Maureen Stapleton

Maureen Stapleton 1925-, American actress, b. Troy, N.Y. Stapleton's first major stage success was in The Rose Tattoo (1951). Best-known for intelligent character roles, she has appeared on Broadway in Orpheus Descending (1957), Toys in the Attic (1960), The Gingerbread Lady (1970), and The Country Girl (1973). Her films include A View from the Bridge (1962), Plaza Suite (1972), Reds (1982), Cocoon (1985), and Nuts (1988).

Stapleton, [Lois] Maureen (b. 1925), actress. Described by Vogue as having “big show‐girl eyes, a small mouth, the skill of a Japanese tumbler, a radiance, and a voice that combines harridan and chamber music with layers of cello and violin,” she was born in Troy, New York, and studied acting with Herbert Berghof. She made her New York debut in 1946 in The Playboy of the Western World but rose to stardom as the emotional widow Serafina in The Rose Tattoo (1951). Subsequent notable roles included the sex‐starved storekeeper Lady Torrance in Orpheus Descending (1957), the possessive sister Carrie Berniers in Toys in the Attic (1960), three different worried New Yorkers in Plaza Suite (1968), and the alcoholic singer Eva Mears in The Gingerbread Lady (1970). Stapleton also shone in several revivals, among them Lady Anne in Richard III (1953), Masha in The Seagull (1954), Amanda in The Glass Menagerie (1965 and 1975), and Birdie in The Little Foxes (1981). She has made many television and film appearances as well.

Stapleton, (Lois) Maureen (1925– ), American Method actress of great power and subtlety, excelling in character roles. She made her New York début in Synge's The Playboy of the Western World in 1946, but achieved stardom as the tempestuous Serafina in Tennessee Williams's The Rose Tattoo in 1951. She then appeared in revivals (Lady Anne in Richard III in 1953, Masha in Chekhov's The Seagull in 1954) before starring in two more plays by Williams—as Flora in Twenty-Seven Wagons Full of Cotton (1955) and Lady Torrance in Orpheus Descending (1957). Her Ida in S. N. Behrman's The Cold Wind and the Warm (1958) and Carrie in Lillian Hellman's Toys in the Attic (1960) were followed in 1965 by another Williams role, Amanda Wingfield in a revival of The Glass Menagerie, while in 1966 she played Serafina again. She was seen to advantage in two plays by Neil Simon: in three separate roles in Plaza Suite (1968) and as the alcoholic heroine of The Gingerbread Lady (1970). In 1972 she was an effective Georgie Elgin opposite Jason Robards in a revival of Odets's The Country Girl. In 1975 she again played Amanda, and in 1981 was Birdie Hubbard to Elizabeth Taylor's Regina in a revival of Lillian Hellman's The Little Foxes.