# Carolyn Coates

Carolyn Owen Coates (April 29, 1927 – March 27, 2005) was an American stage, film and television actress. Noted for portraying formidable women, Coates earned a Theatre World Award for her performance as Hecuba in The Trojan Women.

## Early life and career

A native of Oklahoma City, Coates was the younger of two daughters born to Jessica Owen and Glenn Clinton Coates. Her parents soon divorced, however, and, as noted in a 1973 interview, subsequent remarriages led to a decidedly unsettled pre-adolescence. As Coates recalled, "I was in 10 different schools before 10th grade." The resulting anxiety made her all the more appreciative upon discovering that "[t]he theater is like a family, like a home—all of the things I missed as a child."
After finally settling in Santa Monica, Coates studied acting at UCLA. There, she gained valuable experience, in roles such as Shakespeare's Juliet, Margaret in Thomas Dekker's The Shoemaker's Holiday (starring opposite a young William Schallert), and Cybel in Eugene O'Neill's The Great God Brown. During this period, Coates also appeared in summer stock with the Bolton Landing Players, earning kudos as Millie in Frederick Jackson's The Bishop Misbehaves, and as Aunt Connie in Mark Reed's Yes, My Darling Daughter.
In 1954, Coates appeared as Agatha in the American premiere of Jean Giraudoux's Electra, staged at the Henry Street Playhouse in New York's Greenwich Village. The following year, she and erstwhile Pygmalion co-star James Noble were wed. Shortly thereafter, and continuing for roughly six years, they became featured performers in Paul J. Curtis's American Mime Theatre.
In 1965, her portrayal of Hecuba in Euripides' The Trojan Women earned Coates a Theatre World Award. In December of that year she was narrated "Sibelius: A Symphony for Finland," a 90-minute TV documentary commemorating the composer's centennial, which aired on NET's series Festival of the Arts.
In May 1967, Coates co-starred with Martin Sheen, Eugene Roche, Frederick Rolf and Eleanor Phelps on The Catholic Hour, in a series of four episodes addressing the question, "Is God dead?"
In 1985, Coates undertook what would later be termed, variously, a nine-year sabbatical or retirement, to volunteer in hospitals and on the phones for AIDS Project Los Angeles and the Gay Men's Health Crisis.
In 2001, New Haven's Long Wharf Theater hosted what would prove to be the actress's swan song, as Coates portrayed Gladys in Kenneth Lonergan's The Waverly Gallery. Hartford Courant critic Malcolm Johnson writes:
   This portrait of the mental disintegration of 85-year-old Gladys Green, acted by the tiny Carolyn Coates with shifts from lucidity and humor to crazy jumbles of words, will break the heart of anyone who has ever suffered through the decline of an aged parent or relative. [...] Coates' sometimes playful, sometimes dithering, occasionally volatile performance, sweet, charged with nostalgia and a confusion complicated by deafness, dominates Tillinger's production.

## Personal life

Having first met her future husband in 1951, playing Eliza Doolittle to his Henry Higgins in a summer stock production of Pygmalion in Worcester, Massachusetts, Coates married actor James Noble in 1955. They had one child, a daughter.
On March 27, 2005, Coates died of cancer at the Connecticut Hospice in Branford, Connecticut, survived by her husband and daughter. Her remains are interred at the family plot in Muskogee, Oklahoma, alongside those of her husband.

## TV appearances

TV :
| TV Show | Role | Episode | Year |
| Camera Three | NA | | 1961 |
| The Inheritance | NA (Voice only) | | 1965 |
| Jean Sibelius | Narrator | | 1965 |
| New York Television Theatre | Elmina Ruggles | "The Club Bedroom" | 1966 |
| The Catholic Hour | Young Woman | "A Sense of Loss" | 1967 |
| The Catholic Hour | Young Woman | "An Abundance of Perspectives" | 1967 |
| The Catholic Hour | Young Woman | "A Father's Death" | 1967 |
| The Catholic Hour | Woman B | "Rebirths of Hope" | 1967 |
| Critique | Herself (reading translations of Russian poetry) | "Poets on Street Corners" | 1969 |
| Guideline | Margaret ("a 35-year-old mother of three who refuses to bear a fourth child"; her abortion "causes estrangement among members of her family.") | "Whose Life" | 1970 |
| The Doctors | Alice Watson | | 1975 |
| Dallas | Nurse | "Mastectomy: Part 1" | 1979 |
| Knots Landing | Karen's Mother | "Will the Circle Be Unbroken" | 1980 |
| Lou Grant | Margaret Carruthers | "Search" | 1981 |
| The Waltons | Elvira Perkins | "The Gold Watch" | 1981 |
| Palmerstown, U.S.A. | | "Roadhouse" | 1981 |
| Jessica Novac | NA | "Kenny" | 1981 |
| McClain's Law | Margaret Stanton | "The Sign of the Beast: Part 1" | 1982 |
| Benson | Mrs. Collingswood | "The Honeymooners" | 1983 |
| Benson | Judge Watson | Made in Hong Kong: Part 1 | 1984 |
| Remington Steele | Mayor Amaryllis MacKenzie | "Small Town Steele" | 1984 |
| Glitter | Mrs. Davis | "A Minor Miracle" | 1984 |
| St. Elsewhere | Mrs. Fordham | "Saving Face" | 1985 |
| St. Elsewhere | Mrs. Fordham | "Amazing Face" | 1985 |
| St. Elsewhere | Mrs. Fordham | "She Rote" | 1985 |

## Filmography

Film :
| Year | Title | Role |
| 1961 | The Hustler | Waitress |
| 1972 | The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds | Mrs. McKay |
| 1980 | Barn Burning | Aunt |
| 1980 | Joshua's World | NA |
| 1980 | Scared Straight! Another Story | Mary Loring |
| 1981 | The Postman Always Rings Twice | Twin Oaks Customer |
| 1981 | Murder in Texas | Helen Fairchild |
| 1981 | Mommie Dearest | Mother Superior |
| 1981 | Incident at Crestridge | Mrs. Dobbs |
| 1983 | Starflight: The Plane That Couldn't Land | Claire |
| 1983 | Blood Feud | Kennedy's secretary |
| 1984 | The Buddy System | Teacher |
| 1985 | This Child Is Mine | Grace |

## Playlist

Plays :
| Year | Play | Role | Theater | Notes |
| 1947 | The Great God Brown | Cybel | UCLA Campus Theatre | April 22, 1947 - April 26, 1947 |
| 1954 | Electra | Agatha | Henry Street Playhouse | April 19, 1954 - April 25, 1954 |
| 1963 | The Trojan Women | Trojan Woman | Circle in the Square Downtown | December 23, 1963 - ? |
| 1965 | And Things That Go Bump in the Night | Ruby (Standby) | Royale Theatre | April 26, 1965 – May 8, 1965 |
| 1965 | Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? | Martha (with James Noble as George) | Williamstown Theatre Festival | July 13, 1965 – July 17, 1965 |
| 1965 | Three Sisters | Olga | Williamstown Theatre Festival | July 27, 1965 – July 31, 1965 |
| 1965 | The Trojan Women | Hecuba | Circle in the Square Downtown | September 3, 1965 – ? |
| 1965 | The Country Wife | Miss Althea | Vivian Beaumont Theatre | December 9, 1965 – January 23, 1966 |
| 1966 | The Condemned of Altona | Johanna | Vivian Beaumont Theatre | February 3, 1966 – March 13, 1966 |
| 1966 | The Caucasian Chalk Circle | NA | Vivian Beaumont Theatre | March 24, 1966 – June 18, 1966 |
| 1966 | A Whitman Portrait | The Woman | Gramercy Arts Theatre | October 11, 1966 – ? |
| 1967 | The Party on Greenwich Avenue | Helen Radmacher | Cherry Lane Theatre | May 10, 1967 – ? |
| 1968 | The Death of Bessie Smith / The American Dream | Second Nurse / Mrs. Barker | Billy Rose Theatre | October 2, 1968 – October 26, 1968 |
| 1969 | Fire! | Lorna | Longacre Theatre | January 28, 1969 - February 1, 1969 |
| 1969 | A Scent of Flowers | Agnes | Martinique Theatre | October 20, 1969 – ? |
| 1970 | The Disintegration of James M. Cherry | Woman | Mitzi E. Newhouse Theatre | January 29, 1970 – ? |
| 1970 | The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds | Beatrice | Mercer Arts Center | April 7, 1970 – ? |
| 1971 | All Over | The Wife, The Nurse (Standby) | Martin Beck Theatre | March 28, 1971 – May 1, 1971 |