Elizabeth Franz, who received a Tony Award for her unusual and energetic role as the wife of Brian Dennehy’s Willy Loman in a 50th anniversary production of the Arthur Miller film Death of a sellerdied. She was 84 years old.
Franz died Nov. 4 at her home in Woodbury, Conn., after a battle with cancer, said her husband, screenwriter Christopher Pelham. The New York Times.
Franz also earned Tony nominations in 1983 and 2002, respectively, for playing Kate Jerome (Matthew Broderick’s mother) in the Neil Simon film. Memories of Brighton Beach and the youngest of four sisters (Piper Laurie, Frances Sternhagen and Estelle Parsons were her siblings) in a revival of the Paul Osborn film. Morning is at seven o’clock.
Additionally, she shone – and won an Obie Award in 1980 – for her portrayal of the strict nun in Christopher Durang’s film. Sister Mary Ignatius explains everything to you.
Franz and Dennehy started with Death of a seller at the Goodman Theater in Chicago before arriving on Broadway at the Eugene O’Neill in February 1999.
Rather than casting Linda Loman as a battered wife, Franz took a much more assertive and indignant approach and added an element of sexuality to the role.
“You can say anything because you know that in the end you will be in this bed, curled up and having the most wonderful conversations,” she told the Times in 1999. “When she’s cuddled up in his arms and singing to him, you can’t tell me it’s not a very sexual moment.”
Miller, who won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1949 for this play, praised Franz in the Times play, saying that she “discovered in the role the powerful underlying protection, which manifests itself as fury, and which in the past, in all the performances that I know of, has simply been erased.”
She and Dennehy – who also won a Tony for her work – later appeared in a 2000 production for Showtime, and both received Emmy nominations.
Elizabeth Jean Frankovitch was born June 18, 1941 in Akron, Ohio. His father, Joseph, worked in a tire factory in town and his mother, Harriet, was a part-time waitress. She suffered from mental illness and would disappear for months, she told the newspaper. Times.
She graduated from Copley High School in Ohio and the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York in 1962, often appeared in summer productions at the Dorset Playhouse in Vermont, and went to Broadway for the first time in 1967 in Tom Stoppard. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead.
After working with Simon in Memories of Brighton Beachhe hired her to replace Linda Lavin as the strong-willed Kate in 1987 in Broadway boundthe third piece of his autobiographical “Eugene Trilogy”.
Franz had auditioned for the role of Linda opposite Dustin Hoffman in the 1984 Broadway revival. Death of a seller (Kate Reid was hired) and played the role alongside Hal Holbrook in a touring production before teaming with Dennehy.
Frank also appeared on Broadway in The cherry orchard, The Octette Bridge Club, The cemetery club, Marriage, Uncle Vanya and, in 2010, The miracle worker. She said that when she was hired for a role, she would write “a novel” about her character.
His on-screen resume included the films Sabrina (1985), The secret of my success (1987), Knife (1989), School ties (1992), The substance of fire (1996) and Christmas with the Kranks (2004) and guest television turns on Dear John, Roseanne, Sisters, Gilmore Girls, Law & Order: SVU And Grey’s Anatomy.
Besides Pelham, survivors include his brother, Joe.
Her first husband was the prolific actor Edward Binns (12 angry men, North by northwest, Built-in security). They often appeared on stage together and were married from 1983 until his death in 1990 at the age of 74.
