 colleen rose dewhurst (june 3, 1924 â august 22, 1991) was a canadian-american actress known most for theatre roles, and for a while as "the queen of off-broadway." in her autobiography, dewhurst wrote: "i had moved so quickly from one off-broadway production to the next that i was known, at one point, as the 'queen of off-broadway'. this title was not due to my brilliance but rather because most of the plays i was in closed after a run of anywhere from one night to two weeks. i would then move immediately into another." she was a renowned interpreter of the works of eugene oâneill on the stage, and her career also encompassed film, early dramas on live television, and joseph papp's new york shakespeare festival. one of her last roles was playing marilla cuthbert in the kevin sullivan television adaptations of the anne of green gables series and her reprisal of the role in the subsequent tv series road to avonlea (marketed as avonlea in the usa). ==early life== dewhurst was born in montreal, quebec, the only child of ferdinand augustus "fred" dewhurst, owner of a chain of confectionery stores, and his wife, frances marie (nÃ©e woods) dewhurst, a homemaker, whose father had been a "well-known athlete in canada, where he had played football with the ottawa rough riders".colleen dewhurst genealogy the family naturalized as u.s. citizens before 1940. colleen's mother was a christian scientist, which faith colleen would also embrace. the dewhursts moved to massachusetts in 1928 or 1929, staying in boston, dorchester, auburndale, and west newton. later they moved to new york city, and then to whitefish bay, wisconsin. she attended whitefish bay high school for her first two years of high school, moved to [[shorewood high school (wisconsin)|shorewood hi
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