Geraldine Page
Encyclopedia
Geraldine Sue Page was an American actress. Although she starred in at least two dozen feature films, she is primarily known for her celebrated work in the American theater. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress
for her performance as Carrie Watts in The Trip to Bountiful
in March 1986, just over a year before she died.
, Missouri. She attended The Goodman School of Drama (renamed The Theatre School at DePaul University) in Chicago
and studied acting with Uta Hagen
in New York. She began appearing in stock at the age of seventeen.
and worked closely with Lee Strasberg
.
Her appearance as Alma in the 1952 Off-Broadway
revival of Tennessee Williams
' Summer and Smoke at the downtown Circle in the Square Theatre
is as legendary as anything that has ever happened in the American theater. 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 José Quintero
, gave the play a new life, 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. Her work continued, 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, as well as the Sarah Siddons Award
for her performance in Chicago
. 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 Chekhov
's Three Sisters
playing eldest sister Olga to Kim Stanley
's Masha with Shelley Winters
as the interloper Natasha. Both Shirley Knight
and Sandy Dennis
played the youngest sister Irina at different stages in this production. It was directed by Lee Strasberg
(and a version of it was preserved on film). 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, which did not succeed financially on Broadway, in 1980. And, also in New York, she played Mary Todd Lincoln opposite Maya Angelou in a two-character play by Jerome Kilty
called Look Away.
Page starred in another successful Broadway play, Agnes of God
, which opened in 1982 and 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 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. In 1985-6, Page starred in Sam Shepard
's award-winning A Lie of the Mind
Off-Broadway, with a cast including Harvey Keitel
, Plummer, James Gammon
, Aidan Quinn
and, as a replacement (for Jake), David Strathairn
. After winning an Academy Award in 1986, 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 actress Patricia Conolly
taking over Page's role.
, opposite John Wayne
, 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 performance in The Trip to Bountiful
, which was based on a play by Horton Foote
. 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 included Academy Award-nominated performances in Tennessee Williams
' Summer and Smoke
(1961), Sweet Bird of Youth
(1962), You're a Big Boy Now
(1966), Pete 'n' Tillie
(1972), Woody Allen
's Interiors
(1978), and The Pope of Greenwich Village
(1984). She also appeared in such roles as a psychotic, mass killer 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); a nun, Sister Walburga, in Nasty Habits (1977); and as 'Aunt' Beverly in Harry's War
(1981).
She did various television shows in the 1950s through the 1980s, including movies and series, such as Hawaii Five-O
, 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
.
's Blithe Spirit
at the Neil Simon Theatre
. She did not arrive for either of the show's two June 13 performances; at the end of the evening performance, the play's producer announced that she had died at the age of 62.
Five days after her untimely passing, "an overflow crowd of colleagues, friends and fans", including Sissy Spacek
, James Earl Jones
, Amanda Plummer and husband Rip Torn
filled the Neil Simon Theatre
to pay tribute. 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." 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". She was cremated.
from 1954 to 1957. In 1963 she married actor Rip Torn
, who was 7 years her junior. 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).
Academy Award for Best Actress
Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry...
for her performance as Carrie Watts in The Trip to Bountiful
The Trip to Bountiful
The Trip to Bountiful is a 1985 film starring Geraldine Page, John Heard, Carlin Glynn, Richard Bradford and Rebecca De Mornay. Geraldine Page won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance as Carrie Watts. The movie was adapted by Horton Foote from his television play. The Trip to...
in March 1986, just over a year before she died.
Early life
Page was born in KirksvilleKirksville, Missouri
Kirksville is the county seat of Adair County, Missouri, United States. It is located in Benton Township. The population was 17,505 at the 2010 census. Kirksville also anchors a micropolitan area that comprises Adair and Schuyler counties. The city is perhaps best known as the location of Truman...
, Missouri. She attended The Goodman School of Drama (renamed The Theatre School at DePaul University) in Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
and studied acting with Uta Hagen
Uta Hagen
Uta Thyra Hagen was a German-born American actress and drama teacher. She originated the role of Martha in the 1963 Broadway premiere of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? by Edward Albee...
in New York. She began appearing in stock at the age of seventeen.
Stage career
Page was a trained method actorMethod acting
Method acting is a phrase that loosely refers to a family of techniques used by actors to create in themselves the thoughts and emotions of their characters, so as to develop lifelike performances...
and worked closely with Lee Strasberg
Lee Strasberg
Lee Strasberg was an American actor, director and acting teacher. He cofounded, with directors Harold Clurman and Cheryl Crawford, the Group Theatre in 1931, which was hailed as "America's first true theatrical collective"...
.
Her appearance as Alma in the 1952 Off-Broadway
Off-Broadway
Off-Broadway theater is a term for a professional venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, and for a specific production of a play, musical or revue that appears in such a venue, and which adheres to related trade union and other contracts...
revival of Tennessee Williams
Tennessee Williams
Thomas Lanier "Tennessee" Williams III was an American writer who worked principally as a playwright in the American theater. He also wrote short stories, novels, poetry, essays, screenplays and a volume of memoirs...
' Summer and Smoke at the downtown Circle in the Square Theatre
Circle in the Square Theatre
The Circle in the Square Theatre is a legitimate Broadway theatre in midtown Manhattan on 50th Street in the Paramount Plaza building.The original Circle in the Square was founded by Paul Libin, Theodore Mann and Jose Quintero in 1951 and was located at 5 Sheridan Square in Greenwich Village...
is as legendary as anything that has ever happened in the American theater. Summer and Smoke
Summer and Smoke
Summer and Smoke is a two-part, thirteen-scene play by Tennessee Williams, originally titled Chart of Anatomy when Williams began work on it in 1945. In 1964, Williams revised the play as The Eccentricities of a Nightingale...
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 José Quintero
José Quintero
José Benjamin Quintero was a Panamanian theatre director, producer and pedagogue best known for his interpretations of the works of Eugene O'Neill.-Early years:...
, gave the play a new life, 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. Her work continued, on Broadway, as the spinster in The Rainmaker
The Rainmaker (play)
The Rainmaker is a play written by N. Richard Nash in the early 1950s. The play opened on October 28, 1954 at the Cort Theatre in New York and ran for 125 performances. It was directed by Joseph Anthony and produced by Ethel Linder Reiner....
and as the frustrated wife whose husband becomes romantically obsessed with a young Arab, played by James Dean
James Dean
James Byron Dean was an American film actor. He is a cultural icon, best embodied in the title of his most celebrated film, Rebel Without a Cause , in which he starred as troubled Los Angeles teenager Jim Stark...
, in The Immoralist.
She earned critical accolades for her performance in Tennessee Williams
Tennessee Williams
Thomas Lanier "Tennessee" Williams III was an American writer who worked principally as a playwright in the American theater. He also wrote short stories, novels, poetry, essays, screenplays and a volume of memoirs...
' Sweet Bird of Youth
Sweet Bird of Youth
Sweet Bird of Youth is a 1959 play by Tennessee Williams which tells the story of a gigolo and drifter, Chance Wayne, who returns to his home town as the accompaniment of a faded movie star, Princess Kosmonopolis , whom he hopes to use to help him break into the movies...
opposite Paul Newman
Paul Newman
Paul Leonard Newman was an American actor, film director, entrepreneur, humanitarian, professional racing driver and auto racing enthusiast...
. 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
Tony Award
The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...
nomination for the play, as well as the Sarah Siddons Award
Sarah Siddons Award
The Sarah Siddons Society is an American non-profit organization founded in 1952 by prominent Chicago theatre patrons with the goal of promoting excellence in the theatre. The Society presents the Sarah Siddons Award annually to an actor for an outstanding performance in a Chicago theatre production...
for her performance in Chicago
Chicago theatre
Chicago theatre refers not only to theatre performed in Chicago, Illinois but also to the movement in that town that saw a number of small, meagerly-funded companies grow to institutions of national and international significance. Chicago had long been a popular destination for tours sent out from...
. 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 Chekhov
Anton Chekhov
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was a Russian physician, dramatist and author who is considered to be among the greatest writers of short stories in history. His career as a dramatist produced four classics and his best short stories are held in high esteem by writers and critics...
's Three Sisters
Three Sisters (play)
Three Sisters is a play by Russian author and playwright Anton Chekhov, perhaps partially inspired by the situation of the three Brontë sisters, but most probably by the three Zimmermann sisters in Perm...
playing eldest sister Olga to Kim Stanley
Kim Stanley
Kim Stanley was an American actress, primarily in television and theatre, but with occasional film performances....
's Masha with Shelley Winters
Shelley Winters
Shelley Winters was an American actress who appeared in dozens of films, as well as on stage and television; her career spanned over 50 years until her death in 2006...
as the interloper Natasha. Both Shirley Knight
Shirley Knight
Shirley Enola Knight is an American stage, film and television actress. She has been nominated twice for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, in 1960 for The Dark at the Top of the Stairs and in 1962 for Sweet Bird of Youth....
and Sandy Dennis
Sandy Dennis
Sandra Dale “Sandy” Dennis was an American theater and film actress. In 1966, she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?.-Early life:...
played the youngest sister Irina at different stages in this production. It was directed by Lee Strasberg
Lee Strasberg
Lee Strasberg was an American actor, director and acting teacher. He cofounded, with directors Harold Clurman and Cheryl Crawford, the Group Theatre in 1931, which was hailed as "America's first true theatrical collective"...
(and a version of it was preserved on film). She also starred in Peter Shaffer
Peter Shaffer
Sir Peter Levin Shaffer is an English dramatist and playwright, screenwriter and author of numerous award-winning plays, several of which have been filmed.-Early life:...
's Black Comedy/White Lies, in 1967, which was the production in which both Michael Crawford
Michael Crawford
Michael Crawford OBE is an English actor and singer. He has garnered great critical acclaim and won numerous awards during his career, which covers radio, television, film, and stagework on both London's West End and on Broadway in New York City...
and Lynn Redgrave
Lynn Redgrave
Lynn Rachel Redgrave, OBE was an English actress.A member of the well-known British family of actors, Redgrave trained in London before making her theatrical debut in 1962...
made their Broadway debuts. Page received her second Tony nomination (for Best Featured Actress in a Play) for a successful production of Alan Ayckbourn
Alan Ayckbourn
Sir Alan Ayckbourn CBE is a prolific English playwright. He has written and produced seventy-three full-length plays in Scarborough and London and was, between 1972 and 2009, the artistic director of the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough, where all but four of his plays have received their...
's Absurd Person Singular
Absurd Person Singular
Absurd Person Singular is a 1972 play by Alan Ayckbourn. Divided into three acts, it documents the changing fortunes of three married couples...
with Sandy Dennis
Sandy Dennis
Sandra Dale “Sandy” Dennis was an American theater and film actress. In 1966, she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?.-Early life:...
and Richard Kiley. Page also starred as Zelda Fitzgerald
Zelda Fitzgerald
Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald , born Zelda Sayre in Montgomery, Alabama, was an American novelist and the wife of writer F. Scott Fitzgerald. She was an icon of the 1920s—dubbed by her husband "the first American Flapper"...
in the last major Broadway production of a Tennessee Williams
Tennessee Williams
Thomas Lanier "Tennessee" Williams III was an American writer who worked principally as a playwright in the American theater. He also wrote short stories, novels, poetry, essays, screenplays and a volume of memoirs...
play, Clothes for a Summer Hotel, which did not succeed financially on Broadway, in 1980. And, also in New York, she played Mary Todd Lincoln opposite Maya Angelou in a two-character play by Jerome Kilty
Jerome Kilty
Jerome Kilty is an American actor and playwright. He wrote Dear Liar: A Comedy of Letters, a play that had a successful run in New York, which was based on the correspondence of famed playwright George Bernard Shaw and actress Mrs. Patrick Campbell...
called Look Away.
Page starred in another successful Broadway play, Agnes of God
Agnes of God
Agnes of God is a play by John Pielmeier which tells the story of a novice nun who gives birth and insists that the dead child was the result of a virgin conception. A psychiatrist and the mother superior of the convent clash during the resulting investigation...
, which opened in 1982 and 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 acclaimed production garnered co-star Amanda Plummer a Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play. Elizabeth Ashley
Elizabeth Ashley
Elizabeth Ashley is an American actress who first came to prominence as the ingenue in the Broadway play Take Her, She's Mine, which earned her a Tony Award as Best Featured Actress in a Play.-Early life:...
played the court-appointed psychiatrist Dr. Martha Livingstone. In 1985-6, Page starred in Sam Shepard
Sam Shepard
Sam Shepard is an American playwright, actor, and television and film director. He is the author of several books of short stories, essays, and memoirs, and received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1979 for his play Buried Child...
's award-winning A Lie of the Mind
A Lie of the Mind
A Lie of the Mind is a play written by Sam Shepard, first staged at the off-Broadway Promenade Theater on 5 December 1985. The play was directed by Shepard himself with stars Harvey Keitel as Jake, Amanda Plummer as Beth, Aidan Quinn as Frankie, Geraldine Page as Lorraine, and Will Patton as Mike...
Off-Broadway, with a cast including Harvey Keitel
Harvey Keitel
Harvey Keitel is an American actor. Some of his most notable starring roles were in Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets and Taxi Driver, Ridley Scott's The Duellists and Thelma and Louise, Ettore Scola's That Night in Varennes, Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, Jane Campion's The...
, Plummer, James Gammon
James Gammon
James Richard Gammon was an American actor, known for playing grizzled "good ol' boy" types in numerous films and television series.-Early life:...
, Aidan Quinn
Aidan Quinn
-Early life:Quinn was born in Chicago, Illinois to Irish parents. He was brought up as a Roman Catholic and raised in Chicago and Rockford, Illinois, as well as in Dublin and Birr, County Offaly in Ireland. His mother, Teresa, was a homemaker, and his father, Michael Quinn, was a professor of...
and, as a replacement (for Jake), David Strathairn
David Strathairn
David Russell Strathairn is an American actor. He was nominated for an Academy Award for portraying journalist Edward R. Murrow in Good Night, and Good Luck...
. After winning an Academy Award in 1986, Page returned to Broadway in a revival of Noel Coward
Noël Coward
Sir Noël Peirce Coward was an English playwright, composer, director, actor and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what Time magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise".Born in Teddington, a suburb of London, Coward attended a dance academy...
's Blithe Spirit
Blithe Spirit (play)
Blithe Spirit is a comic play written by Noël Coward which takes its title from Percy Bysshe Shelley's poem "To a Skylark" . The play concerns socialite and novelist Charles Condomine, who invites the eccentric medium and clairvoyant, Madame Arcati, to his house to conduct a séance, hoping to...
in the role of the psychic medium Madame Arcati. The production, which also starred Richard Chamberlain
Richard Chamberlain
George Richard Chamberlain is an American actor of stage and screen who became a teen idol in the title role of the television show Dr. Kildare .-Early life:...
, Blythe Danner
Blythe Danner
Blythe Katherine Danner is an American actress. She is the mother of actress Gwyneth Paltrow and director Jake Paltrow.-Early life:...
and Judith Ivey
Judith Ivey
Judith Lee Ivey is an American actress and director.-Personal life:Ivey was born in El Paso, Texas, the daughter of Dorothy Lee , a teacher, and Nathan Aldean Ivey, a college instructor and dean. She spent 1965-1968 in Dowagiac, Michigan, where she attended Union High School through tenth grade...
, 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 actress Patricia Conolly
Patricia Conolly
Patricia Conolly is an Australian stage actress.-Biography:Conolly began her stage career in Australia where she grew up, and has performed in England in the West End, the Royal Shakespeare Company, and Chichester Festival Theatre ; in Canada for the Stratford Shakespeare Festival; and on Broadway,...
taking over Page's role.
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 HondoHondo (film)
Hondo is a movie that was made in 1953 by 3-D Warnercolor western film starring John Wayne, directed by John Farrow. The screenplay is based on the 1952 short story "The Gift of Cochise" by Louis L'Amour...
, opposite John Wayne
John Wayne
Marion Mitchell Morrison , better known by his stage name John Wayne, was an American film actor, director and producer. He epitomized rugged masculinity and became an enduring American icon. He is famous for his distinctive calm voice, walk, and height...
, garnered her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry. Since its inception, however, the...
. In all, despite her relatively small filmography, Page received eight Academy Award
Academy Awards
An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...
nominations. She finally won the Oscar in 1986 for a performance in The Trip to Bountiful
The Trip to Bountiful
The Trip to Bountiful is a 1985 film starring Geraldine Page, John Heard, Carlin Glynn, Richard Bradford and Rebecca De Mornay. Geraldine Page won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance as Carrie Watts. The movie was adapted by Horton Foote from his television play. The Trip to...
, which was based on a play by Horton Foote
Horton Foote
Albert Horton Foote, Jr. was an American playwright and screenwriter, perhaps best known for his Academy Award-winning screenplays for the 1962 film To Kill a Mockingbird and the 1983 film Tender Mercies, and his notable live television dramas during the Golden Age of Television...
. When she won (F. Murray Abraham
F. Murray Abraham
Fahrid Murray Abraham is an American actor. He became known during the 1980s after winning the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role as Antonio Salieri in Amadeus. He has appeared in many roles, both leading and supporting, in films such as All the President's Men and Scarface...
, 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 included Academy Award-nominated performances in Tennessee Williams
Tennessee Williams
Thomas Lanier "Tennessee" Williams III was an American writer who worked principally as a playwright in the American theater. He also wrote short stories, novels, poetry, essays, screenplays and a volume of memoirs...
' Summer and Smoke
Summer and Smoke (film)
Summer and Smoke is a 1961 film directed by Peter Glenville based on the Tennessee Williams play of the same name.The film starred Laurence Harvey and Geraldine Page with Rita Moreno, Una Merkel, John McIntire, Thomas Gomez, Pamela Tiffin, Malcolm Atterbury, Lee Patrick and Earl Holliman...
(1961), Sweet Bird of Youth
Sweet Bird of Youth
Sweet Bird of Youth is a 1959 play by Tennessee Williams which tells the story of a gigolo and drifter, Chance Wayne, who returns to his home town as the accompaniment of a faded movie star, Princess Kosmonopolis , whom he hopes to use to help him break into the movies...
(1962), You're a Big Boy Now
You're a Big Boy Now
You're a Big Boy Now is a 1966 film with Peter Kastner, Elizabeth Hartman, Geraldine Page, Julie Harris and Karen Black, written and directed by Francis Ford Coppola based on a 1963 novel, also titled You're a Big Boy Now, by David Benedictus....
(1966), Pete 'n' Tillie
Pete 'n' Tillie
Pete 'n' Tillie is a 1972 American comedy-drama film starring Walter Matthau and Carol Burnett in the title roles. Its advertising tagline was "Honeymoon's over...
(1972), Woody Allen
Woody Allen
Woody Allen is an American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, jazz musician, author, and playwright. Allen's films draw heavily on literature, sexuality, philosophy, psychology, Jewish identity, and the history of cinema...
's Interiors
Interiors
Interiors is a 1978 drama film written and directed by Woody Allen. Featured performers are Kristin Griffith, Mary Beth Hurt, Richard Jordan, Diane Keaton, E. G. Marshall, Geraldine Page, Maureen Stapleton and Sam Waterston....
(1978), and The Pope of Greenwich Village
The Pope of Greenwich Village
The Pope of Greenwich Village is a 1984 American film starring Mickey Rourke, Eric Roberts, Daryl Hannah, Geraldine Page, Kenneth McMillan and Burt Young. Page earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her two-scene role. The film was adapted by screenwriter Vincent Patrick...
(1984). She also appeared in such roles as a psychotic, mass killer in What Ever Happened to Aunt Alice?
What Ever Happened to Aunt Alice?
What Ever Happened to Aunt Alice? is a 1969 thriller film directed by Lee H. Katzin with Bernard Girard , and starring Geraldine Page, Ruth Gordon, Rosemary Forsyth, Robert Fuller and Mildred Dunnock...
(1969); a repressed schoolmistress in the Clint Eastwood
Clint Eastwood
Clinton "Clint" Eastwood, Jr. is an American film actor, director, producer, composer and politician. Eastwood first came to prominence as a supporting cast member in the TV series Rawhide...
film, The Beguiled
The Beguiled
The Beguiled is a 1971 drama film directed by Don Siegel, starring Clint Eastwood and Geraldine Page. The script was written by Albert Maltz and is based on the 1966 Southern Gothic novel written by Thomas P. Cullinan, originally titled A Painted Devil...
(1971); a charismatic evangelist (modeled after Aimee Semple McPherson
Aimee Semple McPherson
Aimee Semple McPherson , also known as Sister Aimee, was a Canadian-American Los Angeles, California evangelist and media celebrity in the 1920s and 1930s. She founded the Foursquare Church...
) in The Day of the Locust
The Day of the Locust (film)
The Day of the Locust is a 1975 American drama film directed by John Schlesinger. The screenplay by Waldo Salt is based on the 1939 novel of the same title by Nathanael West...
(1975); a nun, Sister Walburga, in Nasty Habits (1977); and as 'Aunt' Beverly in Harry's War
Harry's War (1981 film)
Harry's War is a feature length independent film from American Film Consortium and Taft International Pictures, released in 1981. Starring Edward Herrmann, Geraldine Page, Karen Grassle, David Ogden Stiers, Elisha Cook, Salome Jens and Noble Willingham...
(1981).
She did various television shows in the 1950s through the 1980s, including movies and series, such as Hawaii Five-O
Hawaii Five-O
Hawaii Five-O is an American police procedural drama series produced by CBS Productions and Leonard Freeman. Set in Hawaii, the show originally aired for twelve seasons from 1968 to 1980, and continues in reruns. The show featured a fictional state police unit run by Detective Steve McGarrett,...
, Kojak
Kojak
Kojak is an American television series starring Telly Savalas as the title character, bald New York City Police Department Detective Lieutenant Theo Kojak. It aired from October 24, 1973, to March 18, 1978, on CBS. It took the time slot of the popular Cannon series, which was moved one hour earlier...
, and several episodes of Rod Serling
Rod Serling
Rodman Edward "Rod" Serling was an American screenwriter, novelist, television producer, and narrator best known for his live television dramas of the 1950s and his science fiction anthology TV series, The Twilight Zone. Serling was active in politics, both on and off the screen and helped form...
's Night Gallery
Night Gallery
Night Gallery is an American anthology series that aired on NBC from 1970 to 1973, featuring stories of horror and the macabre. Rod Serling, who had gained fame from an earlier series, The Twilight Zone, served both as the on-air host of Night Gallery and as a major contributor of scripts, although...
, including "The Sins of the Fathers" and "Something in the Woodwork". She also was a voice actress
Voice acting
Voice acting is the art of providing voices for animated characters and radio and audio dramas and comedy, as well as doing voice-overs in radio and television commercials, audio dramas, dubbed foreign language films, video games, puppet shows, and amusement rides.Performers are called...
and voiced the villainous Madame Medusa in the Disney animated film The Rescuers
The Rescuers
The Rescuers is a 1977 American animated feature produced by Walt Disney Productions and first released on June 22, 1977. The 23rd film in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series, the film is about the Rescue Aid Society, an international mouse organization headquartered in New York and shadowing...
.
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
Truman Capote
Truman Streckfus Persons , known as Truman Capote , was an American author, many of whose short stories, novels, plays, and nonfiction are recognized literary classics, including the novella Breakfast at Tiffany's and the true crime novel In Cold Blood , which he labeled a "nonfiction novel." At...
stories, A Christmas Memory (1967) and The Thanksgiving Visitor (1969). Her final film was the 1987 Mary Stuart Masterson
Mary Stuart Masterson
Mary Stuart Masterson is an American film, stage and television actress and director.-Early life:Masterson was born in New York City to writer/director Peter Masterson and actress Carlin Glynn. She has two siblings: Peter Masterson Jr., and Alexandra Masterson, who are both involved in the...
film My Little Girl, which was the film debut of Jennifer Lopez
Jennifer Lopez
Jennifer Lynn Lopez is an American actress, singer, record producer, dancer, television personality, and fashion designer. Lopez began her career as a dancer on the television comedy program In Living Color. Subsequently venturing into acting, she gained recognition in the 1995 action-thriller...
.
Death
Page, who also suffered from kidney disease, died of a heart attack in 1987 during a run on Broadway in Sir Noel CowardNoël Coward
Sir Noël Peirce Coward was an English playwright, composer, director, actor and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what Time magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise".Born in Teddington, a suburb of London, Coward attended a dance academy...
's Blithe Spirit
Blithe Spirit (play)
Blithe Spirit is a comic play written by Noël Coward which takes its title from Percy Bysshe Shelley's poem "To a Skylark" . The play concerns socialite and novelist Charles Condomine, who invites the eccentric medium and clairvoyant, Madame Arcati, to his house to conduct a séance, hoping to...
at the Neil Simon Theatre
Neil Simon Theatre
The Neil Simon Theatre, formerly the Alvin Theatre, is a Broadway venue built in 1927 and located at 250 West 52nd Street in midtown-Manhattan....
. She did not arrive for either of the show's two June 13 performances; at the end of the evening performance, the play's producer announced that she had died at the age of 62.
Five days after her untimely passing, "an overflow crowd of colleagues, friends and fans", including Sissy Spacek
Sissy Spacek
Sissy Spacek is an American actress and singer. She came to international prominence for her for role as Carrie White in Brian De Palma's 1976 horror film Carrie for which she earned her first Academy Award nomination...
, James Earl Jones
James Earl Jones
James Earl Jones is an American actor. He is well-known for his distinctive bass voice and for his portrayal of characters of substance, gravitas and leadership...
, Amanda Plummer and husband Rip Torn
Rip Torn
Elmore Rual "Rip" Torn, Jr. , is an American actor of stage, screen and television.Torn received an Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actor for his role in the 1983 film Cross Creek. His work includes the role of Artie, the producer, on The Larry Sanders Show, for which he was nominated...
filled the Neil Simon Theatre
Neil Simon Theatre
The Neil Simon Theatre, formerly the Alvin Theatre, is a Broadway venue built in 1927 and located at 250 West 52nd Street in midtown-Manhattan....
to pay tribute. Her achievements as a stage actress and teacher were highlighted; actress Anne Jackson
Anne Jackson
Anne Jackson is an American actress of television, stage, and screen.-Life and career:Jackson, the youngest of three sisters, was born in Millvale, Pennsylvania, the daughter of Stella Germaine and John Ivan Jackson, a barber who ran a beauty parlor...
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." 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". She was cremated.
Personal
Page was married to violinist Alexander SchneiderAlexander Schneider
Alexander Schneider was a violinist, conductor, and educator. Born in Vilna, Lithuania, he later moved to the United States as a member of the Budapest Quartet.- Biography :...
from 1954 to 1957. In 1963 she married actor Rip Torn
Rip Torn
Elmore Rual "Rip" Torn, Jr. , is an American actor of stage, screen and television.Torn received an Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actor for his role in the 1983 film Cross Creek. His work includes the role of Artie, the producer, on The Larry Sanders Show, for which he was nominated...
, who was 7 years her junior. They remained married until her death. Page and Torn had three children, a daughter (actress Angelica Torn
Angelica Torn
Angelica Torn is an American award winning actress, director, producer and screenwriter and the only daughter of actors Rip Torn and the late Geraldine Page.She legally and professionally changed her name to Angelica Page in September, 2011....
) and twin sons (actor Tony Torn, and Northern Arizona University professor Jon Torn).
Filmography
| Year | Film | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1953 | Taxi | Florence Albert | uncredited |
| Hondo Hondo (film) Hondo is a movie that was made in 1953 by 3-D Warnercolor western film starring John Wayne, directed by John Farrow. The screenplay is based on the 1952 short story "The Gift of Cochise" by Louis L'Amour... |
Angie Lowe | Nominated – Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry. Since its inception, however, the... |
|
| 1961 | Summer and Smoke Summer and Smoke (film) Summer and Smoke is a 1961 film directed by Peter Glenville based on the Tennessee Williams play of the same name.The film starred Laurence Harvey and Geraldine Page with Rita Moreno, Una Merkel, John McIntire, Thomas Gomez, Pamela Tiffin, Malcolm Atterbury, Lee Patrick and Earl Holliman... |
Alma Winemiller | Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama National Board of Review Award for Best Actress National Board of Review Award for Best Actress The National Board of Review of Motion Pictures Award for Best Actress is one of the annual film awards given by the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures.-1940s:-1950s:- 1960s :- 1970s :- 1980s :- 1990s :- 2000s :-2010s:... Nominated – Academy Award for Best Actress Academy Award for Best Actress Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry... |
| 1962 | Sweet Bird of Youth Sweet Bird of Youth Sweet Bird of Youth is a 1959 play by Tennessee Williams which tells the story of a gigolo and drifter, Chance Wayne, who returns to his home town as the accompaniment of a faded movie star, Princess Kosmonopolis , whom he hopes to use to help him break into the movies... |
Alexandra Del Lago | Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama Nominated – Academy Award for Best Actress Nominated – BAFTA Award for Best Foreign Actress BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role Best Actress in a Leading Role is a British Academy Film award presented annually by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts to recognise an actress who has delivered an outstanding leading performance in a film.- Winners and nominees :... |
| 1963 | Toys in the Attic Toys in the Attic (film) Toys in the Attic is a 1963 American drama film starring Dean Martin, Geraldine Page, Yvette Mimieux, Gene Tierney and Wendy Hiller. The film was directed by George Roy Hill and is based on a Tony Award-winning play by Lillian Hellman... |
Carrie Berniers | Nominated – Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama |
| 1964 | Dear Heart | Ms. Evie Jackson | with Glenn Ford Glenn Ford Glenn Ford was a Canadian-born American actor from Hollywood's Golden Era with a career that spanned seven decades... |
| 1966 | The Three Sisters Three Sisters (play) Three Sisters is a play by Russian author and playwright Anton Chekhov, perhaps partially inspired by the situation of the three Brontë sisters, but most probably by the three Zimmermann sisters in Perm... |
Olga | |
| You're a Big Boy Now You're a Big Boy Now You're a Big Boy Now is a 1966 film with Peter Kastner, Elizabeth Hartman, Geraldine Page, Julie Harris and Karen Black, written and directed by Francis Ford Coppola based on a 1963 novel, also titled You're a Big Boy Now, by David Benedictus.... |
Margery Chanticleer | Nominated – Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress Nominated – Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture |
|
| 1967 | Monday's Child Monday's Child (film) Monday's Child is a 1967 Argentine drama film directed by Leopoldo Torre Nilsson, based on a story by André Du Rona. It was entered into the 1967 Cannes Film Festival.- Cast :*Arthur Kennedy - Peter Richardson*Geraldine Page - Carol Richardson... |
Carol Richardson | |
| The Happiest Millionaire The Happiest Millionaire The Happiest Millionaire is a 1967 musical film starring Fred MacMurray and based upon the true story of Philadelphia millionaire Anthony J. Drexel Biddle. The film received an Academy Award nomination for Costume Design by Bill Thomas. The musical song score is by Robert and Richard Sherman... |
Mrs. Duke | ||
| 1969 | What Ever Happened to Aunt Alice? What Ever Happened to Aunt Alice? What Ever Happened to Aunt Alice? is a 1969 thriller film directed by Lee H. Katzin with Bernard Girard , and starring Geraldine Page, Ruth Gordon, Rosemary Forsyth, Robert Fuller and Mildred Dunnock... |
Claire Marrable | |
| Trilogy | Sook | National Board of Review Award for Best Actress | |
| 1971 | The Beguiled The Beguiled The Beguiled is a 1971 drama film directed by Don Siegel, starring Clint Eastwood and Geraldine Page. The script was written by Albert Maltz and is based on the 1966 Southern Gothic novel written by Thomas P. Cullinan, originally titled A Painted Devil... |
Martha Farnsworth | |
| 1972 | J. W. Coop J. W. Coop J. W. Coop is a 1972 Western film set in the world of the modern American rodeo circuit. It stars and was directed by Cliff Robertson who also co-scripted the film. Featuring footage from actual rodeo events, it was made with the cooperation of the Rodeo Cowboys Association .-Cast:* Cliff Robertson... |
Mama | |
| Pete 'n' Tillie Pete 'n' Tillie Pete 'n' Tillie is a 1972 American comedy-drama film starring Walter Matthau and Carol Burnett in the title roles. Its advertising tagline was "Honeymoon's over... |
Gertrude | Nominated – Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress Nominated – Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture |
|
| 1973 | Happy as the Grass Was Green | Anna Witmer | |
| 1975 | The Day of the Locust The Day of the Locust (film) The Day of the Locust is a 1975 American drama film directed by John Schlesinger. The screenplay by Waldo Salt is based on the 1939 novel of the same title by Nathanael West... |
Big Sister | |
| 1977 | Nasty Habits | Sister Walburga | |
| The Rescuers The Rescuers The Rescuers is a 1977 American animated feature produced by Walt Disney Productions and first released on June 22, 1977. The 23rd film in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series, the film is about the Rescue Aid Society, an international mouse organization headquartered in New York and shadowing... |
Madame Medusa | voice | |
| Something For Joey Something for Joey Something for Joey was a 1977 made-for-TV movie about the relationship between college football player John Cappelletti , and his younger brother Joey . Other cast members included Linda Kelsey and Steve Guttenberg... |
Anne Cappelletti | ||
| 1978 | Interiors Interiors Interiors is a 1978 drama film written and directed by Woody Allen. Featured performers are Kristin Griffith, Mary Beth Hurt, Richard Jordan, Diane Keaton, E. G. Marshall, Geraldine Page, Maureen Stapleton and Sam Waterston.... |
Eve | BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role Best Actress in a Supporting Role is a British Academy Film award presented annually by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding supporting performance in a film... Kansas City Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress Kansas City Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress The Kansas City Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress is an award given by the Kansas City Film Critics Circle to honor the best achievements in acting.-1960s:-1970s:-1980s:-1990s:-2000s:-2010s:-References:*... Nominated – Academy Award for Best Actress Nominated – Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama |
| 1981 | Harry's War | 'Aunt' Beverly | |
| Honky Tonk Freeway | Sister Maria Clarissa | ||
| 1982 | I'm Dancing as Fast as I Can I'm Dancing as Fast as I Can I'm Dancing as Fast as I Can is a 1982 American biographical film directed by Jack Hofsiss, starring Jill Clayburgh. The screenplay by David Rabe is based on the memoir of the same title by Emmy Award-winning documentary filmmaker Barbara Gordon, whose addiction to and difficult withdrawal from... |
Jean Scott Martin | |
| 1982 | The Blue and the Gray | Mrs. Lovelace | |
| 1984 | The Pope of Greenwich Village The Pope of Greenwich Village The Pope of Greenwich Village is a 1984 American film starring Mickey Rourke, Eric Roberts, Daryl Hannah, Geraldine Page, Kenneth McMillan and Burt Young. Page earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her two-scene role. The film was adapted by screenwriter Vincent Patrick... |
Mrs. Ritter | Nominated – Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress |
| 1985 | The Bride The Bride (film) The Bride is an adaptation of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, released in 1985 and directed by Franc Roddam. The film stars Sting as Baron Charles Frankenstein and Jennifer Beals as Eva, a woman he creates in the same fashion as his infamous monster.... |
Mrs. Baumann | |
| Walls of Glass | Mama | ||
| White Nights | Anne Wyatt | ||
| The Trip to Bountiful The Trip to Bountiful The Trip to Bountiful is a 1985 film starring Geraldine Page, John Heard, Carlin Glynn, Richard Bradford and Rebecca De Mornay. Geraldine Page won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance as Carrie Watts. The movie was adapted by Horton Foote from his television play. The Trip to... |
Mrs. Carrie Watts | Academy Award for Best Actress Academy Award for Best Actress Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry... Independent Spirit Award for Best Lead Female Nominated – Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama |
|
| 1986 | Native Son | Peggy | |
| 1987 | Riders to the Sea Riders to the Sea Riders to the Sea is a play written by Irish playwright John Millington Synge. It was first performed on February 25, 1904 at the Molesworth Hall, Dublin by the Irish National Theater Society. A one-act tragedy, the play is set in the Aran Islands, and like all of Synge's plays it is noted for... |
||
| My Little Girl My Little Girl My Little Girl is a 1986 American drama film that was released in the U.S. in 1987. The film was the directorial debut of Connie Kaiserman and Jennifer Lopez' first major motion picture. It was the final movie performance of Oscar-winning actress Geraldine Page.-Plot:Franny Bettinger has had a... |
Molly |