Dewhurst, Colleen

Dewhurst, Colleen (1924–91), Canadian-born actress, who made her New York début in 1946 while still a drama student, and in 1952 had a small part in a production of O'Neill's Desire under the Elms, in which in 1963 she was to play the leading role of Abbie Putnam. A passionate and powerful actress, she starred in other plays by O'Neill—A Moon for the Misbegotten (in 1958 at the Spoleto Festival in Italy and in 1973 with Jason Robards); the first New York production of More Stately Mansions (1967); and revivals of Mourning Becomes Electra (1972), Long Day's Journey into Night, and Ah, Wilderness! (both 1988). She was seen to advantage in several Shakespearian roles for Joseph Papp: Tamora in Titus Andronicus, Katharina in The Taming of the Shrew (both 1956), Lady Macbeth (1957), Cleopatra (1959 and 1963), and Gertrude in Hamlet (1972). She was also in plays by Albee—The Ballad of the Sad Café (1963), All Over (1971), and as Martha in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1976). Other outstanding performances were in Athol Fugard's Hello and Goodbye (1969), Brecht's The Good Woman of Setzuan (1970), as Lillian Hellman in Eric Bentley's Are You Now or Have You Ever Been … ? (1978), and in Betti's The Queen and the Rebels (1982).