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Geraldine Page

Geraldine Sue Page (November 22, 1924 – June 13, 1987) was an American actress. Although starring in at least two dozen feature films, she is primarily known for her celebrated work in the American theater.

Biography

Page was born in Kirksville, Missouri. She attended the Goodman Theatre Dramatic School in Chicago and studied acting with Uta Hagen in New York. She began appearing in stock at the age of seventeen.

Stage career

Page was a trained method actor and worked closely with Lee Strasberg.

Her appearance as Alma in the Off-Broadway revival of Tennessee Williams' "Summer and Smoke" in 1952 was as earth-shattering and legendary as anything that had ever happened in the American theatre. "Summer and Smoke" had not been particularly well received in its Broadway incarnation. Page's performance (as the minister's daughter consumed with infinite longing) and that 1952 production, directed by Jose Quintero, gave the play a new birth, and, according to common wisdom, it was that production (for its daring, for its fervor, for its being "downtown" rather than in the artistically "safe" realm of Broadway) which gave birth to the Off-Broadway movement in New York theatre. From then on, Page's name was synonymous with a kind of heart-stopping, naturalistic magic in the theatre, continuing with her work, on Broadway, as the spinster in "The Rainmaker" and as the frustrated wife whose husband becomes romantically obsessed with a young Arab, played by James Dean, in "The Immoralist."

She earned critical accolades for her performance in Tennessee Williams' 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. Page received her first Tony Award nomination for the play. She and Newman later starred in the film adaptation and Page earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress for the film. In 1964, she starred in a Broadway revival of Anton Chekov's The Three Sisters with Kim Stanley and Shirley Knight. The production was directed by Lee Strasberg. She also starred in Peter Shaffer's Black Comedy/White Lies, in 1967, which was the production in which both Michael Crawford and Lynn Redgrave made their Broadway debuts. Page received her second Tony nomination (for Best Featured Actress in a Play) for a successful 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 Tennessee Williams play, "Clothes for a Summer Hotel" in 1980. Although the New York critical establishment had turned against Williams by that point in his career (with perhaps some justification), Page, in another remarkable creative turn, played Zelda (from her young days as a ravishingly sensual Southern belle through to her dissolution into madness) with a flourish of heart and technique which defied her own age and the strictures of type-casting.

Page starred in another successful Broadway play. Agnes of God, which opened in 1982, ran for 599 performances with Page performing in nearly all of them. She received a Tony Award nomination, for Best Lead Actress in a Play, for her performance as the secretive nun Mother Miriam Ruth. The highly acclaimed production garnered co-star Amanda Plummer a Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play. Elizabeth Ashley played the court-appointed psychiatrist Dr. Martha Livingstone. After winning an Academy Award in 1985, Page returned to Broadway in a revival of Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit in the role of the psychic medium Madame Arcati. The production, which also starred Richard Chamberlain, Blythe Danner and Judith Ivey, was Page's last. Page was again nominated for a Tony Award, for Best Lead Actress in a Play, and was considered to be a favorite to win. However, she did not win, and several days after the awards ceremony she died. The show lasted several weeks more with co-star Patricia Conolly taking over Page's role.

In 1960 she won the Sarah Siddons Award for her work in Chicago theatre.

Film career

Page gave celebrated performances in films as well as her work on Broadway. Her film debut was in Out of the Night (1947). Her role in Hondo, 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 a wonderful performance in The Trip to Bountiful, which was based on a play by Horton Foote. Had she not won for Trip to Bountiful, she would have held the record for most nominations without a single win. 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 include Academy Award-nominated performances in Tennessee Williams' Summer and Smoke (1961); Sweet Bird of Youth (1962); Toys in the Attic (1963) and Woody Allen's Interiors (1978). She also appeared in quirky and eccentric roles such as calculating murderer of old ladies in What Ever Happened to Aunt Alice? (1969); a repressed schoolmistress in the Clint Eastwood film The Beguiled (1971); a charismatic evangelist (modeled after Aimee Semple McPherson) in The Day of the Locust (1975); and as Sister Walburga in Nasty Habits (1977).

She did various television shows in the 1950s through the 1980s, including movies and series, such as Hawaii Five-0, Kojak, and several episodes of Rod Serling's Night Gallery, including "The Sins Of The Fathers" and "Something In The Woodwork".

She also was a voice actress and voiced the villainous Madame Medusa in the Disney animated film The Rescuers.

Page has also appeared in television productions and won two Emmy Awards as Outstanding Single Performance By an Actress in a Leading Role in a Drama for her roles in the classic Truman Capote stories, A Christmas Memory (1967) and The Thanksgiving Visitor (1969).

Her final film was the 1987 Mary Stuart Masterson film My Little Girl, which was the film debut of Jennifer Lopez.

Private life

Page was married to violinist Alexander Schneider from 1954 to 1957. In 1963 she married actor Rip Torn, who was 7 years younger than Page. They remained married until her death. Page and Torn had three children, a daughter (actress Angelica Torn) and twin sons (actor Tony Torn, and Northern Arizona University professor Jon Torn).

Page, who also suffered from kidney disease, died of a heart attack in 1987 during a run on Broadway in Sir Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit at the Neil Simon Theatre. She did not arrive for either of the show's two June 13 performances, and at the end of the evening performance, the play's producer announced that she had died at the age of 62. Five days later, "an overflow crowd of colleagues, friends and fans," including Torn, Sissy Spacek, James Earl Jones, and Amanda Plummer, filled the Neil Simon Theatre to pay tribute to Page. 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."

Her husband, Rip Torn, called her "Mi corazon, mi alma, mi esposa (My heart, my soul, my wife)" and said that they "never stopped being lovers, and ... never will."

Filmography

Year	Film	Role	Other notes
1953	Taxi	Florence Albert	uncredited
1953	Hondo	Angie Lowe	Nominated - Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
1961	Summer and Smoke	Alma Winemiller	Golden Globe; Nominated - Academy Award for Best Actress
1962	Sweet Bird of Youth	Alexandra Del Lago	Golden Globe; Nominated - Academy Award for Best Actress; Nominated - BAFTA Award
1963	Toys in the Attic	Carrie Berniers	Nominated - Golden Globe
1964	Dear Heart	Ms. Evie Jackson	with Glen Ford
1966	The Three Sisters	Olga
1966	You're a Big Boy Now	Margery Chanticleer	Nominated - Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress; Nominated - Golden Globe
1967	Monday's Child	Carol Richardson
1967	The Happiest Millionaire	Mrs. Duke
1969	What Ever Happened to Aunt Alice?	Claire Marrable
1969	Trilogy	Sook
1971	The Beguiled	Martha Farnsworth
1972	J. W. Coop	Mama
1972	Pete 'n' Tillie	Gertrude	Nominated - Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress; Nominated - Golden Globe
1973	Happy as the Grass Was Green	Anna Witmer
1975	The Day of the Locust	Big Sister
1977	Nasty Habits	Sister Walburga
1977	The Rescuers	Madame Medusa	voice
1978	Interiors	Eve	BAFTA Award; Nominated - Academy Award for Best Actress; Nominated - Golden Globe
1981	Harry's War	'Aunt' Beverly
1981	Honky Tonk Freeway	Sister Maria Clarissa
1982	I'm Dancing as Fast as I Can	Jean Scott Martin
1984	The Pope of Greenwich Village	Mrs. Ritter	Nominated - Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
1985	The Bride	Mrs. Baumann
	Walls of Glass	Mama
	White Nights	Anne Wyatt
	The Trip to Bountiful	Mrs. Carrie Watts	Academy Award for Best Actress; Nominated - Golden Globe
1986	Native Son	Peggy
1987	Riders to the Sea
1987	My Little Girl	Molly