OLTL Tribute Thread

[danfling]

Tony-award nominee Frances Sternhagen, who played two roles on One Life to Live has died.    She played Eileen Siegel #2 (in between Patricia Roe and Alice Hirson), Judge Brismaid in 1984 and 1985 and Custody Judge Granger in 2006.

She also appeared as Jesse Redin on The Secret Storm and roles on The Doctors and Love of Life, and her son appeared on Ryan's Hope.  Here is an obituary from the Associated Press:

 

Frances Sternhagen, Tony Award-winning actor who was familiar maternal face on TV, dies at 93

 

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FILE - Actress Frances Sternhagen holds her award for best featured actress in a play for her performance in “The Heiress” during the Tony Awards in New York on June 4, 1995. Sternhagen, the veteran character actor who won two Tony Awards and became a familiar maternal face to TV viewers later in life in such shows as “Cheers,” “ER,” “Sex and the City” and “The Closer,” has died. She was 93. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)

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FILE - Actress Frances Sternhagen attends the premiere of “Julie & Julia” in New York, on July 30, 2009. Sternhagen, the veteran character actor who won two Tony Awards and became a familiar maternal face to TV viewers later in life in such shows as “Cheers,” “ER,” “Sex and the City” and “The Closer,” has died. She was 93. (AP Photo/Peter Kramer, File)

 

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FILE - Actors Tom Aldredge, left, and Frances Sternhagen celebrate the opening of their play “On Golden Pond” in New York on Feb. 28, 1979. Sternhagen, the veteran character actor who won two Tony Awards and became a familiar maternal face to TV viewers later in life in such shows as “Cheers,” “ER,” “Sex and the City” and “The Closer,” has died. She was 93. (AP Photo/G. Paul Burnett, File)

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BY MARK KENNEDY

Updated 4:29 PM CST, November 29, 2023

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NEW YORK (AP) — Frances Sternhagen, the veteran character actor who won two Tony Awards and became a familiar maternal face to TV viewers later in life in such shows as “Cheers,” “ER,” “Sex and the City” and “The Closer,” has died. She was 93.

Sternhagen died peacefully of natural causes Monday her son, John Carlin, said in a statement posted to Instagram on Wednesday. “Fly on, Frannie,” he wrote. “The curtain goes down on a life so richly, passionately, humbly and generously lived.” Sternhagen’s publicist confirmed the death and said it occurred in New Rochelle, New York.

Sternhagen won a Tony for best featured actress in a play in 1974 for her role in Neil Simon’s “The Good Doctor” and a second one in 1995 for a revival of “The Heiress.” Her last turn on Broadway was in “Seascape” in 2005.

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FILE - Actress Frances Sternhagen attends the premiere of “Julie & Julia” in New York, on July 30, 2009. Sternhagen, the veteran character actor who won two Tony Awards and became a familiar maternal face to TV viewers later in life in such shows as “Cheers,” “ER,” “Sex and the City” and “The Closer,” has died. She was 93. (AP Photo/Peter Kramer, File)

She was nominated for Tonys four other times, for starring or featured roles in “The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window,” “Equus,” “Angel” and “Morning’s at Seven.” In 2013, she played Edie Falco’s mother in the off-Broadway play “The Madrid.”

“I have been very fortunate,” Sternhagen told the Daily Breeze of Torrance, California, in 2002. “And I think a lot of that is because I’m considered a character actor — which really means you can do a variety of things. It doesn’t mean that you can’t do leading parts, because I have. But you’re not limited to playing yourself.”

 

 

In a 2005 review of “Steel Magnolias,” then-Associated Press drama critic Michael Kuchwara called Sternhagen “one of the treasures of New York theater, able to invest any role she plays with considerable sympathy. Here, she turns what could be a throwaway part into one that provides much laughter — and applause.”

 

FILE - Actors Tom Aldredge, left, and Frances Sternhagen celebrate the opening of their play “On Golden Pond” in New York on Feb. 28, 1979. Sternhagen, the veteran character actor who won two Tony Awards and became a familiar maternal face to TV viewers later in life in such shows as “Cheers,” “ER,” “Sex and the City” and “The Closer,” has died. She was 93. (AP Photo/G. Paul Burnett, File)

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She kept up a flourishing career while at the same time raising six children. She always said her family came first — commuting from her suburban home in New Rochelle while acting on Broadway — but admitted that touring and movie and TV work sometimes took her away from home.

“I remember telling my older daughter when she was about 13 that sometimes I felt terribly guilty that I wasn’t home all the time,” she told a Gale Group reporter. “And my daughter said, `Oh, Mom, you would have been impossible if you were home all the time.′ I’m sure she was right.”

TV viewers knew her as played the rich grandmother of Dr. John Carter (Noah Wyle) in the long-running “ER.” On “Cheers” she was the know-it-all mother of postman Cliff Clavin (John Ratzenberger). “She was just impossible and great fun to play,” she told The New York Times. The role brought her two Emmy nominations.

More recently, she had a recurring role in “Sex and the City” as Bunny MacDougal, the strong-minded mother-in-law of Charlotte (Kristin Davis), which brought her her third Emmy nomination, and played Kyra Sedgwick’s mother in “The Closer.” Soap opera fans in the 1960s knew her in “Love of Life” as Toni Prentiss Davis, who carried a gun and went mad.

“I must say it’s fun to play these snobby older ladies. It’s always more fun to be obnoxious. I have known women like that, and I can imitate them, I guess,” she told the Los Angeles Times in 2002.

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Playwright Paul Rudnick on Wednesday called her “a wonderful actress, capable of the highest comedy and deeply moving drama.” She was, he wrote on X, formerly Twitter, “an indelible presence.”

In “Equus,” opposite Anthony Hopkins and Peter Firth on Broadway in 1974, she originated the role of the mother of the troubled youth whose shocking act of violence against horses sets the drama in motion, earning her a Tony nod.

In 1979, she appeared in the original Broadway production of “On Golden Pond” in the role of Ethel Thayer that Katharine Hepburn won an Oscar for in the film version. “I feel very close to Ethel,” Sternhagen told the Times. “She reminds me of my mother and I took to her immediately.”

Sternhagen was one of three actors to handle the title role over the long off-Broadway run of “Driving Miss Daisy,” another stage role that became an Oscar-winner on screen, this time for Jessica Tandy.

She made her film debut in “Up the Down Staircase” in 1967. Among her other movies: “Hospital,” “Two People,” “Fedora,” “Bright Lights Big City,” “Misery,” “Doc Hollywood,” “Raising Cain” and “Curtain Call.”

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Sternhagen was born in 1930, in Washington, D.C., where her father was a tax court judge. As a child she loved to perform — she recalled herself as “a shameful show-off” — but she never considered an acting career. She entered Vassar as a history major, but a friendly teacher suggested another direction: acting.

“Even though I was acting in college,” she told the New York Daily News, “it hadn’t occurred to me to major in drama.” But when it was noted that she was doing “C” work in history, Sternhagen switched to drama.

After graduation she taught drama, modern dance and singing outside Boston, earning $2,000 for the year before deciding to pursue work in the theater.

“I thought I would try it, see if I liked it, and then get out,” she told the Times in 1981. “But you never get out. It’s an addiction, because it touches your emotions, because it’s where you want to live. ... I think those of us who can stay in it are just plain lucky.”

She met her husband, actor Thomas A. Carlin, while appearing in a production in Maryland. He died of heart failure in 1991.

 

 

She didn’t let her pregnancies interfere much with her work schedule, explaining that as an only child, “I always longed for a big family.’

“I was lucky,” she told the Times. “I usually didn’t show a pregnancy until the sixth or seventh month. I was afraid to stop acting, because if I stopped I would never start again.”

“I can’t say it’s been easy. There have been quite a number of things I haven’t done. You make choices and have to stick with them.”

She and Carlin had four sons, Paul, Tony, Peter and John, and two daughters, Amanda and Sarah. She also is survived by nine grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

“A celebration of her remarkable career and life is planned for mid January, near her 94th birthday,” said a statement from her family. “We continue to be inspired by her love and life.”

 

Edited November 30, 2023 by danfling

[Vee]

Wow - I had no idea she was one of the Eileen Siegels, let alone slumming it as a judge in the Higley years.

[danfling]

I have been sent a message that Ellen Holly, an actress who appeared on One Life to Live for seventeen years, has passed away.

[Vee]

Very sad if true, though not shocking.

[SFK]

A theatre colleague tagged me in a post by Robert Hooks about the passing of his dear friend, Miss Holly.

This breaks my heart.

Several months ago, I wrote her a letter that someone closer to her was kind enough to pass along for me. I hope she was able to read it and feel the warmth, admiration, love, and respect of another fan like me.

Edited December 7, 2023 by SFK

[DRW50]

That was so kind of you. I hope she got to see the letter.

As almost all of Ellen Holly's time at OLTL is gone, if not for this place, I don't think I would have the fuller understanding or appreciation not just of what she represented, but of what she went through at the show, and the tones of the eras she was a part of. So I want to thank you, and so many others who are still here or are gone.

I'm sorry Carla never had the resolution from the show that she or Ellen deserved, but I hope places like this will keep her memory alive forever.

[Bright Eyes]

Can someone link or post the Robert Hooks post about her?

[j swift]

Was she actually 92 this year?  That's remarkable

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[Vee]

It's wonderful you could do that.

I'll just repost my commentary from the Memoriam thread:

It is not lost on me that, IIRC, both Holly and Ellen Bethea (the original Rachel Gannon) performed "Funnyhouse of a Negro" onstage decades apart.

Edited December 7, 2023 by Vee

[janea4old]

Bringing this over from the in memoriam thread:

https://www.facebook.com/grant.shipp.1/posts/1404513827139976

from Robert Hooks
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Hooks

Someone forwarded him Grant Shipp's facebook post, and he responded thus:
https://www.facebook.com/roberthooks/posts/10227339073200642

Edited December 7, 2023 by janea4old

[Khan]

Although many at OLTL and ABC tried to diminish Ms. Holly and her impact - not just on the show, but on daytime in general - they never succeeded.  The mark she left was simply too indelible.  I only pray she is at peace now, and that she truly knows how much we, her fans - but her African-American fans, in particular - respected, admired and adored her. 

Rest in power, Ms. Holly, and may God be with you and your loved ones always.

[YRfan23]

RIP Ellen!! 

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I agree that it’s a shame all of those episodes of One Life featuring Carla,  no longer exist. Such a pivotal part of history that should still be intact! 

Edited December 8, 2023 by YRfan23

[yrfan1983]

Ellen’s op-ed from NYT 8/10/69

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1969/08/10/issue.html
 

[wonderwoman1951]

free link

ellen holly’s ny times obit

 

[SFK]

Thanks for sharing. As a rule, every newspaper with an online edition should make obituaries available without a subscription. 

Was there a mention of Miss Holly's passing on The View? Whoopi has been known to pay tribute to recently departed unsung artists during hot topics.