Gigi Perreau was born in 1941 in Los Angeles. She made many films as a child actress during the 1940’s. Her movies included “Mr Skeffington” in 1944 with Bette Davis and “Green Dolphin Street” in 1947 with Lana Turner and Donna Reed.
Gary Brumburgh’s entry:
A major little talent, this French-American moppet star of the late ’40s and early ’50s was not able to parlay her precocious popularity into a sizeable adult career, but has nevertheless maintained on the fringe for decades. Gigi Perreau was born in Los Angeles to a French father, who fled his native country at the onset of WWII, and an American mother. Her beginnings started way back to the tender age of two and a half when her mother was approached by a talent agent who represented child actors and who took an initial interest in her 5-year-old brother Gerald. But Gigi grabbed a little attention of her own. When producer/director Mervyn LeRoy discovered little Gigi could speak French as well as English at such a precious age, he cast her as Greer Garson‘s daughter inMadame Curie (1943). MGM signed her up and she spent several years there before Universal-International picked up her option. She bloomed as a top juvenile player and received an award from the Screen Children’s Guild while appeared in top quality films, both light-hearted and tear-stained, including My Foolish Heart (1949) starring Susan Hayward, and Has Anybody Seen My Gal (1952) with Rock Hudson. From the mid ’50s, however, and after scores of roles on TV shows, things started looking bleak for the former pig-tailed child star as she tried to adjust through the awkward teen age years. Appearances in such innocuous time fillers as The Cool and the Crazy (1958), Girls Town(1959) and Hell on Wheels (1967) pretty much tells the story. At the age of 20, she married and had two children, a son and daughter. A second marriage produced another boy and girl. Rarely seen on film or TV since the late ’60s, Gigi has continued on as a stage director and college prep drama teacher. Brother Gerald (aka Peter Miles) equipped himself quite well as a child actor performing in The Red Pony (1949), The Good Humor Man (1950) and Quo Vadis (1951). Gigi appeared with him in the movies Enchantment(1948) and Roseanna McCoy (1949), and played his sister on The Betty Hutton Show(1959). Gigi’s two younger sisters, Janine Perreau and Lauren Perreau, also dabbled in film and TV as youngsters, but to a much lesser degree.
– IMDb Mini Biography By: Gary Brumburgh / gr-home@pacbell.net
Gene Reynolds was born in 1923 in Cleveland, Ohio. He began his screen career as part of the “Our Gang” series in 1934. His other films include “In Old Chicago” with Tyrone Power in 1937, “Boy’s Town” with Spencer Tracy and “The Country Girl” in 1954 with Grace Kelly and Bing Crosby. He later became a very successful television director.
IMDB entry:
Gene Reynolds was born on April 4, 1923 in Cleveland, Ohio, USA as Eugene Reynolds Blumenthal. He is a producer and director, known for M*A*S*H (1972), Lou Grant (1977) and My Three Sons (1960). He has been married to Ann Sweeny since 1979. They have one child. He was previously married to Bonnie Jones.He quit acting to become a producer-director. (1993-1997) President of the Directors Guild of America (DGA). As a boy, was an actor in the movie Adventure in Washington (1941) along with friend, actor Tommy Bond who also was “Butch” the bully in the original “Little Rascals”. Has been nominated for 24 Emmy Awards and won six, including Outstanding Comedy Series for M*A*S*H (1972) and Outstanding Drama Series twice for Lou Grant (1977), which also earned him a Humanitas Prize. He won the Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Direction of a Comedy Series twice for his work on “M*A*S*H” and the Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Direction of a Drama Series once for his work on “Lou Grant”. Is best known for directing, producing and/or writing two hugely successful TV shows:Lou Grant (1977) and M*A*S*H (1972). Produced and directed numerous episodes of other TV hits, including My Three Sons (1960), Hogan’s Heroes (1965) and Room 222(1969).
The above IMDB entry can also be accessed online here.
Wayne Rogers is a likable American actor who has graced cinema and television. He is best known for his participation in the “Mash” television series as Trapper John McIntyre. His films include “The Glory Guys” with Tom Tryon and Senta Berger in 1965 and “Cool Hand Luke” with Paul Newman in 1967. He died in 31st December 2015.
“Telegraph” obituary:
Wayne Rogers, who has died aged 82, played the US Army surgeon Captain “Trapper” John McIntyre, the martini-swilling, nurse-chasing sidekick to Alan Alda’s “Hawkeye” Pierce, in the immensely popular television series M.A.S.H., a black comedy set in a mobile hospital during the Korean War.
Rogers took over the role of Trapper John for the television adaptation (first broadcast in 1972) from Elliott Gould who had played him in Robert Altman’s hit film of 1970, which was itself based on a novel by Richard Hooker, a former US Army physician. For the television show, which was generally lighter in tone than the film, Trapper’s sense of humour was made broader, more slapstick and less dry.
He tended to take on a secondary role as partner in practical jokes – usually involving the goading of the more officious members of the unit such as Major Burns – to Alan Alda’s character. But the wisecracking Trapper, so-called because a young woman with whom he was once caught in flagrante in a train’s lavatory protested that “he trapped me!”, was well liked by viewers.
A typical quip came in an episode when Major Margaret “Hot Lips” Houlihan, the strict head nurse played by Loretta Swit, is heard angrily deriding Trapper and Hawkeye as “those shower-tent peekers”, and Trapper rejoins with: “You peek into one shower and you’re labelled for life!”
By the third series, Alda’s dominance in the scripts was irritating Rogers and this, as well as contractual disagreements (including a morality clause which, Rogers later claimed, “said that, in the eyes of the studio, if you behaved in an immoral fashion, they have the right to suspend you”) led to his departure from the show in 1975. Trapper was hastily written out of the script and replaced as Hawkeye’s tent chum by Captain B J Hunnicutt (Mike Farrell), who stayed for the remaining eight seasons.
William Wayne McMillan Rogers was born in Birmingham, Alabama, on April 7 1933, the son of a lawyer who died when Wayne was still a child. After private school he read History at Princeton and then served in the US Navy as a navigator on a cargo ship before catching the acting bug. “At the time, I was supposed to go to Harvard Law,” he recalled many years later. “My mother was insistent that I conform. I had to break the news that I wanted a life in the theatre instead. It went over like a lead balloon.”
He moved to New York where he studied dance with Martha Graham and acting. He appeared in episodes of Gunsmoke, Law of the Plainsman and Wanted: Dead or Alive and in 1960 was cast in a lead role in a new Western series, Stagecoach West. In 1967 he took a small role in the prison drama Cool Hand Luke with Paul Newman.
Of the M.A.S.H. years he said: “It was a wonderful experience, and I’ll tell you why. Alan Alda and I came to it with the same attitude – that the work, and not the trappings of the work, was the most important thing.”
After M.A.S.H. he turned up occasionally in films; on television among other roles he appeared as a guest star in five episodes of Murder, She Wrote and, starting in 1979, played a doctor again in the sitcom House Calls, with Lynn Redgrave and then Sharon Gless.
Meanwhile Rogers’s business career was prospering; he became a respected entrepreneur and appeared on Cashin’ In on Fox News as a pundit.
From his early days in a precarious profession Rogers had salted away his earnings. “One of the first things I did in the early 1960s,” he remembered, “was to buy an apartment house in West Hollywood out of bankruptcy and turn it around.” In the early days he was able to help his flatmate, the actor Peter Falk, to recover money from an insurance company after he had been badly advised.
Wayne Rogers married, first, Mitzi McWhorter, an actress, in 1960. The marriage was dissolved and in 1988 he married Amy Hirsh, a producer. She survives him with a son and a daughter from the previous marriage.
The above “Telegraph” obituary can also be accessed online here.
Gary Brumburgh’s entry:
Tough around the edges and with a handsome durability, Alabama-born Wayne Rogers had graduated from Princeton with a history degree in 1954 and joined the Navy before giving acting a thought. During his military service, however, he became associated with theater by happenstance and decided to give it a try after his discharge. He started things off by studying with renown actor Sanford Meisner and dancer Martha Graham at the Neighborhood Playhouse. He toiled for years in off-Broadway and regional plays (“Bus Stop”, “No Time for Sergeants”) and had a short stint on the daytime soap The Edge of Night (1956) before making a minor dent in films, including small roles in Odds Against Tomorrow (1959), The Glory Guys (1965) and Cool Hand Luke (1967). He also co-starred opposite Robert Bray in the short-lived TV western series Stagecoach West (1960), and co-produced and wrote the script for the cult sci-fi cheapie The Astro-Zombies (1968) in-between. It wasn’t until 1972 when the 39-year-old Rogers nabbed the role of “Trapper John”, a Korean War surgeon, in the classic comedy series M*A*S*H (1972) that he found the stardom that had eluded him for over a decade and a half. Alongside Alan Alda‘s “Hawkeye Pierce”, the TV show was a huge hit and the two enjoyed equal success at the beginning. Slowly, however, Wayne’s character started getting the short end of the stick as the wry, sardonic, highly appealing Alda became a resounding audience favorite. Frustrated at turning second-banana to Alda, he quit the series (his character was discharged) after three seasons amid a contractual dispute. Mike Farrell replaced him in the cohort role of “B.J. Hunnicut”. TV movies came his way throughout the late 70s and a couple more comedy series, including House Calls (1979), in which Wayne received a Golden Globe nomination, but nothing would equal the success he found during theM*A*S*H (1972) years. Sporadic filming in Once in Paris… (1978), The Hot Touch (1981),The Gig (1985) and The Killing Time (1987) also failed to raise his amiable profile. In later years, Wayne found renewed respect as a businessman and investor, having managed the affairs of such stars as Peter Falk and James Caan, among others.
– IMDb Mini Biography By: Gary Brumburgh / gr-home@pacbell.net
Although Stephanie Beecham has starred in movies, notably opposite Marlon Brando in “The Nightcomers” and Ava Gardner in “Tam Lin”, she is best known for her roles in some iconic television series. She was born in Barnet in 1947. She began her acting career with roles on television in “The Saint” with Roger Moore and “Jason King”. Her major roles on TV were as Rose in the series “Tenko”, in “Connie” in 1985, in Hollywood in “The Colbys” and then back in the UK in “Bad Girls” with Amanda Barrie. She has two daughters from her marriage to John McEnery.
TCM overview:
A British stage actress who migrated to the USA to play the bitchy Sable Coolly on “Dynasty II: The Cloys” (ABC, 1985-87), Stephanie Beacham has often been cast in roles that vary between nasty vixens and cool, take-charge women. The London native began her career on stage in Liverpool in 1964 where she was a founding member of the Everyman Theatre. She debuted there in “The Servant of Two Masters” and as the First Witch in “Macbeth”. By 1970, Beacham was working on the London stage in “The Basement” and later appeared opposite Ian McKellen in “Venice Preserved” (1985) and Jeremy Irons in “The Rover” (1988). She belatedly made her Broadway debut in 1996 in a production of Oscar Wilde’s “An Ideal Husband”.
Beacham debuted in films in 1969’s “The Games” as an Olympic hopeful opposite Michael Crawford. She subsequently appeared as a swinger alongside Ava Gardner in Roddy McDowell’s “The Devil’s Widow” (1971). More recently, she was a nemesis to Shelly Long in the pallid comedy “Troop Beverly Hills” (1989). Beacham has feared better on the small screen, She reprised her role as the bitch-goddess Sable on “Dynasty” for the 1988-89 season. She switched to comedy in the title role of “Sister Kate” (NBC, 1989-90), a nun more familiar with work in the high echelons of power now assigned to run an orphanage. Beacham had the recurring role of Luke Perry’s mother on Fox’s “Beverly Hills, 90210” and later played the very able Dr. Westphalen for two seasons (1993-95) on NBC’s “seaQuest DSV”.
The above TCM overview can also be accessed online here.
John McEnery & Stephanie Beecham
Stephanie Beecham TCM Overview
Setephanie Beacham has starred in movies, notably opposite Marlon Brando in “The Nightcomers” and Ava Gardner in “Tam Lin”, she is best known for her roles in some iconic television series. She was born in Barnet in 1947.
She began her acting career with roles on television in “The Saint” with Roger Moore and “Jason King”. Her major roles on TV were as Rose in the series “Tenko”, in “Connie” in 1985, in Hollywood in “The Colbys” and then back in the UK in “Bad Girls” with Amanda Barrie. She has two daughters from her marriage to John McEnery.
TCM overview:
A British stage actress who migrated to the USA to play the bitchy Sable Coolly on “Dynasty II: The Cloys” (ABC, 1985-87), Stephanie Beacham has often been cast in roles that vary between nasty vixens and cool, take-charge women. The London native began her career on stage in Liverpool in 1964 where she was a founding member of the Everyman Theatre. She debuted there in “The Servant of Two Masters” and as the First Witch in “Macbeth”.
By 1970, Beacham was working on the London stage in “The Basement” and later appeared opposite Ian McKellen in “Venice Preserved” (1985) and Jeremy Irons in “The Rover” (1988). She belatedly made her Broadway debut in 1996 in a production of Oscar Wilde’s “An Ideal Husband”.
Stephanie Beecham & Louise Jameson
Beacham debuted in films in 1969’s “The Games” as an Olympic hopeful opposite Michael Crawford. She subsequently appeared as a swinger alongside Ava Gardner in Roddy McDowell’s “The Devil’s Widow” (1971). More recently, she was a nemesis to Shelly Long in the pallid comedy “Troop Beverly Hills” (1989).
Beacham has feared better on the small screen, She reprised her role as the bitch-goddess Sable on “Dynasty” for the 1988-89 season. She switched to comedy in the title role of “Sister Kate” (NBC, 1989-90), a nun more familiar with work in the high echelons of power now assigned to run an orphanage.
Beacham had the recurring role of Luke Perry’s mother on Fox’s “Beverly Hills, 90210” and later played the very able Dr. Westphalen for two seasons (1993-95) on NBC’s “seaQuest DSV”. The above TCM overview can also be accessed online here.
Shirley Jones was born in 1934 in Pennsylvania. She achieved fame early in life because of her winning the leads in two of the major cinema musicals of the mid-1950’s, “Oklaholma” in 1955 and “Carousel” in 1956. She won an Oscar for a dramatic role in 1960 in “Elmer Gantry” and then had another major success in a singing role in 1962 in “The Music Man”. In 1970 she won international acclaim again for her role in “The Partridge Family” with her stepson David Cassidy. She is still busy performing on stage, films and television.
TCM Overview:
A sunny personality and a gorgeous singing voice brought actress Shirley Jones to the Broadway stage, which in turn led to her career in Hollywood. She was a natural for big-screen musicals, but defied critics’ expectations for her surprising turn as a prostitute in “Elmer Gantry” (1960), which earned her an Oscar. Her film work cooled in the 1960s, but she gained a following among younger viewers in the early 1970s as one of television’s coolest moms on “The Partridge Family” (ABC, 1970-1974), which also starred her stepson, pop idol David Cassidy. The show’s success ensured her status as a pop culture icon and helped her to maintain steady work in television and on stage for the next three decades.
Born Shirley Mae Jones in Charleroi, PA, she was named after child actress Shirley Temple by her parents, Paul Jones and Marjorie Williams, who owned the Jones Brewery. An only child, her early years were marked by happiness and a burgeoning talent for singing, which earned her a spot in her local church choir at the age of six. Shortly after graduating from high school, she was encouraged by talent agents to enter the Miss Pittsburgh beauty competition, which she won in 1952. She was later named first runner-up in the Miss Pennsylvania Pageant, which earned her a scholarship to the acclaimed Pittsburgh Playhouse. She soon lit out for New York City to make a name for herself on the musical stage, and so impressed the legendary Richard Rogers and Oscar Hammerstein II that they cast her in the chorus of their 1953 production of “South Pacific.” A small role in 1954’s “Me and Juliet” led to her assuming the female lead in the touring production. While on the road, Rogers and Hammerstein arranged for Jones to audition for the upcoming film version of their smash hit “Oklahoma!” Upon her return from Hollywood, she discovered that she had landed the lead role of Laurey, and her film career was on its way.
Jones was soon top-billed in some of the most popular and successful musicals of the 1950s, including “Carousel” (1956), “April Love” (1957) and “Never Steal Anything Small” (1959). The blonde beauty exceeded at playing musical characters with a degree of depth and grit, like the lovelorn Julie in “Carousel” or the married woman who catches James Cagney’s eye in “Never Steal Anything Small.” Television also offered her more dramatic opportunities. After her performance in “The Big Slide,” a 1956 crime drama produced as part of “Playhouse 90” (CBS, 1956-1961), Burt Lancaster convinced director Richard Brooks to cast her as a former preacher’s daughter-turned-prostitute in the hard-hitting drama “Elmer Gantry.” The power of Jones’ performance took audiences and critics alike by surprise, and she was showered with praise and awards, including the 1961 Oscar for Best Supporting Actress.
Despite her overwhelming success, Jones struggled to find parts of equal substance in her subsequent features. John Ford’s “Two Rode Together” (1961), with Jones as the sister of a man kidnapped by Comanches, gave her a fine showcase for her dramatic skills, but more often than not, she was cast as the object of romance in light comedies like “The Courtship of Eddie’s Father” (1963) or “Bedtime Story” (1964) with Marlon Brando and David Niven. Her biggest success on film during this period was another musical, albeit one of the best – the 1962 film version of “The Music Man,” with Jones as a prim librarian who disapproves of Robert Preston’s flim-flam man. One of Columbia Pictures’ most well-loved and popular hits, it cemented audiences’ perception of Jones as a beloved musical star, as did numerous national stage performances and nightclub performances. Her frequent co-star during this period was troubled actor and singer Jack Cassidy, whom she married in 1956. Their marriage produced three sons – future teen idol and television producer Shaun Cassidy, actor Patrick Cassidy, and baby brother Ryan.
Jones found more compelling work in film and television during the late 1960s; she was nominated for an Emmy as a lonely married woman who finds love with a stranger (Lloyd Bridges) in her TV movie debut, “Silent Night, Lonely Night” (1969), and gave a comic spin on her “Elmer Gantry” role as the salty proprietress of “The Cheyenne Social Club” (1970), a bordello inherited by aging cowpokes Henry Fonda and James Stewart. Both were overshadowed by her first television series, “The Partridge Family,” which debuted in 1970. Based on the real-life family pop group the Cowsills, the series cast Jones as a widowed mother who finds herself on the top of the music charts, thanks to her children’s band. Jones’ real-life stepson David Cassidy also starred as the group’s lead singer and central eye candy, with future headline grabber Danny Bonaduce as the comic relief bassist. A substantial ratings hit, the fictitious group also found themselves on the real Billboard charts with their debut single, “I Think I Love You,” which featured Jones on backing vocals. She soon found herself at the center of a teen music and television phenomenon, which generated nearly a dozen album releases, countless promotional appearances and even a spin-off cartoon.
The success of “The Partridge Family” came to an end in 1974 when Cassidy grew weary of the show and the fan adulation; seeking instead to establish himself as a serious musician outside of its confines. The series aired its final episode in 1974 – the same year that Jones painfully divorced her alcoholic husband, Jack Cassidy. Though more popular during its network run than its chief competitor for young audiences, “The Brady Bunch” (ABC, 1969-1974), it did not score as highly in syndication, and remained a cult favorite until the Nick At Night network revived it in the mid-1990s. Jones and the original cast were reunited for several high profile promotional appearances, and two TV movies based on the series were aired in 1999 – “Come On Get Happy: The Partridge Family Story” and “The David Cassidy Story,” which attempted to explore the series’ popularity and its effect on the major players.
After “The Partridge Family,” Jones remained very active on stage and television during the 1970s and 1980s; among her better TV features during this period was “Winner Take All” (1975), which cast her as a gambling addict; the terrorism drama “Evening in Byzantium” (1979); and “The Children of An Lac” (1980), which cast her as real life Red Cross nurse Betty Tisdale, who helped rescue Vietnamese orphans before the fall of Saigon in 1975. There were also attempts to return to a series – “Shirley” (NBC, 1979-1980) – which starred Jones as a recent widower raising her children in a small California town, while “The Adventures of Pollyanna” (1982) was an unsold pilot based on the classic children’s story that originally aired as party of “Disneyland” (ABC/CBS/NBC, 1954-1990). In 1977, Jones married manic TV comedian Marty Ingells, who chronicled their unusual courtship in the 1989 book Shirley and Marty – An Unlikely Love Story. Ingells’ eccentricities put him at odds with her grown children, and Jones herself twice filed for divorce before retracting the petitions. It seemed after the heartache of being married to the womanizing drinker that was her first husband, Jones was determined to take a different path – that of being with someone who made her laugh, no matter how odd the rest of the world saw the comic.
Jones’ acting career thrived well into the 1980s, 1990s and into the new millennium, with frequent guest appearances on television series and roles in TV features and stage productions. She never strayed very far from musicals – a 2004 Broadway production of “42nd Street” saw her appearing opposite her son Patrick – but she also began to show an aptitude for broad comedy, most notably in a recurring stint on “The Drew Carey Show” (ABC, 1995-2004) as an older woman who becomes Drew’s romantic interest, as well as in the comedy “Grandma’s Boy” (2006) as a sexually aggressive senior citizen.
Audiences were reminded of Jones’ dramatic talents with the 2006 TV movie “Hidden Places,” which cast her as the Bible-quoting aunt of a young Depression-era widow left to care for her family’s farm. Jones received considerable praise for her performance, netting an Emmy nomination as well as a nod from the Screen Actors Guild. That same year, she returned to series work with the short-lived daytime serial “Monarch Cove” (Lifetime, 2006), a soapy drama based on a German telenovela. Two years later, she joined the cast of the long-running soap “Days of Our Lives” (NBC, 1965- ) for a six-episode stint as Colleen Brady, a mysterious member of the perennially troubled Brady clan. Meanwhile, she received critical kudos for her turn as the alcoholic mother of an angry and stressed talent manager (Noah Bean) being counseled by a recovering drug addict (Benjamin Bratt) on the short-lived drama, “The Cleaner” (A&E, 2008-09). Jones’ turn put her in contention for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series.
The above TCM overview can also be accessed online here.
Irene Tedrow was born in 1907 in Denver, Colorado. She had a profilic career on stage, screen and television. Among her films are “Slander” in 1956, “Loving You” with Elvis Presley and Dolores Hart,, “Please Don’t Eat the Daisies” with Doris Day in 1960 and “”The Cincinnati Kid” with Steve McQueen in 1965. She died in 1995.
Gary Brumburgh’s entry:
Denver-born supporting actress Irene Tedrow is another in a long line of “I know the face…but not the name” character actors whose six-decade career was known more for its durability than for the greatness of roles she played. Born in 1907, she was a lady primarily of the stage, beginning her acting career as a teen. She trained in drama at Carnegie Tech in Pittsburgh, PA, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1929. A slim, handsome woman in her early days, her features grew more severe with age, which ultimately typed her as puritanical meddlers and no-nonsense matrons practically from her entrance into film in 1937. She seldom, if ever, found a meaty part, appearing way, way down the list of credits, if at all. A founding member of the Old Globe Theatre, she was featured in such classical productions as “Richard III,” “Hamlet” and “Henry IV, Part I.” She became a primary player on radio during the war years, notably for the maternal role of Mrs. Janet Archer in the popular serial Meet Corliss Archer (1951), which she transferred to TV for one season. Her radio role lasted for nine years (43-52). Irene appeared in hundreds of episodic guest appearances for nearly 35 years in everythingDragnet (1951), The Andy Griffith Show (1960), and Twilight Zone (1959) to the more recent The Facts of Life (1979), St. Elsewhere (1982) and L.A. Law (1986). Never a regular series player, she is probably best remembered as the kindly Mrs. Elkins who appeared occasionally on the Dennis the Menace (1959) sitcom. Over the years, Irene never abandoned the stage, gracing a number of shows in her senior years including “Our Town” on Broadway, plus “Foxfire,” “The Hot L. Baltimore” and “Pygmalion.” Continuing to work as an octogenarian, she died of a stroke at age 87 in the Los Angeles area.
– IMDb Mini Biography By: Gary Brumburgh / gr-home@pacbell.net
Elizabeth Wilson is a profilic American character actress. She was born in 1921 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She made her Broadway debut in “Picnic” in 1953 and repeated the role in her movie debut in “Picnic” in 1955. Other films include “The Godess” in 1957, “The Birds” in 1963, “The Graduate” in 1967 and “Nine to Five” with Jane Fonda and Dolly Parton. She died in 2015 at the age of 95.
TCM overview:
A lady of stage and screen, award-winning actress Elizabeth Wilson had a long career in which she frequently played mothers and wives on television and the big screen. Many filmgoers will remember her best for her performance as Dustin Hoffman’s mother in Mike Nichols’ classic comedy/drama “The Graduate” (1967) and from her role as Ralph Fiennes’ mother in Robert Redford’s true-life drama “Quiz Show” (1994). She also had a prominent and memorable comedic role in the 1980 blockbuster comedy “Nine to Five,” playing bad boss Dabney Coleman’s assistant opposite stars Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin and Dolly Parton. She also co-starred in the big-screen adaptation of “The Addams Family” (1991), playing Abigail Craven, and had a late-career turn starring alongside Bill Murray in the drama “Hyde Park on Hudson” (2012), playing Sara Ann Delano Roosevelt, mother of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Like many stage-trained actors, Wilson balanced her career between her first love-theater-and feature films and television. Hollywood typically typecast her in matronly roles, but like any gifted actress, the dependable Wilson always found a way to heighten the role to her best advantage.
Wilson was born on April 4, 1921 in Grand Rapids, MI. She journeyed to New York City to study drama in 1942, hoping to eventually become an actress on Broadway. But in 1945, she put that dream on hold for a while, instead travelling to the Pacific theater to entertain the troops as part of the USO. The job was dangerous-she toured New Guinea, the Philippines and eventually Japan for months-since the war was still raging on, but the experience was also exhilarating for the burgeoning thespian. In the 1950s, Wilson began to make her significant mark on the theater scene, landing her first appearance in a Broadway play performing as schoolteacher Christine Schoenwalder in the original run of “Picnic” (1951). The play also starred Ralph Meeker, Kim Stanley and a young Paul Newman. She would later perform the same role in the 1955 movie version.
When Wilson made the leap to television and feature films, she did not abandon theater. Her most important roles would remain those she performed on stage, although she also racked up an impressive list of credits over the years for her arguably more visible work on television and in films. She had a small role in Alfred Hitchcock’s nature-gone-amok classic thriller “The Birds” (1963) and co-starred opposite legendary actor George C. Scott on the short-lived landmark television show “East Side/West Side” (CBS, 1963-64). After her memorable performance as Dustin Hoffman’s mother in “The Graduate,” she worked with director Mike Nichols six more times, including appearing in “Catch-22” (1970), “The Day of the Dolphin” (1973) and “Regarding Henry” (1991). The two also worked together on Broadway. Wilson also appeared in several episodes of the cult gothic television soap opera “Dark Shadows” (ABC, 1966-1971) and she was nominated for an Emmy Award for her supporting performance in the television mini-series “Nutcracker: Money, Madness & Murder” (NBC, 1987). Although never a household name, Wilson was regularly cast in several high-profile feature film productions late in life, including “Quiz Show,” “The Addams Family” and “Hyde Park on Hudson.”
The above TCM overview can also be accessed online here.
Obituary from May 2015 ‘s “Detroit Press”:
NEW HAVEN, Conn. – Elizabeth Wilson, who built a career as a character actress in films such as “The Graduate” and “9 to 5,” has died. She was 94.
Wilson, who lived in Branford, Conn., with her sister, died Saturday at Yale-New Haven Hospital, actress Elizabeth Morton, a spokeswoman for the family, said Monday.
Wilson played Dustin Hoffman’s mother in “The Graduate” and the character Roz in “9 to 5.” She had roles in almost 30 films, including “Catch-22” and “Regarding Henry,” and appeared in numerous stage and television shows, playing Archie Bunker’s cousin on “All in the Family.”
Wilson won a Tony Award for her performance in 1972’s “Sticks and Bones.” She made her Broadway debut in 1953 in “Picnic,” and appeared in the Broadway revival of “Uncle Vanya” in 1973.
“I had no desire to be a star,” she told the Hartford Courant last July. “I wanted to be a character actress and be able to do all kinds of parts and work on a lot of things. That was my unconscious choice. I wanted to be an undercover actress.”
Wilson was born on April 4, 1921, in Grand Rapids, Mich., and studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York.
She bought a home in Branford in 1988 while working at the Long Wharf Theatre.
Wilson is survived by her younger sister, Mary Muir Wilson, with whom she lived, and several nieces and nephews.
A memorial service is planned for later this summer, Morton said.
The above obituary can also be accessed online here.
“Guardian” obituary by Ronald Bergan:
It is a show business axiom that a small role in a hit Hollywood film is worth much more in the currency of fame than dozens of longer, meatier parts in the theatre. Thus Elizabeth Wilson, who has died aged 94, is primarily acknowledged as having played Dustin Hoffman’s shallow and materialistic mother in The Graduate (1967) rather than for her critically acclaimed stage performances in plays by Anton Chekhov (Uncle Vanya), Oscar Wilde (The Importance of Being Earnest), Eugene O’Neill (Ah Wilderness!), Bertolt Brecht (The Good Woman of Szechuan, The Threepenny Opera) and Edward Albee (A Delicate Balance).
Nevertheless, Wilson was admirable in Mike Nichols’s The Graduate, initially displaying maternal pride at her son’s achievements at college, reading from the yearbook to a houseful of guests and embarrassing her son at the same time, then later displaying touching bewilderment at his anti-social behaviour. There is a significant Oedipal sequence in a bathroom when Wilson, in a black negligee, has an argument with Hoffman about where he goes at night, before the film cuts rapidly to him in bed with Mrs Robinson (Anne Bancroft), who is around his mother’s age.
Wilson was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Her mother, Marie (nee Welter), and her father, Henry, an insurance agent, encouraged her to follow her ambition to go on stage after graduating from high school. She immediately moved to New York to study at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and with Sanford Meisner at the left-leaning Neighborhood Playhouse. At the latter she learnedMeisner’s approach to method acting, which he characterised as “living truthfully under imaginary circumstances”.
It took some years before she got her first Broadway role as the gossipy schoolteacher Christine Schoenwalder in William Inge’s Picnic (1953), a part she reprised in the 1955 film version. It was her big screen debut if one discounts her fleeting appearance in Alfred Hitchcock’s Notorious (1946), years before her memorable role in the same director’s The Birds (1963) as a waitress who, beholding a drunk who declares that the arrival of the birds is the end of the world, says: “Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning that they may follow strong drink.”
For much of the 1960s Wilson made appearances in television series such as East Side, West Side and in off-Broadway plays such as Henry Livings’s Eh? (1967), in which both she and Hoffman were spotted by Nichols, who cast them in The Graduate. Nichols went on to give Wilson character roles in Catch 22 (1970), Day of the Dolphin (1973) and Regarding Henry (1991), as well as a substantial part in his starry 1973 Broadway production of Uncle Vanya, in which Wilson was poignant as the joyless, unloved Sofya Alexandrovna in a company that included Julie Christie, Lillian Gish, Nicol Williamson and George C Scott.
Wilson, who was something of an expert at playing mothers, won a Tony award for her role in the theatre as the mother of a blind Vietnam vet in David Rabe’s 1971 black comedy Sticks and Bones. She continued to shine as Mrs Peachum in The Threepenny Opera (1976), in which she belted out The Ballad of Sexual Dependency, and as Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest (1977). On screen, in Nine to Five (1980), directed by Colin Higgins, Wilson made an impact as the obnoxious, nosy personal assistant of the sexist boss of office workers Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin and Dolly Parton, who manage to turn the tables in the end. In contrast, she played Ralph Fiennes’s cynical upper-class novelist mother in Robert Redford’s Quiz Show (1994).
Her last stage appearance came in Noël Coward’s Waiting in the Wings (1999) set in a charity home for retired actors. Of a cast headed by Lauren Bacall and Rosemary Harris a New York critic wrote: “Elizabeth Wilson fares best, benefiting from the warmth and sceptical compassion Coward has given her character.” Her final film role was as the mother of Franklin D Roosevelt (Bill Murray) in Hyde Park on Hudson (2012).
She remained single throughout her life, explaining in her later years that she never wanted to “stay home and raise a family”.
She is survived by her sister, Mary.
•Elizabeth Wilson, actor, born 4 April 1921; died 9 May 2015
The above “Guardian” obituary can also be accessed online here.
Roy Thinnes was born in 1938 in Chicago. He became known to audiences for his part as Ben Quick in the television series “The Long Hot Summer” in 1965. However he is best known for his starring role in the cult TV series “The Invaders”which began in 1967. His films include “A Beautiful Mind” in 2001.
IMDB entry:
Roy was born on April 6, 1938, in Chicago, Illinois. During his formative years, he had wanted to become a doctor or football player – or, if one wants to believe his early press releases, both. He started in show business at a radio station, where he did everything: engineering, DJ shows, news and dramatizations. That led to an interest in acting in general. After a hitch in the army, he went to New York and then to California, where he started working in episodes of TV shows. Having made his professional acting debut as a teen-aged firebug in a 1957 pilot for the never-sold TV series, “Chicago 212”, Thinnes spent several lean years “between engagements”, working as a hotel clerk, vitamin salesman and copy boy to Chicago columnist Irv Kupcinet. His first regular TV work was as “Phil Brewer” on the daytime soap opera, General Hospital (1963); during this period, the young actor became the television equivalent of a matinée idol, sparking a barrage of protest mail when he briefly left “GH” in pursuit of other acting jobs. Aggressively campaigning for the starring role of “Ben Quick” on The Long, Hot Summer (1965) — the TV version of the film, The Long, Hot Summer (1958) — Thinnes won the part, as well as a whole new crop of adoring female fans. While “Summer” was unsuccessful, Thinnes enjoyed a longer run as “David Vincent” on the The Fugitive (1963)-like sci-fi series, The Invaders (1967). Success with this popular show also led to marriage to first wife, Lynn Loring, who acted with him in the show as well as in the movie, Journey to the Far Side of the Sun (1969) (aka “Journey To The Far Side Of The Sun”); she is now a CBS film executive. They parted in 1984. Though he’d occasionally show up in such features asThe Hindenburg (1975), Airport 1975 (1974) and Blue Bayou (1990), Thinnes has remained essentially a TV star. Among his post-“The Invaders” TV-series roles was “Dr. James Whitman” on The Psychiatrist (1970), “Capt. (and later Maj.) Holms” on From Here to Eternity (1980), “Nick Hogan” on Falcon Crest (1981) (who, in 1983, married “Victoria Gioberti” [Jamie Rose] in a highly-rated ceremony) and the dual role of “Roger Collins” and “Rev. Trask” in the 1991 prime-time revival, Dark Shadows (1991). Roy’s more recent appearances on the The X-Files (1993) put him back in the forefront. He revived his role as the enigmatic alien, “Jeremiah Smith”, a turnabout role series creator Chris Carterrenewed for Roy in the February 25, 2001 episode, The X-Files: This Is Not Happening(2001).
– IMDb Mini Biography By: James E. Finch (qv’s & corrections by A. Nonymous)
The above IMDB entry can also be accessed online here.
Joan Freeman was one of Elvis Presley’s leading ladies, appearing with him and Barbara Stanwyck in “Roustabout” in 1964. She was born in Council Bluffs, Iowa in 1942. Her other movies include “Tower of London” and “The Rounders”.
