Sandy Dennis

Sandra Dale Dennis (April 27, 1937 – March 2, 1992) was an American theater and film actress. At the height of her career in the 1960s she won two Tony Awards, as well as an Oscar for her performance in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Sandy Dennis Dennis was born in Hastings, Nebraska, the daughter of Yvonne (née Hudson), a secretary, and Jack Dennis, a postal clerk. She had a brother, Frank. Dennis grew up in Kenesaw, Nebraska and Lincoln, Nebraska, graduating from Lincoln High School (Lincoln, Nebraska) in 1955. She attended Nebraska Wesleyan University and the University of Nebraska, appearing in the Lincoln Community Theater Group before moving to New York City at the age of 19. Dennis made her television debut in 1956 in The Guiding Light. She had an early break when cast as an understudy in the Broadway production of The Dark at the Top of the Stairs by William Inge, directed by Elia Kazan. Kazan cast Dennis in her first feature film, Splendor in the Grass (1961), playing Kay. The Complaisant Lover (1961–62) by Graham Greene was more successful, running for 101 performances; Michael Redgrave and Googie Withers were also in the cast. Broadway stardom Dennis achieved Broadway fame with her leading role in Herb Gardner's A Thousand Clowns (1962–63), for which she won a Tony award for her performance alongside Jason Robards. The show ran for 428 performances. Around this time, she guest starred on episodes of the TV series Naked City ("Carrier", 1963), The Fugitive ("The Other Side of the Mountain", 1963), Arrest and Trial ("Somewhat Lower Than the Angels" 1964), and Mr. Broadway ("Don't Mention My Name in Sheboygan", 1964). Dennis was the female lead of the Broadway comedy Any Wednesday (1964–66), which was a sensation, running for 983 performances and winning Dennis a second Tony. Dennis' second film role was as Honey, the fragile, neurotic young wife of George Segal's character in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966). Directed by Mike Nichols, the film was a huge critical and commercial success, and Dennis won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her role. Dennis' first lead role in a movie was in Up the Down Staircase (1967), directed by Robert Mulligan, which was a box office success. So too, was The Fox (1967), directed by Mark Rydell. In 1967 Dennis was voted the 18th biggest star in the US. The Out-of-Towners (1970), a Neil Simon comedy with Jack Lemmon, was a hit. Let Me Hear You Smile (1973) on Broadway only lasted one performance, but Absurd Person Singular (1974–76) was a big hit, running 591 performances. In 1974 she played Joan of Arc in the pilot of Witness to Yesterday, Canadian Patrick Watson's series of interviews with great figures from the past. She had a good part in Alan Alda's The Four Seasons (1981) and was in The Supporting Cast (1981) on Broadway for Gene Saks. She was in the stage production and film version of Robert Altman's Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (1982). Dennis appeared on Young People's Specials ("The Trouble with Mother", 1985), The Love Boat ("Roommates/Heartbreaker/Out of the Blue", 1985), Alfred Hitchcock Presents ("Arthur, or the Gigolo," 1985), and The Equalizer ("Out of the Past," 1986). She had a supporting role in The Execution (1985), Laughter in the Dark (1986), Woody Allen's Another Woman (1988), 976-EVIL (1989), and Parents (1989). A life member of The Actors Studio and an advocate of method acting, Dennis was often described as neurotic and mannered in her performances; her signature style included running words together and oddly stopping and starting sentences, suddenly going up and down octaves as she spoke, and fluttering her hands. Walter Kerr famously remarked that she treated sentences as "weak, injured things" that needed to be slowly helped "across the street"; Pauline Kael said that she "has made an acting style of postnasal drip." Nonetheless, William Goldman, in his book The Season, referred to her as a quintessential "critics' darling" who got rave reviews no matter how unusual her acting and questionable her choice of material. During her stint in Any Wednesday, Kerr said the following: "Let me tell you about Sandy Dennis. There should be one in every home." Dennis lived with prominent jazz musician Gerry Mulligan from 1965 until they split up in 1974. She lived with actor Eric Roberts from 1980 to 1985. In an interview with People magazine in 1989, Dennis revealed she and Gerry Mulligan had suffered a miscarriage in 1965 and went on to say, "If I'd been a mother, I would have loved the child, but I just didn't have any connection with it when I was pregnant. I never ever wanted children. It would have been like having an elephant." "I've never been married. And I'm not fussy about it. It's just the truth is that I was never married. It isn't true that I was ever married, which means that I never got a divorce. The newspapers jumped to that conclusion. It's so hard to get to somebody and say, "Oh, they're so funny about it." Sandy Dennis died from ovarian cancer at her home in Westport, Connecticut, at age 54.