Marian Hall Seldes (August 23, 1928 – October 6, 2014) was an American actress. A five-time Tony Award nominee, she won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play for A Delicate Balance in 1967, and received subsequent nominations for Father's Day (1971), Deathtrap (1978–82), Ring Round the Moon (1999), and Dinner at Eight (2002). She also won a Drama Desk Award for Father's Day.
Her other Broadway credits include Equus (1974–77), Ivanov (1997), and Deuce (2007). She was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 1995 and received the Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2010.
Early life
Seldes was born in Manhattan, the daughter of Alice Wadhams Hall, a socialite, and Gilbert Seldes, a journalist, author, and editor.[citation needed] Her uncle was journalist George Seldes. She had one brother, Timothy. Seldes's paternal grandparents were Russian Jewish immigrants, and her mother was from a "prominent WASP family," the "Episcopalian blue-blooded Halls."[1][2] She grew up in a creative environment, studying acting at the Neighborhood Playhouse. Her maternal aunt, Marian Wells Hall, was a prominent interior decorator.[3]
Career
Trained for the stage, Seldes made her Broadway debut in 1948 in a production of Medea. She went on to an illustrious career in which she earned five Tony Award nominations, winning her first time out in 1967 for A Delicate Balance. In addition to performing in live theatre, Seldes began acting in television in 1952 in a Hallmark Hall of Fame production that marked the first of many guest star roles. She also performed in a number of movies and in radio plays. In the mid-1960s, Seldes recorded five albums for Folkways Records of famous works of literature, including two recordings of poetry by Robinson Jeffers.[4] Between 1974 and 1982, she appeared in 179 episodes of the CBS Radio Mystery Theater. In 1992, she appeared in an episode of Murphy Brown as the title character’s eccentric Aunt Brooke.
Seldes appeared in every one of the 1,809 Broadway performances of Ira Levin's play Deathtrap, a feat that earned her a mention in the Guinness Book of World Records as "most durable actress".[7][8] Seldes was also well known for her readings of short stories in the "Selected Shorts" series hosted by Isaiah Sheffer at New York City's Symphony Space.
In December 2008, for their annual birthday celebration to "The Master", Noël Coward, the Noël Coward Society invited Seldes as the guest celebrity to lay flowers in front of Coward's statue at New York's Gershwin Theatre, thereby commemorating the playwright’s 109th birthday. Seldes was the recipient of a 2010 Tony Lifetime Achievement Award.[9] "All I've done is live my life in the theater and loved it ... If you can get an award for being happy, that's what I've got."[10]
In 2012, Seldes played the knife-wielding socialite Mabel Billingsly in the film adaptation of Wendy Mass' popular children's book Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life, written and directed by Tamar Halpern.[11]
Personal life
Seldes had one child, Katharine, by her first marriage to Julian Claman. They were divorced in 1961. Seldes stated that the marriage to Claman was violent. "If I sound a little vague about that marriage, it's because I don't understand the person in it. Me. I literally didn't know that people could be abusive." Seldes left the marriage after her father noticed marks on her face.[5] Seldes was married to screenwriter/playwright Garson Kanin from 1990 until his death in 1999.[5]
Death
Seldes died on October 6, 2014 in Manhattan, aged 86 years.[10]
The cause of her death was not released. However, in 2017, it was reported that a documentary about her life, Marian, by director R.E. "Rick" Rodgers, chronicling Seldes' last years, had created "consternation in the theater world" as a "horrific, intrusive depiction of her slide into dementia".[12][13]
Sure As Fate (TV showcase): Played Lady Macduff in Macbeth (1951)
Westinghouse Studio One: Played Bell Giles in "The Laugh Maker" (1953)
Gunsmoke: Played Mrs. Cullen in "Indian White" (1956)
Have Gun – Will Travel: Played Christie Smith in "The Bride" (1957), and Mollie Stanton in "The Teacher" (1958)
Perry Mason: Played Mary K. Davis in "The Case of the Screaming Woman" (1958)
The Court of Last Resort: Played Roberta Farrell in "The Frank Clark Case" (1958), and Mary Morales in "The Mary Morales Case" (1958)
Half Hour to Kill: Played Joyce Field. Half Hour to Kill was a proposed but unrealized television series mystery show with episodes hosted by Vincent Price and planned to occasionally star him as well. Released to the home movie market as Freedom to Get Lost, with Price playing scientist Gene Wolcott and Seldes playing an undercover security agent tracking him. The episode is available on the DVD titled Vincent Price – The Sinister Image. (1958)
The Rifleman: Played two roles, a saucy woman named Hazel and, in the sick son's fevered delirium, the spirit of widower Lucas McCain's wife and Mark McCain's mother (Margaret), in "The Vision" (1960)
Branded: Played Neela, an Indian housekeeper, in "The Bar Sinister" (1965)
Law & Order: Played Suzanne in "God Bless the Child" (1991)
Murder, She Wrote: Played Lydia Winthrop in "The Witch's Curse" (1992)
Murphy Brown: Played Murphy's Aunt Brooke in "I'm Dreaming of a Brown Christmas" (1992)
Wings: Played Eleanor Kingsbury in "Death Becomes Him" (1995)
Dora Chamberlain / Ira and Rita Katzenberg / Jules Leventhal / Burns Mantle / P. A. MacDonald / Vincent Sardi Sr. (1947)
Vera Allen / Paul Beisman / Joe E. Brown / Cast of The Importance of Being Earnest / Robert W. Dowling / Experimental Theatre Inc. / Rosalind Gilder / June Lockhart / Mary Martin / George Pierce / James Whitmore (1948)
No award (1949)
Maurice Evans / Philip Faversham / Brock Pemberton (1950)
The Actors Fund of America / John Lindsay / Shubert Organization (1973)
Actors' Equity Association / A Moon for the Misbegotten / Candide / Peter Cook and Dudley Moore / Harold Friedlander / Bette Midler / Liza Minnelli / Theatre Development Fund / John F. Wharton (1974)
Другой контент может иметь иную лицензию. Перед использованием материалов сайта WikiSort.org внимательно изучите правила лицензирования конкретных элементов наполнения сайта.
2019-2024 WikiSort.org - проект по пересортировке и дополнению контента Википедии