Bonnie Bartlett

Bonnie Bartlett
Bonnie Bartlett with husband William Daniels, 1987 Emmy Awards
Born	June 20, 1929 (1929-06-20) (age 80) Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin, USA
Occupation	Film, television actress
Spouse(s)	William Daniels (1951-present)

Bonnie Bartlett (born June 20, 1929) is an American television and film actress. Her career spans over 50 years, with her first major role being on a 1950s daytime drama, Love of Life. She is best known for her 1980s Emmy Award-winning role as Ellen Craig on the popular medical drama series St. Elsewhere. She and her husband, actor William Daniels, who played her fictional husband Dr. Mark Craig, won 1986 Emmy Awards on the same night, becoming the first married couple to accomplish the feat since Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne in 1965. Lunt and Fontanne were the first to win Emmy Awards for a film, and Bartlett and Daniels were the first couple to win for a series.

Biography

Early life

Bartlett was born in Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin, the daughter of Carrie and E.E. Bartlett,^[1] and raised in Moline, Illinois. Her father was an insurance salesman and a failed actor, and she was determined to live out his dream. Bartlett met her husband, actor William Daniels at Northwestern University. They were married on June 30, 1951. In 1961, she gave birth to a son, who died just 24 hours later. They later adopted two children: Michael, who became an assistant director and stage manager in Los Angeles, and Robert, who became an artist and computer graphics designer based in New York City.

Career

Bartlett studied acting with Lee Strasberg, and first got her start in television playing the heroine "Vanessa Dale Raven" on the soap opera Love of Life from 1955 to 1959, replacing actress Peggy McCay. She then moved on to nighttime roles in the 1960s. Her most widely known role was as Ellen Craig on St. Elsewhere. Initially an infrequently recurring character, she took on greater prominence in the 1984–1985 season when the storyline included Ellen and Mark's marital problems. The storyline deepened in the next season when their son was killed and they had to raise their granddaughter. Bartlett won back-to-back Emmys, and was made a contract player. Further difficult material included Ellen and Mark's divorce and slow reconciliation following the loss of their granddaughter in a custody dispute with her birth mother.

While her children were growing up, Bartlett was mostly a stay-at-home mother, accepting only small guest appearances on such programs as Gunsmoke, The Rockford Files, The Waltons as well as a recurring role as Grace Snyder Edwards on Little House on the Prairie from 1974 to 1977. Her acting career picked up considerably in the 1980s, including the miniseries V and North and South: Part II.

Bartlett and husband William Daniels made Emmy Awards history in 1986 when they became just the second real-life married couple to win acting awards on the same night. Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne first accomplished the feat in 1965. Bartlett and Daniels won for their portrayals of Dr. Mark and Mrs. Ellen Craig on the TV series St. Elsewhere. They later acted together again when she played a college dean in a season of Daniels' ABC series Boy Meets World.

When St. Elsewhere ended in 1988, Bartlett's career moved to a wide variety of guest-starring appearances, including major roles on Wiseguy as a tough and corrupt matriarch of a sewage business, as Andrea Drey; Secretary General of the United Earth Oceans Organization (UEO) on seaQuest DSV, on Home Improvement as Lucille Taylor (Tim "The Tool-Man" Taylor's mother), and on ER (TV series) as Ruth Katherine Greene (Dr. Mark Greene's mother).

In the fall of 2000, she was an honoree at Moline High School in Moline, Illinois. Her plaque sits in a viewing window in the auditorium lobby at the school. Bartlett is an active member of Screen Actors Guild and currently serves on its National Board of Directors.^[2]

Filmography

References

She also appeared on an episode of the NBC sitcom The Golden Girls as Barbara Thorndike, a local novelist whose books are all set in Florida

External links

• Bonnie Bartlett at the Internet Movie Database
• Bonnie Bartlett at Allmovie
• Bonnie Bartlett at TV.com