Elizabeth Wilson

Elizabeth Wilson appeared in over 30 movies, and some famous TV shows was a Tony Award winner and an American Theatre Hall of Famer whose career spanned nearly seven decades. She was born in Green Rapids, Michigan to Marie Ethel and Henry Dunning Wilson, who was an insurance agent. Her mother belonged to a rich family, and so she was brought up in a mansion. She cleared her graduation from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York Click to look into! >> Read More... . Then, she attended the Barter Theatre in Virginia and later went to Neighbourhood Playhouse with Sanford Meisner. Starting with the small screen, Wilson made her Broadway debut in Picnic (1953) opposite Kim Stanley and Paul Newman Paul Newman, a man full of qualities was an Americ >> Read More... . Two years later in 1955, she appeared in the film adaptation of ‘Picnic’ playing the role of a spinster schoolmistress with William Holden and Kim Novak. From then, she had appeared in numerous films which include The Goddess (1958), The Tunnel of Love (1958), and Helen Carter in Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds (1963). In an interview in 2014, Wilson recalled how she was attacked on her back by a bird on the sets of the movie and she went to inform Alfred about it to which he said, “I am not at all surprised.” Her original debut in Hollywood was the classic ‘ Notorious Click to look into! >> Read More... ’ in 1946, directed by the world famous director Alfred Hitchcock.

She was cast as Dustin Hoffman’s materialistic mother in the 1967 Drama movie ‘The Graduate’, directed by Mike Nichols. The Graduate was one of the most remarkable movies she had done, although she had a small supporting role, it added up to her acting calibre, and the film was received with widespread acclaims. Nichols would later go on to direct her in three more movies and hired her in his 1973 Broadway revival, Uncle Vanya. During an interview in 2012, she explained, “Every director has a different technique. Mike’s great gift is in casting. He knows who’s right for a particular role, and he’s not controlling.” Her other works in Hollywood include The Day Click to look into! >> Read More... of the Dolphin (1973), The Prisoner of Second Avenue (1975), Grace Quigley (1984), Regarding Henry (1991). For the role of an emotionally scarred mother of a Vietnam veteran in the 1972 anti-war drama ‘Sticks and Bones’, she won her first Tony Award. She was also nominated for a BAFTA Film Award for Most Promising Newcomer to Film for the movie ‘Patterns’ (1956). Her performances in ‘Taken in Marriage’ in 1979 and ‘Anteroom’ in 1986 garnered her Obie Awards.

She was the member of the cast in Paul Osborne’s comedy ‘Morning at Seven’ winning the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Ensemble Performance in 1980. Her other notable features include the 1980 office snitch comedy ‘9 to 5’, ‘The Quiz Show’, ‘ The Addams Family Click to look into! >> Read More... ’, and the highly acclaimed 1996 revival of Edward Albee's ‘A Delicate Balance.’ Her television works include Kraft Television Theatre, The United States Steel Hour, Another World, East Side/West Side, All in the Family, Murder. She also appeared in the 1987 TV miniseries ‘Nutcracker: Money, Madness and Murder’ based on a real 1978 criminal case. The show won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or a Special. Her last movie was the 2012 historical drama ‘Hyde Park on Hudson’ playing the role of the mother of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Her last theatrical act was in the 1999 revival of Noël Coward’s Waiting in the Wings. She never married in her whole life. Although she had a fling or two in her career, she never thought of marrying. As she explained in an interview, “I didn’t want to give up my career. That’s what kept me alive, kept me going. I couldn’t stop – didn’t want to stop being all these different characters.” In another interview, she said, “'But in those days if a woman was married, they had to quit what they were doing and stay home and raise a family. I didn’t want to do that.”