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Lois Maureen Stapleton (June 21 1925 – March 13 2006) was an Academy Award-winning American actress in film, theater and television, who also won an Emmy Award, two Tony Awards and was elected to the American Theatre Hall of Fame.

Biography

Early life

Stapleton was born in Troy, New York to John P. and Irene (Walsh) Stapleton, Irish American Catholics (her father was an alcoholic). Stapleton began acting in theater after finishing high school and rapidly gained respect as both a dramatic and comedic actress.

She fled to New York City at the age of 18, and did modeling to pay the bills. She once said that it was her infatuation with the handsome Hollywood actor Joel McCrea which led her into acting. She made her Broadway debut in Burgess Meredith's production of The Playboy of the Western World in 1946.

Career

Stepping in because Anna Magnani refused the role due to her limited English, Stapleton won a Tony Award for her role in Tennessee Williams' The Rose Tattoo in 1951. (Magnani's English improved, however, and she was able to play the role in the film version, winning an Oscar). Stapleton played in other Williams' productions, including Twenty-Seven Wagons Full of Cotton and Orpheus Descending, as well as Lillian Hellman's Toys in the Attic. She won a second Tony Award for Neil Simon's The Gingerbread Lady, which was written especially for her, in 1971.

Her film career also brought her immediate success, with her debut in Lonelyhearts (1958) earning a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She was nominated again for Airport (1970) and Woody Allen's Interiors (1978); she won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for Reds (1981), directed by Warren Beatty,in which she portrayed the Lithuanian-born anarchist, Emma Goldman.

Stapleton won a 1968 Emmy Award for her performance in Among the Paths of Eden. She was nominated for the television version of All the King's Men (1959), Queen of the Stardust Ballroom (1975), and The Gathering (1977).

Her more recent appearances included Johnny Dangerously (1984), Cocoon (1985) and its sequel Cocoon: The Return (1988).

Personal life

Stapleton's first husband was Max Allentuck (general manager to the producer Kermit Bloomgarden), and her second husband was playwright David Rayfiel, from whom she was divorced. She had a son, Daniel, and a daughter, Katherine, by her first husband and later was a devoted grandmother. Her daughter, Katherine Allentuck, garnered good reviews for her single movie role, that of "Aggie" in Summer of '42.

Stapelton suffered from anxiety and alcoholism for many years and once told an interviewer, "The curtain came down and I went into the vodka." She also said that her unhappy childhood contributed to her insecurities. A heavy smoker, Maureen Stapleton died of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease at her home in Lenox, Massachusetts, at the age of 80.

In 1981 Hudson Valley Community College in Stapleton's childhood city of Troy, New York dedicated a theater in her name at the suggestion of then college president Joseph Bulmer who was a childhood friend. The theatre is located in the college’s newly renovated Raymond H. Siek Campus Center.

She was not related to actress Jean Stapleton of All in the Family fame.

External links

• Maureen Stapleton press photo
• Associated Press (March 13, 2006). Actress Maureen Stapleton Dies at 80.
• Berkvist, Robert (March 13, 2006). Maureen Stapleton, Oscar-Winning Actress, Dies. New York Times

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