Ivey, Judith (b. 1951), actress. A versatile leading lady capable of portraying high‐class dames as well as kooky lower‐class broads, Ivey was born in El Paso, Texas, the daughter of a college president and a teacher, and was educated at Illinois State before acting at the Goodman Theatre and other regional theatres. She appeared in some Off‐Broadway productions before finding success as the crass but honest Cockney Josie in Steaming (1982). Ivey was also lauded for her hardened stripper Bonnie in Hurlyburly (1984); the uptight second wife Ruth in Blithe Spirit (1987); Kathleen, the Irish housekeeper with a grudge in Park Your Car in Harvard Yard (1991); the estranged mother Patrice in A Fair Country (1996); the ex‐chorine Sally who still carries a torch in Follies (2001); and the grieving mother Madeline in The Women of Lockerbie (2003).

The Oxford Companion to American Theatre. Copyright © 2004 by Oxford University Press, Inc. All rights reserved.