Colleen Dewhurst

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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).

Dewhurst, Colleen (1926–91), actress. Born in Montreal, she studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and with Harold Clurman before making her debut as a neighbor in a 1952 revival of Desire under the Elms. Much of her early work was Off Broadway, including her highly praised performance of the ostentatiously ladylike Laetitia in Children of Darkness (1958) at the Circle in the Square. On Broadway she received Tony Awards for her devout wife Mary Follet in All the Way Home (1960) and as Josie in a 1973 revival of A Moon for the Misbegotten. In the latter she was described by Clive Barnes in the Times as a “virgin earth‐mother, with common sense shining through her eyes like stars, and love clinging to her big red hands.” Dewhurst's other memorable roles include Cleopatra in Antony and Cleopatra (1963), Sara in More Stately Mansions (1967), Shen Te in The Good Woman of Setzuan (1970), Christine Mannon in Mourning Becomes Electra (1972), Martha in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1976), Olga in You Can't Take It with You (1983), Carlotta Monterey O'Neill in My Gene (1987), Essie in Ah, Wilderness! (1988), and Mary Tyrone in Long Day's Journey into Night (1988).