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Eileen Heckart

Eileen Heckart

Actor · 1919 – 2001 · Columbus, Ohio, U.S.

Eileen Heckart was an American actress of stage, screen, and television. Born Anna Eileen Herbert, her career spanned nearly 60 years. She first became known for her role as schoolteacher Rosemary Sydney in the original 1953 cast of William Inge's play Picnic on Broadway. She won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance as the overprotective mother of a blind adult son in Butterflies Are Free, a role she originated on Broadway before playing it in the film. She often played mothers, including Rocky Graziano's mother in Somebody Up There Likes Me; the mother of a murdered child in The Bad Seed; the elderly mother of an estranged son in the PBS production of the one-act play Save Me a Place at Forest Law; the overbearing mother of the detective portrayed by George Segal in No Way to Treat a Lady; the mother of reporter Jack Stein on the 1990s television sitcom Love & War; the mother of two separate characters on the daytime soap opera One Life to Live in the 1980s and 1990s; and the meddling mother of a jilted wife (played by Diane Keaton) in The First Wives Club, her last film role. She also had a recurring role on the 1970s sitcom, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, as Mary's Aunt Flo Meredith, a famous woman reporter, which she repeated on the subsequent spin-off series, Lou Grant. In addition to her Academy Award, she also won two Emmy Awards for Save Me a Place at Forest Lawn and Love & War, and a Golden Globe Award for The Bad Seed. She also received a special Tony Award for lifetime achievement in 2000, and has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. She made her final acting appearance in 2000 at age 80 in an off-Broadway production, The Waverly Gallery, in which she played the leading role of an elderly grandmother with Alzheimer's disease. Description above from the Wikipedia article Eileen Heckart, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Movies24

  • Movie6.7

    The First Wives Club

    1996 · 848 votes

  • Movie6.9

    Heartbreak Ridge

    1986 · 1.2K votes

  • Movie7.1

    The Bad Seed

    1956 · 276 votes

  • Movie6.1

    Bus Stop

    1956 · 254 votes

  • Movie7.2
  • Movie6.5

    Burnt Offerings

    1976 · 289 votes

  • Movie6.6

    No Way to Treat a Lady

    1968 · 62 votes

  • Movie7.1

    Up the Down Staircase

    1967 · 27 votes

  • Movie6.9

    Miracle in the Rain

    1956 · 12 votes

  • Movie6.8
  • Movie5.6

    Breathing Lessons

    1994 · 7 votes

  • Movie5.8

    Heller in Pink Tights

    1960 · 32 votes

  • Movie5.0

    Table Settings

    1982 · 1 votes

  • Movie6.4

    Zandy's Bride

    1974 · 35 votes

  • Movie6.9

    The Hiding Place

    1975 · 35 votes

  • Movie6.8

    Butterflies Are Free

    1972 · 90 votes

  • Movie6.5
  • Movie10.0

    All the Way Home

    1971 · 1 votes

  • Movie6.9

    F.D.R.: The Last Year

    1980 · 4 votes

  • Movie5.9

    Hot Spell

    1958 · 8 votes

  • Movie10.0

    The Sorrows of Gin

    1979 · 2 votes

  • Movie8.0

    White Mama

    1980 · 5 votes

  • Movie4.0
  • Movie8.0

Series24

  • TV5.8

    The Mike Douglas Show

    1961 · 11 votes

  • TV8.0
  • TV7.7
  • TV5.7

    Dr. Kildare

    1961 · 19 votes

  • TV7.3

    The Fugitive

    1963 · 63 votes

  • TV7.2

    Hawaii Five-O

    1969 · 164 votes

  • TV7.0

    The Cosby Show

    1984 · 514 votes

  • TV
  • TV7.0

    Alice

    1976 · 63 votes

  • TV5.4

    Studio One

    1948 · 13 votes

  • TV7.4

    Home Improvement

    1991 · 747 votes

  • TV5.6

    The F.B.I.

    1965 · 25 votes

  • TV7.4

    Highway to Heaven

    1984 · 207 votes

  • TV5.7

    Naked City

    1958 · 13 votes

  • TV5.9

    Ben Casey

    1961 · 15 votes

  • TV7.2

    Tales from the Darkside

    1984 · 95 votes

  • TV7.8

    Alfred Hitchcock Presents

    1955 · 266 votes

  • TV6.6
  • TV6.6

    Trapper John, M.D.

    1979 · 23 votes

  • TV6.1

    Ellen

    1994 · 58 votes

  • TV7.4

    Lou Grant

    1977 · 32 votes

  • TV7.1

    Barnaby Jones

    1973 · 31 votes

  • TV6.8

    The Ed Sullivan Show

    1948 · 23 votes

  • TV6.7

    Gunsmoke

    1955 · 119 votes