Maureen, a Troy, NY, native dropped out of college at age 18 and moved to NYC to pursue an acting career. After studying with Herbert Berghof and at the Actors Studio, Stapleton made her Broadway debut in the 1946 revival of Sean O'Casey's "The Playboy of the Western World". Within five years, she delivered a star-making performance as the blowzy Serafina delle Rose in Tennessee Williams' "The Rose Tattoo" (1951), which earned her a Featured Actress Tony Award.
While studying at The Actor's Studio, Maureen and Marilyn became best friends. They were only one year apart in age. Stapleton was quoted as saying she was so sorry Monroe only got cast as the dumb blonde:
"She had so much more talent. She was an actor with much more range than I ever had."
On Monroe's beauty she said:
"Yeah. Luckily I never had that problem. People took one look at me and said:That broad better be able to act."
Throughout her career, Stapleton was predominantly known as a stage actress. Among her other memorable roles were Lady in "Orpheus Descending" (1957) and Amanda Wingfield in "The Glass Menagerie" (1965 and 1975), both by Williams. She had two triumphs in plays by Neil Simon: playing three roles in "Plaza Suite" (1968) and...
....the title role in "The Gingerbread Lady" (1970). For her role as an alcoholic singer in the latter, she earned a Best Actress Tony Award.
Stapleton made her feature debut in "Lonelyhearts" (1958) as a frustrated woman who seduces Montgomery Clift's callow journalist earning an Oscar nod as Best Supporting Actress.
She subsequently gave effective and wide-ranging performances, typically as frowzy, unkempt woman in films including Sidney Lumet's "The Fugitive Kind" (1960), and "Plaza Suite" (1971), recreating one of her stage roles.
Stapleton in her second Oscar nominated role as Van Heflin's harried wife in the campy super-disaster thriller "Airport". Helen Hayes took the statue home that year (for that movie) but Maureen won the Golden Globe.
In one of my personal favorite Woody Allen films "Interiors", Stapleton injected liveliness and warmth as Pearl, a slightly coarse widow romanced by E.G. Marshall to the horror of his daughters. Her performance won her citations as Best Supporting Actress from both the New York and Los Angeles Film Critics and earned her a third Academy Award nomination. In 1981, she was Lauren Bacall's tart-tongued secretary Belle Goldman in the strange yet oddly thrilling movie "The Fan".
And then ofcourse there's her Oscar winning role as revolutionary, maternal Emma Goldman in Warren Beatty's brilliant masterpiece, "Reds". She literally steals the fim right out from underneath both Keaton and Beatty. Stapleton's frantic, and unstereotypical in her approach. Warm and caustic and seathing with terror underneath a very visible veneer. A magnificent performance.
Other memorable roles include as Wilford Brimley's wife in "Cocoon" and its disappointing 1988 sequel, and later, as Barbra Streisand's mother, in denial over her daughter's past, in Martin Ritt's "Nuts".
On TV, Stapleton appeared frequently in the 1950s in episodes of "Studio One", "Kraft Playhouse" and "Playhouse 90". She received an Emmy for "Among the Paths to Eden" and won acclaim in the title role (opposite Charles Durning) in "The Queen of the Stardust Ballroom". Stapleton co-starred as Big Mama with Laurence Olivier and Natalie Wood in Tennessee Williams' "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" was the abandoned wife of Ed Asner in the award-winning "The Gathering",
MAUREEN TRIVIA
Did not travel by air, rail or elevator.
Received the Actors Studio Award in 1980 for her contributions to the theatre.
Inducted into the Theatre Hall of Fame on April 5, 1981.
In 1981, Hudson Valley Community College in her hometown of Troy, New York, named their theatre after her.
Received a 1975 Grammy Award nomination in the Best Spoken Word category for her recording of "To Kill a Mockingbird".
Mother of two children by first husband, Max Allentuck.
Took over the role of Rosa della Rosa because Anna Magnani (who was old enough to be her mother) didn't speak English well enough to essay the role on Broadway, so this young Irish Catholic from Troy played an Italian "Earth Mother" on Broadway to critical and popular acclaim!
In 1981, she became the tenth performer to win the Triple Crown of acting. Oscar: Best Supporting Actress, Reds (1981), Tony: Best Supporting Actress-Play, 'The Rose Tattoo' (1951), and Emmy: Best Actress-Drama, Among the Paths to Eden (1967) (TV).
She originated the role of Serafina in Tennessee Williams' "The Rose Tattoo" on Broadway in 1951 and Lady Torrance in Williams' "Orpheus Descending" in 1957. Both roles were played by Anna Magnani in the movie versions. Stapleton appeared in the film version of "Orpheus Descending", retitled The Fugitive Kind (1959), but in a supporting role.
Has won two Tony Awards: in 1951, as Best Supporting or Featured Actress (Dramatic) for "The Rose Tattoo," and in 1971, as Best Actress (Dramatic) for "The Gingerbread Lady." She has also been nominated four other times: as Best Actress (Dramatic), in 1959 for "The Cold Wind and the Warm," in 1960 for "Toys in the Attic," and in 1968 for "Plaza Suite;" and in 1981, as Best Actress (Featured Role - Play) for "The Little Foxes."
Moments after winning an Oscar, Ms. Stapleton was asked by the press how it felt to be recognized as one of the greatest actresses in the world; she replied, "Not nearly as exciting as it would be if I were acknowledged as one of the greatest lays in the world."
Maureen was one of those actresses that when I was younger I recognized but as I got older, I admired. She was a chameleon and never gave much weight to fame. She did what she did and she did it better than anyone in the business. I always knew when she was in a movie or a play that the stakes were raised just a bit. She was a true actor. I'll miss her and her no nonsense approach to acting. Her voice may be silenced, but we still have her images. And for me, she was never once known as That Lady.