page_title: Margaret Hamilton (actress)
section_title: Radio, television, and stage career
hierarchical_section_title: Margaret Hamilton (actress) / Radio, television, and stage career
caption_attribution_description: Publicity photo of American actress, Margaret Hamilton and American Muppet, Oscar the Grouch promoting the February 10, 1976 premiere of Episode #0847 of Sesame Street.
context_page_description: Margaret Brainard Hamilton was an American film character actor best known for her portrayal of the Wicked Witch of the West, and her Kansas counterpart Almira Gulch, in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's classic film The Wizard of Oz.
  A former schoolteacher, she worked as a character actress in films for seven years before she was offered the role that defined her public image. In later years, Hamilton made frequent cameo appearances on television sitcoms and commercials. She also gained recognition for her work as an advocate of causes designed to benefit children and animals and retained a lifelong commitment to public education.
context_section_description: In the 1940s and 1950s, Hamilton had a long-running role on the radio series Ethel and Albert (or The Couple Next Door) in which she played the lovable, scattered Aunt Eva (name later changed to Aunt Effie). During the 1960s and 1970s, Hamilton appeared regularly on television. She did a stint as a What's My Line? mystery guest on the popular Sunday night CBS-TV program. She played Morticia Addams' mother, Hester Frump, in three episodes of The Addams Family. (1965–66; Hamilton had been offered the role of Grandmama, but turned it down.)
  In 1962, Hamilton played Leora Scofield, a suffragette who arrives in Laramie, Wyoming, to bolster feminist causes in a territory where women had already obtained the right to vote, in the episode "Beyond Justice" of NBC's Laramie. In the story line, she is depicted as a long-lost friend of series character Daisy Cooper, played by Spring Byington. Series lead character Slim Sherman (John Smith) is skeptical of the suffragettes, and Sheriff Mort Corey and he concoct a tale the women should head to Cheyenne, where their services are more needed than in Laramie.
  Having started on the stage in the early 1930s, she began to work extensively in the theater after leaving Los Angeles. She appeared on Broadway in the musical Goldilocks opposite Don Ameche and Elaine Stritch, gave a lighter touch to the domineering Parthy Anne Hawks in the 1966 revival of Show Boat (dancing with David Wayne), and was the tender Aunt Eller in the 1968 Lincoln Center revival of Oklahoma!. Hamilton also toured in many plays and musicals, even repeating her role of the Wicked Witch in specially written stage productions of The Wizard of Oz. For her last stage role, she was cast as Madame Armfeldt in the Stephen Sondheim musical A Little Night Music, singing the song "Liaisons" for the national tour costarring with Jean Simmons as her daughter Desiree.
  Even with her extensive film career, Hamilton took roles in whatever medium she could get if she was free, making her soap opera debut as the nasty Mrs. Sayre on Valiant Lady, who schemed to prevent her daughter from marrying the heroine's son. In the 1960s, Hamilton was a regular on another CBS soap opera, The Secret Storm, playing the role of Grace Tyrell's housekeeper, Katie. For ABC's short-lived radio anthology Theatre-Five, she played a manipulative ailing Aunt Lettie to Joan Lorring as the unhappy niece Maude in "Noose of Pearls." In the early 1970s, she joined the cast of another CBS soap opera, As the World Turns, on which she played Miss Peterson, Simon Gilbey's assistant. She had a small role in the made-for-television film The Night Strangler (1973) and appeared as a befuddled neighbor on Sigmund and the Sea Monsters, who is a friend of the very similar Mary Wickes. In The Paul Lynde Halloween Special (1976), she portrayed Lynde's housekeeper, reprising the Wicked Witch role, as well as introducing Lynde to the rock group Kiss. She reprised her role as the Wicked Witch in an episode of Sesame Street, but as a result of complaints from parents of terrified children, the episode has not been seen since 1976. She appeared as herself in three episodes of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, between 1975 and 1976, because Fred Rogers wanted his viewers to recognize the Wicked Witch was just a character and not something to be afraid of. Hamilton continued acting regularly until 1982; her last roles were two guest appearances as veteran journalist Thea Taft (in 1979 and 1982) on Lou Grant.
  Throughout the 1970s, Hamilton lived in New York City's Gramercy Park neighborhood and appeared on local (and some national) public-service announcements for organizations promoting the welfare of pets. Her most visible appearances during this period were as general store owner, Cora, in a national series of television commercials for Maxwell House coffee. On October 30, 1975, she guest-starred on the radio revival series CBS Radio Mystery Theater. In the episode, entitled "Triptych for a Witch," Hamilton played the title role.
  Her Gramercy Park neighbor Sybil Daneman reported that Hamil
caption: Hamilton with Oscar the Grouch on episode #0847 of Sesame Street, 1976
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