Zoe Caldwell

Zoe Caldwell, OBE (born Ada Caldwell, 14 September 1933) is an Australianactress. She is a four-time Tony Award winner, winning Best Featured Actress in a Play for Slapstick Tragedy (1966), and Best Actress in a Play for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1968), Medea (1982), and Master Class (1996). Her film appearances include The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985), Birth (2004), and Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (2011). She is also the voice of the Grand Councilwoman in the Lilo & Stitch franchise.
== Early life ==
Caldwell was born in Melbourne, Victoria and raised in the suburb of Balwyn. Her father, Edgar, was a plumber.[2] Caldwell's mother often took some of the neighbourhood kids to the Elizabethan Theatre in Richmond where they could go backstage and watch rehearsals and performances.[3][4]
== Career ==
Caldwell began her career in Melbourne in the 1950s and early 1960s, performing with the newly formed Union Theatre Repertory Company (later the Melbourne Theatre Company).[5]
She emigrated to England upon being invited to join the RSC at a time when Charles Laughton was attempting Lear, and Vanessa Redgrave, Eileen Atkins, Albert Finney were among the other newcomers in the company. She played Bianca in the 1959 production of Othello, starring Paul Robeson. Later she played the indomitable Helena, opposite Dame Edith Evans in a production of All's Well That Ends Well. Her career later brought her to America, where she was one of the original company of actors under Guthrie's direction at the Tyrone Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis. At the Guthrie, she played parts such as Ophelia in Hamlet and Natasha in Three Sisters.[citation needed]
A life member of the Actors Studio,[6] Caldwell has won four Tony Awards for her performances on Broadway in Tennessee Williams' Slapstick Tragedy, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Medea and Master Class. In the last she portrayed opera diva Maria Callas. In Stratford, Ontario she has worked often, including her role as Cleopatra in Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra opposite Christopher Plummer's Mark Antony in 1967.[7]
Other credits on Broadway include Arthur Miller's The Creation of the World and Other Business in which she played Eve, a one-woman play by William Lucebased on the life of Lillian Hellman and a production of Macbeth with Christopher Plummer as Macbeth and Glenda Jackson as Lady Macbeth under Caldwell's direction. Caldwell directed, Off-Broadway, a two-woman play, created by Eileen Atkins, Vita and Virginia, based on the letters between Virginia Woolfand Vita Sackville-West. Atkins played Virginia and Vanessa Redgrave played Vita. Caldwell directed the Broadway production of Othello in the late 1970s with James Earl Jones, Christopher Plummer, and Dianne Wiest. She helmed the American Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford, Connecticut for two limited-run seasons as its Artistic Director in the mid-1980s.[citation needed]
She has also appeared on film, most notably as an imperious dowager in Woody Allen's The Purple Rose of Cairo. In 2002, she starred in the film Just a Kiss. She voiced the character of the Grand Councilwoman in Disney's Lilo & Stitch, and continued voicing the character in the franchise's later films and in Lilo & Stitch: The Series, as well as in Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep.[8] She appeared in Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close in 2011.
== Personal life ==
Caldwell graduated from Methodist Ladies' College, Kew and, much later, received an honorary degree from the University of Melbourne. In 1968, she married Canadian-born Broadway producer Robert Whitehead, a cousin of actor Hume Cronyn. They had two sons and were married until Whitehead's death in June 2002.[9]
== Filmography ==
=== Film ===
Year	Title 	Role 	Notes
1959	A Midsummer Night's Dream 	Fairy 	Television film
1961	Macbeth 	Lady Macbeth 	Television film
1964	Dear Liar 	Mrs. Patrick Campbell 	Television film
1968	The Secret of Michelangelo 	Narrator 	Television film
1983	Medea 	Medea 	Television film
1985	The Purple Rose of Cairo 	The Countess 	
1989	Lantern Hill 	Mrs. Kennedy 	Television film
2002	Lilo & Stitch 	Grand Councilwoman (voice)	
2003	Stitch! The Movie 	Grand Councilwoman (voice)	Direct-to-video
2004	Birth 	Mrs. Hill 	
2004	Stitch's Great Escape! 	Grand Councilwoman (voice)	Short film
2006	Leroy & Stitch 	Grand Councilwoman (voice)	Direct-to-video
2011	Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close	Oskar's Grandmother 	
=== Theatre Credits ===
Year 	Title 	Role 	Notes
2003 	The Visit 	Claire Zachanassian 	Melbourne Theatre Company
2003 	The Play What I Wrote 	Mystery Guest Star - replacement 	Lyceum Theater
1995–1997	Master Class 	Maria Callas 	John Golden Theater - Tony Award
1991 	Park Your Car In Harvard Yard 	Director 	Music Box Theater
1988 	Macbeth 	Director 	Mark Hellinger Theatre
1986 	Lillian 	Lillian 	Ethel Barrymore Theater
1982 	Medea 	Medea 	Cort Theater - Tony Award
1977 	An Almost Perfect Person 	Director 	Belasco Theater
1974 	Dance of Death 	Alice 	Vivian Beaumont Theater
1972 	The Creation of the World and Other Business	Eve 	Shubert Theater
1968 	The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie 	Jean Brodie 	Helen Hayes Theater - Tony Award
1966 	Slapstick Tragedy 	Polly 	Longacre Theater - Tony Award
1965 	The Devils 	Sister Jean of the Angels - replacement	Broadway Theatre
=== Television ===
Year	Title 	Role 	Notes
1960	BBC Sunday Night Play 	Ruth Honeywill 	Episode: "Twentieth Century Theatre: Justice"
1960	ITV Playhouse 	Louise 	Episode: "The Song of Louise in the Morning"
1960	Suspense 	Kathy Harrigton 	Episode: "Flight 404"
1960	Theatre 70 	 	Episode: "The Neighbour"
1963	Festival 	 	Episode: "The Doctor's Dilemma"
1964	Playdate 	Streetwalker 	Episode: "A Night Out"
1971	Great Performances 	Sarah Benhardt 	Episode: "Sarah ... Sarah Benhardt"
1978	Play of the Month 	Mme. Arkadina 	Episode: "The Seagull"
1986	American Masters 	Carlotta Monterey O'Neill 	Episode: "Eugene O'Neill: A Glory of Ghosts"
1990	Road to Avonlea 	Old Lady Lloyd 	Episode: "Old Lady Lloyd"
2003	Lilo & Stitch: The Series	Grand Councilwoman (voice)	Episode: "Finder: Experiment #428"
=== Video Games ===
Year	Title 	Role 	Notes
2002	Disney's Stitch: Experiment 626	Grand Councilwoman	
2010	Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep 	Grand Councilwoman	
== Bibliography ==
Caldwell, Zoe (2001). I will be Cleopatra: An Actress's Journey. Melbourne: Text Publishing.