Acting Legend Maureen Stapleton Dies at 80
from People.com
Stage, screen and TV actress Maureen Stapleton, who was often as colorful in real life as she was when performing, died Monday from chronic pulmonary disease in Lenox, Mass., where she lived, said her son, Daniel Allentuck. She was 80.
Her son said Stapleton had been a lifelong smoker, the Associated Press reports. Friends also knew Stapleton as a very strong drinker – and an outspoken personality.
Among her more famous comments – publicly uttered when she accepted the New York Film Critics Award for her role as Emma Goldman in the 1981 movie Reds – was that the only reason she ever went into showbiz “was because I wanted to f— (actor) Joel McCrea.”
Stapleton also won the Oscar for that film. Her other memorable screen roles included playing Dick Van Dyke’s comically overbearing mother in the 1963 movie musical Bye Bye Birdie (despite only being six months older than Van Dyke); the wife of the suicide victim in 1970’s Airport; and the lonely widow in the 1975 TV movie Queen of the Stardust Ballroom.
Technorati Tags: Stage, screen, TV, Maureen Stapleton
