Colleen Dewhurst

Early life

Dewhurst was born June 3, 1924, in Montreal, Quebec, the only child of Frances Marie (nee Woods) and Ferdinand Augustus "Fred" Dewhurst. Fred Dewhurst was the owner of a chain of confectionery stores and had been a celebrated athlete in Canada, where he had played football with the Ottawa Rough Riders. The family became naturalized as U.S. citizens before 1940. Colleen Dewhurst's mother was a Christian Scientist, a faith Colleen also embraced.

The Dewhursts moved to Massachusetts in 1928 or 1929, staying in the Boston area neighborhoods of Dorchester, Auburndale, and West Newton. Later they moved to New York City and then to Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin. Dewhurst attended Whitefish Bay High School for her first two years of high school, moved to Shorewood High School for her junior year, and graduated from Riverside High School in Milwaukee in 1942. About this time her parents separated. Dewhurst attended Milwaukee-Downer College for two years, then moved to New York City to pursue an acting career.

Career

One of her more significant stage roles was in the 1974 Broadway revival of O'Neill's A Moon for the Misbegotten as Josie Hogan, for which she won a Tony Award. She previously won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in 1961 for All the Way Home. She later played Katharina in a 1956 production of Taming of the Shrew for Joseph Papp. She (as recounted in her posthumous obituary in collaboration with Tom Viola) wrote:

She played Shakespeare's Cleopatra and Lady Macbeth for Papp and years later, Gertrude in a production of Hamlet at the Delacorte Theatre in Central Park.

She appeared in the Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode Night Fever in 1965 and with Ingrid Bergman in More Stately Mansions on Broadway in 1967. José Quintero directed her in O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night and Mourning Becomes Electra. She appeared in Edward Albee's adaptation of Carson McCullers' Ballad of the Sad Cafe and as Martha in a Broadway revival of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, with Ben Gazzara which Albee directed.

She appeared in 1962 as Joanne Novak in the episode "I Don't Belong in a White-Painted House" in the medical drama The Eleventh Hour, starring Wendell Corey and Jack Ging. Dewhurst appeared opposite her then husband, Scott, in a 1971 television adaptation of Arthur Miller's The Price, on Hallmark Hall of Fame, and an anthology series. There is another television recording of them together when she played Elizabeth Proctor to the unfaithful John in Miller's The Crucible (with Tuesday Weld). In 1977, Woody Allen cast her in his film Annie Hall as Annie's mother.

In her autobiography, Dewhurst wrote: "I had moved so quickly from one Off-Broadway production to the next that I was known, at one point, as the 'Queen of Off-Broadway'. This title was not due to my brilliance, but, rather, because most of the plays I was in closed after a run of anywhere from one night to two weeks. I would then move immediately into another."

In 1972, she played a madam, Mrs. Kate Collingwood, in The Cowboys (1972), which starred John Wayne. Dewhurst also appeared with Wayne in the 1974 film McQ. She was the first actress to share a love scene with Wayne in bed. In 1985, she played the role of Marilla Cuthbert in Kevin Sullivan's adaptation of Lucy Maud Montgomery's novel Anne of Green Gables and reprised the role in 1987's Anne of Avonlea (also known as Anne of Green Gables: The Sequel) and in several episodes of Kevin Sullivan's Road to Avonlea.

Dewhurst was on hiatus from Road to Avonlea when she died in 1991. Sullivan Productions was unaware she was terminally ill, so her portrayal of Marilla ended posthumously. This was accomplished by shooting new scenes with actress Patricia Hamilton acting as a body double for Dewhurst and by recycling parts of scenes from Anne of Green Gables, Road to Avonlea, and using Dewhurst's death scene as Hepzibah in Sullivan's production of Lantern Hill. The latter was a 1990 television film based on L.M. Montgomery's Jane of Lantern Hill.

During 1989 and 1990, she appeared in a supporting role on the television series Murphy Brown playing Avery Brown, the feisty mother of Candice Bergen's title character; this role earned her two Emmy Awards, the second being awarded posthumously. Dewhurst won a total of two Tony Awards and four Emmy Awards for her stage and television work. Season 4, Episode 6 entitled "Full Circle" was the Murphy Brown episode filmed shortly after her death and dedicated to her memory.

In a review of Dewhurst's final film role as Ruth in Bed and Breakfast (1991), Emanuel Levy wrote “Bed and Breakfast is the kind of small, intimate picture that actors revere. The stunningly sensual Dewhurst, in one of her last screen roles, dominates every scene she is in, making the lusty and down-to-earth Ruth at once credible and enchanting.“

Dewhurst was president of the Actors' Equity Association from 1985 until her death. She was the first national president to die in the office.

Personal life and final years

Colleen Dewhurst was married to James Vickery from 1947 to 1960. She married and divorced George C. Scott twice. They had two sons, Alexander Scott and actor Campbell Scott; she co-starred with Campbell in Dying Young (1991), one of her last film roles as she died in August 1991. During the last years of her life she lived on a farm in South Salem, New York, with her partner Ken Marsolais. They also had a summer home on Prince Edward Island, Canada.

Maureen Stapleton wrote about Dewhurst:Colleen looked like a warrior, so people assumed she was the earth mother. But in real life Colleen was not to be let out without a keeper. She couldn't stop herself from taking care of people, which she then did with more care than she took care of herself. Her generosity of spirit was overwhelming and her smile so dazzling that you couldn't pull the ... reins in on her even if you desperately wanted to and knew damn well that somebody should.

Dewhurst's Christian Science beliefs led to her refusal to accept any kind of surgical treatment. She died of cervical cancer at the age 67 at her South Salem home in 1991. She was cremated and her ashes were given to family and friends; no public service was planned.

Filmography

Films and television films

Television work (excluding television films)

Theatre

Awards and nominations

[[American Theater Hall of Fame]]

[[CableACE Award]]s

[[Drama Desk Award]]s

[[Gemini Awards]]

[[Genie Awards]]

[[Obie Award]]s

[[Primetime Emmy Awards]]

[[Sarah Siddons Award]]s

[[Stinkers Bad Movie Awards]]

[[Theatre World Award]]s

[[Tony Awards]]

[[Viewers for Quality Television|Viewers for Quality Television Awards]]

[[Bronze Wrangler|Western Heritage Awards]]

Bibliography

• Dewhurst, Colleen; Viola, Tom (1997). Colleen Dewhurst - Her Autobiography. Scribner. .

References

References

1. "CBC Archives".
2. "Gop Platform Committee Urged to Give Support to Israel".
3. Considine, p. 299
4. [http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~jmbhome/colleendewhurst.htm Colleen Dewhurst genealogy]
5. (January 21, 1974). "Show Business: Gorgeous Gael".
6. [https://movies.yahoo.com/movie/contributor/1800017656/bio Colleen Dewhurst profile], Yahoo! Movies; accessed February 8, 2014.
7. Dewhurst, Colleen; Viola, Tom (1997). ''Colleen Dewhurst – Her Autobiography''. [[Charles Scribner's Sons. Scribner]]; {{ISBN. 978-0-684-80701-0
8. Susan Ware (editor), ''Notable American Women: A Biographical Dictionary Completing the Twentieth Century'', Volume 5, pages 174-175 (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Belknap Press, 2004). {{ISBN. 9780674014886
9. "Theater Hall of Fame Members". [[American Theater Hall of Fame]].
10. [https://www.nytimes.com/1981/03/03/theater/26-elected-theater-hall-fame-26-broadway-voted-into-theater-hall-fame.html ''The New York Times'', March 3, 1981 - ''26 Elected to the Theater Hall of Fame'']
11. "Nominees and Recipients – 1970 Awards". [[Drama Desk Award]]s.
12. "Nominees and Recipients – 1971 Awards". [[Drama Desk Award]]s.
13. "Nominees and Recipients – 1973 Awards". [[Drama Desk Award]]s.
14. "Nominees and Recipients – 1974 Awards". [[Drama Desk Award]]s.
15. "Nominees and Recipients – 1983 Awards". [[Drama Desk Award]]s.
16. "Nominees and Recipients – 1989 Awards". [[Drama Desk Award]]s.
17. "57 Obie Awards". [[Obie Award]]s.
18. "63 Obie Awards". [[Obie Award]]s.
19. "Colleen Dewhurst". [[Academy of Television Arts & Sciences]].
20. "Sarah Siddons Society Awardees". [[Sarah Siddons Award]]s.
21. (August 15, 2007). "Past Winners Database". [[Los Angeles Times]].
22. "Past Honorees". [[Theatre World Award]]s.
23. "1961 Tony Awards". [[Tony Awards]].
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25. "1964 Tony Awards". [[Tony Awards]].
26. "1968 Tony Awards". [[Tony Awards]].
27. "1972 Tony Awards". [[Tony Awards]].
28. "1973 Tony Awards". [[Tony Awards]].
29. "1974 Tony Awards". [[Tony Awards]].
30. "1977 Tony Awards". [[Tony Awards]].
31. "The Cowboys". [[National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum]].