Dunnock, Mildred

Dunnock, Mildred [ Dorothy Dunnock] (1900–91), American actress, formerly a schoolteacher, who after studying with Lee Strasberg and Elia Kazan made her New York début in 1932. She was seen in a variety of roles including Queen Margaret in Richard III (1943) and Lavinia Hubbard in Lillian Hellman's Another Part of the Forest (1946) before scoring a big success as Linda Loman in Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman (1949). This was followed by major roles such as Gina in Ibsen's The Wild Duck (1951) and Big Mama in Tennessee Williams's Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955). She appeared at the Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto, Italy, in another Tennessee Williams play, The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore (1962), and as Hecuba in Euripides' Trojan Women (1963), playing both roles later in New York. She continued to make regular stage appearances in her seventies, including leading roles in Marguerite Duras's A Place without Doors (1970) and Days in the Trees (1976).