Maureen Stapleton

“There’s a place called Troy on the east bank of the Hudson River. If you want to know me, you have to know where I come from, and Troy is my hometown.”

Setting the Stage - The Early Years

“From the age of twelve I began preparing my family for the day of my departure because I knew I had to go somewhere else to become an actress.”

Born in 1925 into a tight-knit, matriarchal Irish family living on First Street in Troy, Maureen Stapleton’s early years were filled with school, church and family. Early on, the storytelling tradition of her grandmother and mother took hold. She had ballet, tap dance and elocution classes and began performing before she was ten. By age twelve, she knew that her avocation was to act and she realized that Troy would not provide a big enough venue for her to accomplish her goals.

Maureen Stapleton as a young girl with mother.

Coming of age during the Depression and World War II (she graduated from Catholic Central High School in 1942) meant that every nickel and dime counted. By collecting bottles and newspapers, she made enough money to go to the moving picture shows she loved, see the stars she idolized as she also got a glimpse of the world beyond Troy. She particularly liked Jean Harlow, Greta Garbo, Jean Archer, Robert Taylor, Clark Gable (she saw Gone with the Wind 30 times), and “her inspiration” Joel McCrea. To make the money she needed to afford the move to New York City, she worked for the State Labor Department and the Watervliet Arsenal, which had jobs due to the War. She also took Spanish and English Literature classes at Siena College where her mother had become the first woman graduate in 1942.

Theater

With $100 in her pocket, Maureen Stapleton, like many aspiring actors before her, left Troy in September 1943 for the larger stage and possibilities of New York City. She lived with her mother for a while as she struggled to find her niche, She did odd jobs (hotel clerk, “Ordinette” for the Chrysler exhibit of weaponry, artist’s model, etc.) and took acting classes, delving into the details of her craft.

Maureen Stapleton (center, standing) at Congdon’s Studio of the Dance Rhythm Chorus, c. 1936.

New York City theater was in its heyday and she was able to meet a number of other aspiring actors of her generation and was in on the beginning of what became the Actors Studio. Her first break came in The Playboy of the Western World in 1946. From that time on she continued to work in theater until her last stage performance with Elizabeth Taylor in a revival of Lillian Hellman’s The Little Foxes in 1981. Her key role, and one of her favorite parts, was as Serafina della Rose in The Rose Tattoo for which she won the first of two Tony Awards (Best Featured Actress – Dramatic) in 1951. Her second Tony (Best Actress – Dramatic), twenty years later in 1970, was for the role in The Gingerbread Lady created for her by Neil Simon.

As her acting career began to take off, she was also raising a family with husband, Max Allentuck, whom she had married in 1949. Son Daniel was born in 1950 and daughter Katharine was born in 1954. By the late 1950s, Hollywood began calling and she entered a new phase of her career.

Film

“Movie acting (stop and go) is the opposite of theater acting. [I] learned to shift my acting gears in Hollywood, and, equally important, how to ‘idle’ without losing the character.”

As a young girl in Troy, Maureen Stapleton began a love affair with the silver screen and the glamorous stars of the 1930s and 1940s that continued through her life. By 1959, when she was cast in Lonelyhearts with Myrna Loy and Montgomery Clift, Hollywood had reached deep into the American psyche. Her performance in Lonelyhearts received both Golden Globe and Oscar nominations and started her more than quarter century film career, during which she made 27 films.

Developing friendships with a number of well-known film stars, she also worked with major directors as well. She won a Golden Globe Award in 1970 for Airport (Best Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture) for which she was also nominated for an Oscar. Her role as Emma Goldman in Reds in 1981 finally brought her an Oscar (Best Actress in Supporting Role) as well as a British Academy of Film & Television Award (Best Supporting Actress). It was the third movie she made in 1981, and one of a total of eleven she made in the 1980s.

The Oscar

The pinnacle of many film actors’ careers is receiving an Academy Award.  Maureen Stapleton received the Oscar for Best Actress in a Supporting Role in 1981 for her performance as Emma Goldman in Reds. Her acceptance speech, short, to the point and entirely characteristic was:

“I’m thrilled, happy, delighted – sober! I want to thank Troy, NY; my children; my family; my friends; and everybody I ever met in my entire life; and my inspiration Joel McCrea.”

Television

The new medium of television was just developing as Maureen Stapleton came to New York City in the early 1940s. The all-live presentations of early television shows made the programs more akin to theater productions at first.  The first TV production she was in was part of the Actors Studio in October 1948. 

Over her more than 40-year TV career, she had parts in 51 productions between 1948 and 1995. Nominated seven times for Emmy Awards, she won in 1967 for Among the Paths to Eden, a Xerox Special Event. Her television career led her to work with some of the best actors of our time, including Sir Laurence Olivier in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, filmed in England in 1976. She called him “Sir Lord God,” finding his professionalism and friendliness “classy” and a “soothing presence” to one who hated travel as much as she did.

Craft and Recognition

“Sir John Gielgud said in an interview that acting is half shame, half glory, a combination of exhibitionism and revelation, and I think he’s right.  Acting is such a mixed bag of pleasure and pain.  If you had a brain in your head, you’d never choose to do it, but wanting to act isn’t a question of intelligence, it’s answering a need. I answered the call a long time ago and it’s too damn late to hang up.  Acting is my job, my work, and the one area of my life in which I am totally secure.”

Any actor brings their background and life experiences to the roles they play and Maureen Stapleton was no different. The part of acting she loved most was “the challenge and the opportunity to leave reality behind and become someone else, often someone completely different from myself.” She also said “your task is to keep the audience awake and interested (…and make no mistake, keeping them awake is numero uno).”

Her skill and talent was apparent early on and over her career in theater, film and television, she was recognized as a master of her art many times.

A Hell of a Life

“There’s something quite special about going back to First Street and strolling around my old neighborhood. I find a kind of peace there.”

In 1995, Maureen Stapleton wrote A Hell of a Life with Jane Scovell. This engaging and honest look at her life and times has underpinned this exhibit (all label quotes are from the book). Although her last theater performance was in 1981 with Elizabeth Taylor in Lillian Hellman’s The Little Foxes, and her TV career ended in 1995 with an Emmy-nominated performance in Road to Avonlea, she continued to work in film until 2003. 

In 1981, the Maureen Stapleton Theater was dedicated at Hudson Valley Community College, something that touched her greatly. Moving to Lenox in the late 1980s to be near to family, she also kept up the many acting friends and colleagues she had. She continued to connect with local events and people until her death in 2006. Perhaps most evocative of her character and personality are the framed collected sayings presented to her on her 75th birthday in 2000. 

It certainly was “A Hell of a Life” and we are all the better for her presence here.