Colleen Dewhurst (June 3, 1924 – August 22, 1991) was a Canadian actress whose distinguished stage career also encompassed significant work in film and television.
Biography
Early life
Dewhurst was born in Montreal, Quebec, the only child of a hockey player turned businessman and his homemaker wife. Her mother was a practitioner of Christian Science.[1] Dewhurst was raised in Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin, a suburb of Milwaukee, where she attended Whitefish Bay High School Shorewood High School and eventually graduated from Riverside High School in Milwaukee,in 1942 and the Milwaukee-Downer College.[2]
Career
Her breakthrough stage role, which made her a major success, came in 1974 after 27 years of acting, when she appeared in Eugene O'Neill's A Moon for the Misbegotten as "Josie Hogan". She interpreted many roles in O'Neill plays.
She appeared in 1962 as Joanne Novak in the episode "I Don't Belong in a White-Painted House" in NBC's medical drama, The Eleventh Hour, starring Wendell Corey and Jack Ging.[3]
Dewhurst received acclaim for her appearance opposite her then-husband, George C. Scott, in a 1971 television adaptation of Arthur Miller's The Price, on the Hallmark Hall of Fame. In 1977, Woody Allen cast her in his film Annie Hall as Annie's mother. Through 1991, she also appeared as the mother of Candice Bergen's Murphy Brown, earning 2 of her numerous Emmy Awards for several appearances as the stern and feisty Avery Brown.
In 1985 she played the role of Marilla Cuthbert in Kevin Sullivan's adaption of Lucy Maud Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables, and reprised the role in 1987's Anne of Green Gables: The Sequel, and in several episodes of Kevin Sullivan's television production, Road to Avonlea. Ms. Dewhurst died before Marilla could be written out of the show: her final scenes were picked up off the editing room floor and pieced together for her death scene.
She was president of the Actors' Equity Association from 1985 until her death from cervical cancer at the age of sixty-seven. Dewhurst's Christian Science beliefs led to her refusal to countenance any kind of surgical treatment.
Personal life
Dewhurst was married to James Vickery from 1947 to 1960, and to actor George C. Scott, twice, for a total of approximately 10 years, with both marriages ending in divorce. She was the mother of two sons, including actor Campbell Scott, with whom she costarred in Dying Young (1991), one of her last performances.
During the last years of her life, she lived on a farm in South Salem, New York with her boyfriend, Ken Marsolais, and also in a summer home on Prince Edward Island, in her native Canada.
Dewhurst died at her South Salem home on August 22, 1991. She was cremated and her ashes were given to family and friends.
Awards and nominations
Over the course of her 45 year career, Dewhurst won the 1974 Sarah Siddons Award for her work in Chicago theatre, two Tony Awards, two Obies and two Gemini Awards. In 1989 she won the Genie Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role for her role in Hitting Home. Of her twelve Emmy Award nominations, she won four.
- Awards
- 1986: Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or a Special – Between Two Women
- 1989: Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series – Murphy Brown
- 1989: Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or a Special – Those She Left Behind
- 1991: Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series – Murphy Brown
- 1974: Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play
- 1961: Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Play
- Nominations
- 1990: Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series – Road to Avonlea
- 1990: Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or a Special – Lantern Hill
- 1991: Emmy Award for Supporting Actress in a Movie or Miniseries – Lantern Hill
References
External links
