golden Theatre, Broadway |
| 1981 | The Little Foxes | Birdie Hubbard | Martin Beck Theatre, Broadway |

## Awards and nominations

| Year | Award | Category | Nominated work | Result |
| 1958 | Academy Awards | Best Supporting Actress | Lonelyhearts | Nominated |
| 1970 | Academy Awards | Best Supporting Actress | Airport | Nominated |
| 1978 | Academy Awards | Best Supporting Actress | Interiors | Nominated |
| 1981 | Academy Awards | Best Supporting Actress | Reds | Won |
| 1970 | British Academy Film Awards | Best Actress in a Supporting Role | Airport | Nominated |
| 1982 | British Academy Film Awards | Best Actress in a Supporting Role | Reds | Won |
| 1996 | CableACE Awards | Actress in a Dramatic Special/Series | Avonlea (Episode: "What a Tangled Web We Weave") | Nominated |
| 1971 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Performance | The Gingerbread Lady | Won |
| 1958 | Golden Globe Awards | Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture | Lonelyhearts | Nominated |
| 1970 | Golden Globe Awards | Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture | Airport | Won |
| 1971 | Golden Globe Awards | Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture | Plaza Suite | Nominated |
| 1978 | Golden Globe Awards | Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture | Interiors | Nominated |
| 1981 | Golden Globe Awards | Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture | Reds | Nominated |
| 1975 | Grammy Awards | Best Spoken Word Recording | To Kill a Mockingbird | Nominated |
| 1978 | Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards | Best Supporting Actress | Interiors | Won |
| 1981 | Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards | Best Supporting Actress | Reds | Won |
| 1978 | National Society of Film Critics Awards | Best Supporting Actress | Interiors | 2nd Place |
| 1981 | National Society of Film Critics Awards | Best Supporting Actress | Reds | Won |
| 1966 | New York Emmy Awards | Individuals | New York Television Theatre | Won |
| 1978 | New York Film Critics Circle Awards | Best Supporting Actress | Interiors | Won |
| 1981 | New York Film Critics Circle Awards | Best Supporting Actress | Reds | Runner-up |
| 1959 | Primetime Emmy Awards | Best Single Performance by an Actress | Kraft Television Theatre (Episode: "All the King's Men") | Nominated |
| 1968 | Primetime Emmy Awards | Outstanding Single Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Drama | Among the Paths to Eden | Won |
| 1975 | Primetime Emmy Awards | Outstanding Lead Actress in a Special Program – Drama or Comedy | Queen of the Stardust Ballroom | Nominated |
| 1978 | Primetime Emmy Awards | Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama or Comedy Special | The Gathering | Nominated |
| 1989 | Primetime Emmy Awards | Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series | B.L. Stryker (Episode: "Auntie Sue") | Nominated |
| 1992 | Primetime Emmy Awards | Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or a Special | Miss Rose White | Nominated |
| 1996 | Primetime Emmy Awards | Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series | Avonlea (Episode: "What a Tangled Web We Weave") | Nominated |
| 1951 | Theatre World Awards | Theatre World Awards | The Rose Tattoo | Won |
| 1951 | Tony Awards | Best Supporting or Featured Actress in a Play | The Rose Tattoo | Won |
| 1959 | Tony Awards | Best Leading Actress in a Play | The Cold Wind And The Warm | Nominated |
| 1960 | Tony Awards | Best Leading Actress in a Play | Toys in the Attic | Nominated |
| 1968 | Tony Awards | Best Leading Actress in a Play | Plaza Suite | Nominated |
| 1971 | Tony Awards | Best Leading Actress in a Play | The Gingerbread Lady | Won |
| 1981 | Tony Awards | Best Featured Actress in a Play | The Little Foxes | Nominated |