Frances Lee McCain

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Frances Lee McCain (born 28 July 1943), also known as Lee McCain, is an American actress.

She was born in York, PA and while growing up lived in White Plains, New York; Kenilworth, Illinois; Denver, CO and Los Alamitos, CA. She graduated from Ripon College, Ripon, Wisconsin with a BA in Philosophy and then studied acting for 3 years at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London, England. She returned to New York where she appeared on Broadway in Woody Allen's Play it Again Sam, and off-broadway in Lanford Wilson's Lemon Sky, creating the role of Carol. She then joined the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco under William Ball and played a variety of roles in repertory. McCain started her career in film and television after appearing opposite Jon Voigt and Faye Dunaway in A Streetcar Named Desire, eventually co-starring with Ronny Cox as the female lead in her own television series, Apple's Way in 1973. She appeared in a variety of tv shows and miniseries throughout the 1970s. In 1978 she played Charles Grodin's wife in Albert Brooks' debut feature film Real Life. In 1984, she had a major role in the blockbuster film Gremlins as Lynn Peltzer, the mother of main character Billy Peltzer. Also that year, she played the role of Ethel McCormack in the hit film Footloose. In 1985 she appeared in the hit film Back to the Future as Stella Baines, the mother of Lorraine Baines McFly. In 1986, she played the role of Mrs. Lachance, the mother of Gordie Lachance, in the hit drama film Stand by Me. She continued to work in television after relocating to the San Francisco Bay Area in the late 1980s and also appeared in Scream (1996) and Patch Adams (1998).

Frances Lee McCain received a Master's Degree in Psychology from the California Institute of Integral Studies in 2000, and continues to work in Theater extensively in the San Francisco Area. In 2004 she initiated a theater project based on oral histories of the blue collar workers responsible for the building and maintaining of the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico which received workshop readings at the Lensic Center for Performing Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico and most recently at the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, DC. McCain is an Associate Artist of the ZSpace Studio in San Francisco, and an ensemble member of the AlterTheater Ensemble in San Rafael, CA.

Filmography

• The Laughing Policeman (1973)
• The War Widow (1976)
• Real Life (1979)
• Honky Tonk Freeway (1981)
• Tex (1982)
• Gremlins (1984)
• Footloose (1984)
• Back to the Future (1985)
• Stand by Me (1986)
• Scream (1996)
• Patch Adams (1998)
• True Crime (1999)
• No Return (2003)
• Stitch in Time (2009)

External links

• Frances Lee McCain at the Internet Movie Database