Geraldine Page
| Geraldine Page | |
|---|---|
 Page in a publicity photo for Hondo (1953) | |
| Born |
November 22, 1924 Kirksville, Missouri, U.S. |
| Died |
June 13, 1987 (aged 62) New York City, New York, U.S. |
| Cause of death | Heart attack |
| Education | Englewood Technical Prep Academy |
| Alma mater | DePaul University |
| Occupation | Actress |
| Years active | 1952–1987 |
| Notable work |
Angie Lowe in Hondo (1953) Alexandra Del Lago in Sweet Bird of Youth (1962) Martha Farnsworth in The Beguiled (1971) Voice of Madame Medusa in Disney's The Rescuers (1977) Mrs. Watts in The Trip to Bountiful (1985) |
| Spouse(s) |
Alexander Schneider (1954–57; divorced) Rip Torn (1963–1987; her death) |
| Children |
Angelica Page Tony Torn Jon Torn |
| Parent(s) |
Leon Elwin Page (father) Edna Maize (mother) |
Geraldine Sue Page (November 22, 1924 – June 13, 1987) was an American film, television and stage actress. An eight-time Academy Award nominee, she was nominated for Hondo (1953), Summer and Smoke (1961), Sweet Bird of Youth (1962), You're a Big Boy Now (1966), Pete 'n' Tillie (1972), Interiors (1978) and The Pope of Greenwich Village (1984), before winning the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance as Carrie Watts in The Trip to Bountiful (1985).
Page made her Broadway debut in 1953 and went on to receive Tony Award nominations for Sweet Bird of Youth (1959–60), Absurd Person Singular (1974–75), Agnes of God (1982) and Blithe Spirit (1987). She won Golden Globe Awards for Summer and Smoke (1961) and Sweet Bird of Youth (1962), and Emmy Awards for A Christmas Memory (1966) and The Thanksgiving Visitor (1967), both written by Truman Capote. She won the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Interiors. She was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 1983.
Page also voiced Madame Medusa in the Disney animated film, The Rescuers (1977).
Youth and education
Page was born in Kirksville, Missouri. She was the daughter of Edna Pearl (née Maize) and Leon Elwin Page,[1] who worked at Andrew Taylor Still College of Osteopathy and Surgery (combined with the American School of Osteopathy, eventually to form A.T. Still University). He was an author whose works included Practical Anatomy (1925), Osteopathic Fundamentals (1926), and The Old Doctor (1932).[2]
After graduating from Chicago's Englewood Technical Prep Academy in Chicago, Illinois, she attended the Goodman School of Drama (later renamed The Theatre School at DePaul University) in Chicago and later studied acting with Uta Hagen in New York City.
Career
Stage
Page was a trained method actor and worked closely with Lee Strasberg. She began appearing in stock theatre at age 17. Her appearance as Alma in the 1952 production of Summer and Smoke, written by Tennessee Williams and staged at Circle in the Square Theatre in New York City's Greenwich Village, was legendary.
Her work continued on Broadway as the spinster in the 1954–1955 production of The Rainmaker, written by N. Richard Nash; and as the frustrated wife whose husband becomes romantically obsessed with a young Arab, played by James Dean, in the 1954 production of The Immoralist, written by Augustus Goetz and Ruth Goetz and based on the novel of the same name (1902) by André Gide.
She earned critical accolades for her performance in the 1959 production of Williams's Sweet Bird of Youth opposite Paul Newman. She originated the role of a larger-than-life, addicted, sexually voracious Hollywood legend trying to extinguish her fears about her career with a young hustler named Chance Wayne, played by Newman. For her performance, Page received her first nomination for the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play, as well as the Sarah Siddons Award for her performance in Chicago.[3]She and Newman later starred in the film adaptation of the same name (1962) and Page earned a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress for the film.
In 1964, she starred in a Broadway revival of Anton Chekhov's Three Sisters playing eldest sister Olga to Kim Stanley's Masha with Shelley Winters as the interloper Natasha. Both Shirley Knight and Sandy Dennis played the youngest sister Irina at different stages in this production. It was directed by Lee Strasberg (and a version of it was preserved on film). In 1967, Page starred in Peter Shaffer's Black Comedy/White Lies, a production which also included Michael Crawford and Lynn Redgrave who were making their Broadway debuts.
Page received a nomination for the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play (her second Tony Award nomination) for the 1975 production of Alan Ayckbourn's Absurd Person Singular with Sandy Dennis and Richard Kiley.
Page also starred as Zelda Fitzgerald in the last major Broadway production of a Williams play, Clothes for a Summer Hotel, which did not succeed financially on Broadway in 1980.
In 1973, she played Mary Todd Lincoln opposite Maya Angelou in the Broadway production of the two-character play Look Away, written by Jerome Kilty.
Page starred as the secretive nun Mother Miriam Ruth in the Broadway production of Agnes of God, which opened in 1982 and ran for 599 performances with Page performing in nearly all of them; for her role, she received a nomination for the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play. In 1983, Page was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame.[4]
After winning an Academy Award in 1986, Page returned to Broadway in a revival of Noël Coward's Blithe Spirit as "Madame Arcati". The production was Page's last. She was again nominated for the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play. She did not win, and several days after the awards ceremony, she died. The show lasted several weeks more, with co-star actress Patricia Conolly taking over Page's role.
Film
Her film debut was in Out of the Night (1947). Her role in Hondo, opposite John Wayne, garnered her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. In all, despite her relatively small filmography, Page received eight Academy Award nominations. She finally won the Oscar in 1986 for her performance in The Trip to Bountiful, which was based on a play by Horton Foote.
When she won (F. Murray Abraham, upon opening the envelope, exclaimed, "I consider this woman the greatest actress in the English language"), she received a standing ovation from the audience. She was surprised by her win (she openly talked about being a seven-time Oscar loser), and took a while to get to the stage to accept the award because she had taken off her shoes while sitting in the audience. She had not expected to win, and her feet were sore.
Her other notable screen roles included Academy Award-nominated performances in Tennessee Williams' Summer and Smoke, Sweet Bird of Youth, You're a Big Boy Now, Pete 'n' Tillie, Woody Allen's Interiors and The Pope of Greenwich Village.[5]
In 1963, Page starred in Toys in the Attic, based on Lillian Hellman's play of the same name, and garnered a Golden Globe nomination. She received another nomination the following year starring in Delbert Mann's Dear Heart as a self-sufficient but lonely postmistress visiting New York City for a convention, finding love with a greeting card salesman.[5]
She also appeared in such roles as a psychotic serial killer in What Ever Happened to Aunt Alice?; a repressed schoolmistress in the Clint Eastwood film The Beguiled; a charismatic evangelist (modeled after Aimee Semple McPherson) in The Day of the Locust; a nun, Sister Walburga, in Nasty Habits; and as "Aunt Beverly" in Harry's War. Her final film was the 1987 Mary Stuart Masterson film My Little Girl, which featured the film debut of Jennifer Lopez. She also was a voice actress and voiced the villainous Madame Medusa in the Disney animated film The Rescuers.[5]
Television
She performed in various television shows in the 1950s through the 1980s, including movies and series, such as Hawaii Five-O, Kojak, and several episodes of Rod Serling's Night Gallery, including "The Sins of the Fathers" and "Something in the Woodwork".[5]
In 1959, Page was an Emmy nominee, of Best Single Performance by an Actress, for her role on an episode of Playhouse 90. Page later received two Emmy Awards for her work in adaptations of Truman Capote stories. In 1967, she won an Emmy for Outstanding Single Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Drama for her performance in A Christmas Memory on ABC Stage 67. In 1969, she received an Emmy for Outstanding Single Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role for her performance in The Thanksgiving Visitor.[6][7]
Personal life
Page was married to violinist Alexander Schneider from 1954-57. In 1963, she married actor Rip Torn, who was six years her junior. They remained married until her death. Page bore him three children, a daughter (actress Angelica Page) and twin sons, actor Tony Torn, and Northern Arizona University professor Jon Torn.
Death
Page, who suffered from kidney disease, died of a heart attack in 1987 during a run on Broadway in Sir Noël Coward's Blithe Spirit at the Neil Simon Theatre. She did not arrive for either of the show's two June 13 performances; at the end of the evening performance, the play's producer announced that she had died at the age of 62.[8]
Five days after her death, "an overflow crowd of colleagues, friends and fans", including Sissy Spacek, James Earl Jones, Amanda Plummer, Jerry Stiller, Anne Meara, and husband Rip Torn filled the Neil Simon Theatre to pay tribute.[9]
Her achievements as a stage actress and teacher were highlighted; actress Anne Jackson stated at the tribute that "[Page] used a stage like no one else I'd ever seen. It was like playing tennis with someone who had 26 arms."[9] Rip Torn called her "Mi corazon, mi alma, mi esposa" ("My heart, my soul, my wife") and said they had "never stopped being lovers, and ... never will."[9] Page was cremated.
Filmography
Film
Television
| Title | Year | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lux Video Theatre | 1952 | Neighbor | Season 2, episode 24 "The Lesson" |
| Studio One | Season 4, episode 51 "The Shadowy Third" | ||
| Robert Montgomery Presents | Season 4, episode 7 "The Fall Guy" | ||
| The Philco Television Playhouse | 1954 | Season 6, episode 17 "Miss Look-Alike" | |
| Omnibus | 1955 | Governess | Season 3, episode 18 "The Turn of the Screw" |
| Windows | The Woman Alcoholic | Season 1, episode 2 "A Domestic Dilemma" | |
| Matinee Theatre | Miss Myrtle | Season 1, episode 9 "An Apple for Miss Myrtle" | |
| The United States Steel Hour | Marian | Season 3, episode 9 "Shoot It Again" | |
| The United States Steel Hour | 1957 | Estelle | Season 4, episode 16 "The Hill Wife" |
| Kraft Television Theatre | Season 10, episode 38 "Fire and Ice" | ||
| General Electric Theatre | 1958 | Heddie | Season 6, episode 26 "No Hiding Place" |
| Playhouse 90 | Florry Addie - |
Season 2, episode 25 "Portrait of a Murderer" Season 3, episode 8 "Old Man" Nominated – Emmy Award for Best Single Performance by an Actress (for episode "The Old Man") | |
| NBC Sunday Showcase | 1959 | Virginia Reed | Season 1, episode 1 "People Kill People Sometimes" |
| The Outer Limits | 1964 | Virginia Reed | Season 1, episode 1 "Cold Hands, Warm Heart" |
| The Long, Hot Summer | 1966 | Maribelle Kirkpatrick | Season 1, episode 16 "Evil Angel" |
| ABC Stage 67 | Woman | Season 1, episode 13 "A Christmas Memory" Emmy Award for Outstanding Single Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Drama | |
| NBC Children's Theatre | 1969 | Narrator | Episode: "Little Women" |
| The Name of the Game | 1971 | Sister Lucia | Season 3, episode 15 "A Sister from Napoli" |
| Look Homeward, Angel | 1972 | Eliza Grant | Television film |
| Medical Center | Ellen Davis | Season 4, episode 6 "Betrayed" | |
| Ghost Story | Hattie | Season 1, episode 11 "Touch of Madness" | |
| Rod Serling's Night Gallery | Frances Turchin Mrs. Evans |
Season 2, episode 19 - segment: "Stop Killing Me" Season 2, episode 21 - segment: "The Sins of the Fathers" | |
| Rod Serling's Night Gallery | 1973 | Molly Wheatland | Season 3, episode 11 "Something in the Woodwork" |
| The Snoop Sisters | Olivia Cunningham | Season 1, episode 1 "Corpse and Robbers" | |
| Kojak | 1976 | Edna Morrison | Season 4, episode 9 "A Shield for Murder - Part 1" Season 4, episode 10 "A Shield for Murder - Part 2" |
| Hawaii 5-O | 1977 | Philomena Underwood | Season 10, episode 5 "The Descent of the Torches" |
| The Blue and the Gray | 1982 | Mrs. Lovelace | Television mini-series (all 3 episodes) |
| Loving | 1983 | Amelia Whitley | Soap opera; season 1, episode 1 |
| Deadly Nightmares | 1985 | Lynette 'Mama' Powers | Season 3, episode 4 "W.G.O.D" |
| American Playhouse | 1986 | Sally Phelps | Season 5, episode 4 "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Part I" |
| -- |
Television films
| Title | Year | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Barefoot in Athens | 1966 | Xantippe | |
| The Thanksgiving Visitor | 1967 | Miss Sook | Emmy Award for Outstanding Single Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role |
| Montserrat | 1971 | Felisa | |
| Two by Chekhov | 1972 | Part of Hollywood Television Theatre | |
| Look Homeward, Angel | Eliza Gant | ||
| Live Again, Die Again | 1974 | Mrs. O'Neill | |
| Something for Joey | 1977 | Ann Cappelletti | |
| The Parade | 1984 | Sarah | |
| The Dollmaker | Mrs. Kendrick | ||
| Nazi Hunter: The Beate Klarsfeld Story | 1986 | Itta Halaunbrenner | Nominated – Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Series, Miniseries or Television Film |
Select theatre credits
- Summer and Smoke (1952)
- The Immoralist (1954)
- Creditors/The Stronger
- The Madwoman of Chaillot'
- Clarence
- Vivat! Viat Regina!
- A Lie of the Mind
- The Circle
References
- ↑ Christensen, Lawrence O.; Foley, William E. & Kremer, Gary (October 1999). Biography. University of Missouri Press. p. 590. ISBN 978-0-8262-6016-1. Retrieved August 31, 2015.
- ↑ Walter, Georgia (1992). The First School of Osteopathic Medicine. Kirksville, Missouri: Thomas Jefferson University Press. p. 117.
- ↑ "Awardees". Sarah Siddons Society. 2015. Retrieved August 31, 2015.
- ↑ "Geraldine Page Biography". IMDb. 2015. Retrieved August 31, 2015.
- 1 2 3 4 Geraldine Page at the Internet Movie Database
- ↑ Baker, Bob (June 14, 1987). "Geraldine Page, Winner of Oscar, 2 Emmys, Dies". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved August 31, 2015.
- ↑ "Geraldine Page Biography". TV Guide. 2015. Retrieved August 31, 2015.
- ↑ Kolbert, Elizabeth (June 15, 1987). "Geraldine Page, 62, Dies - A Star of Stage and Film". The New York Times (New York: New York Times Company). Retrieved August 31, 2015.
- 1 2 3 Gerard, Jeremy (June 18, 1987). "Tribute to Geraldine Page Fills Neil Simon Theater". The New York Times (New York: NYTC). Retrieved August 31, 2015.
External links
- Geraldine Page at the Internet Broadway Database
- Geraldine Page at the Internet Movie Database
- Geraldine Page at the Internet Off-Broadway Database
- Geraldine Page at the University of Wisconsin's Actors Studio audio collection
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