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Frances Sternhagen, a two-time Tony winner, has dominated the stage in both major comedies and head dramas, starring in the Broadway premieres of “Equus,” “On Golden Pond” and “Steel Magnolias” while reaching wider audiences TV shows such as “Cheers” and “Sex and the City” died on November 27 at her home in New Rochelle, NY. She was 93 years old.
Her death was announced by her son John Carlin in an Instagram post, which did not provide a cause.
Versatile and confident, Ms. Sternhagen played women who were folksy, regal, clear-headed and glamorous, although she had a particular fondness for quirky eccentrics and snooty patricians. “It’s always more fun to be obnoxious,” she told the Los Angeles Times.
The Washington native performed regularly at the Arena Stage before appearing in more than two dozen plays on Broadway, where she debuted in a 1955 revival of the Thornton Wilder comedy “The Skin of Our Teeth.” She received seven Tony nominations before making her final Broadway appearance in 2005, appearing alongside her former Arena Stage co-star George Grizzard in Edward Albee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Seascape.
“She was always looking for the most honest thing in the character and very openly rejected decisions she had made that seemed strange to her,” the play’s director, Mark Lamos, recalled in a telephone interview. “Because she had such maturity and self-awareness as an actress, and because she and George had such a great relationship, you just couldn’t create a dishonest moment.”
In between plays, Ms. Sternhagen reached a national television audience by appearing in Colgate toothpaste commercials and playing a parade of unforgettable matriarchs, including Millicent Carter, the wealthy grandmother of Dr. John Carter (Noah Wyle) on “ER” and Esther Clavin , the mother of Cliff Clavin (John Ratzenberger) on “Cheers,” for which she received two Emmy nominations.
She received a third Emmy nomination for her guest role on “Sex and the City” as Bunny MacDougal, the domineering mother of Charlotte’s first husband Trey (Kyle MacLachlan). The role gave Ms. Sternhagen a chance to be comically snooty, including in a memorable scene in which Bunny ambushes her daughter-in-law (Kristin Davis) on a shopping trip to buy a new bed.
“My dear child,” she says with wide eyes, “you can’t help but have a dust ruff.” It’s unsightly.”
Ms. Sternhagen played another maternal character alongside Kyra Sedgwick in the police series “The Closer” and appeared in films such as “Outland” (1981) as a rocky space doctor and the Stephen King adaptation “Misery” (1990). A sheriff’s wife. However, she thrived most on stage, where she showcased her skills while playing a number of impressive older women.
“In role after role, she gives the impression that she was cast solely because of her looks,” New York Times reviewer Anita Gates wrote in 1999, when Ms. Sternhagen played a Southern matron in “The Exact Center of the Universe.” . by playwright Joan Vail Thorne. “But each of her characters, in Ms. Sternhagen’s hands, has a unique soul that reminds us that in life there are many emotional paths to what seems like simple prime and proper maturity.”
Ms. Sternhagen received her first Tony nomination in 1972 for the role of a bigoted Upper Manhattan snob in a revival of Lorraine Hansberry’s “The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window.” She won the best actress award in 1974 for her multi-role performance in Neil Simon’s comic Chekhov adaptation “The Good Doctor” and in 1995 for a revival of Ruth and Augustus Goetz’s “The Heiress” as the busy aunt Lavinia Penniman.
In her late 40s, Ms. Sternhagen, wearing stage makeup, played the elderly wasp Ethel, one half of an elderly couple preparing for their final chapter in Ernest Thompson’s “On Golden Pond.” The play, which premiered on Broadway in 1979 and starred Tom Aldredge, earned her another Tony nomination and was adapted into a hit film in 1981 starring Katharine Hepburn and Henry Fonda.
Ms. Sternhagen had initially turned down the role because she decided it wasn’t challenging enough, but then reconsidered and based herself on a character who reminded her of her mother, a housewife who died in World War I had served as a nurse. She later received Tony nominations for Peter Shaffer’s “Equus” in 1975, the musical “Angel” in 1978 and a revival of Paul Osborn’s “Morning’s at Seven” in 2002, appearing in an ensemble with Buck Henry, Piper Laurie, Christopher Lloyd and Estelle Parsons.
Although she seemed like a natural on stage, Ms Sternhagen insisted she was anything but destined to be an actress. Her parents were not histrionic and she had once dreamed of becoming a fashion designer. But while studying history at Vassar College, a school counselor advised her to try theater instead. (“I guess I wasn’t that good of a historian,” she said.) She later taught music, theater and dance for a year before unsuccessfully auditioning for the Brattle Theater Company in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
“The director puffed on his pipe as he put me through my paces,” she recalled. “Then he murmured, ‘Miss Sternhagen, if you’re planning on going to the theater, you’ve got to stop acting like you’re leading a group of Girl Scouts onto a hockey field.’ ”
“I was dejected,” she added, “but the annoyance was enough to push me into the theater.”
Frances Hussey Sternhagen was born on January 13, 1930 in Washington. Her father was a judge on the US Tax Court.
An only child, she was educated at nearby Potomac and Madeira preparatory schools and graduated from Vassar in 1951. After returning to Washington, she took theater classes at Catholic University and performed at the Olney Theater in Maryland, where she met fellow actor Thomas Carlin. They began a romantic relationship that deepened in 1955 when they made their New York debut in the same play, “Thieves’ Carnival,” at the Cherry Lane Theater.
“He was wonderful and I was terrible,” Ms. Sternhagen told The New York Times. “I didn’t feel well at the time. I was studying methods, putting on a stylized play in a role I wasn’t suited for, and also trying to decide whether or not I should get married.”
She soon found her footing as an actress – she credited acting teacher Sanford Meisner with teaching her to “explore my own feelings when working on the script” – and married Carlin in 1956. While juggling roles, they raised six children. Ms. Sternhagen later said she declined touring roles so she could concentrate on her family.
Still, she rarely took time off and often appeared in two plays a year, as well as appearing in films such as “The Hospital” (1971), “Starting Over” (1979) and the Brian De Palma thriller “Raising Cain” (1992 ) on. .
Her husband died in 1991. Survivors include her children, Tony, Paul, Peter, John, Amanda and Sarah; nine grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.
Ms. Sternhagen’s other New York stage credits included the original 1987 production of “Driving Miss Daisy,” in which she replaced Dana Ivey in the title role; a 1998 revival of “Long Day’s Journey Into Night,” in which she played the morphine-addicted matriarch and appeared with one of her sons, Paul; and the Broadway premiere of Robert Harling’s “Steel Magnolias” in 2005, in which she played a Louisiana widow, Clairee, portrayed by Olympia Dukakis in the 1989 film adaptation of the play.
Her Off-Broadway work earned her three Obie Awards, including a lifetime achievement award in 2013.
“It’s an addiction,” she had told the New York Times about theater, “because it touches your emotions, because you want to live there.” We have this slight inclination toward art, and I think those of us who are into it “We can stay, we’re just lucky.”