KIM STANLEY Biography - Actors and Actresses

 
 

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KIM STANLEY

Name: Kim Stanley.                                                                           
Birth name: Patricia Beth Reid                                                               
Born: 11 February 1925 Tularosa, New Mexico, U.S.                                           
Died: 20 August 2001 Santa Fe, New Mexico                                                   
                                                                                             
Kim Stanley (February 11, 1925 – August 20, 2001) was an Academy Award-nominated           
and Emmy Award-winning American actress.                                                     
                                                                                             
She was born Patricia Beth Reid in Tularosa, New Mexico. She was a drama major               
at the University of New Mexico and later studied at the Pasadena Playhouse.                 
                                                                                             
Stanley was a successful Broadway actress with only a few motion picture roles.             
She was singled out by the New York Times critic Brooks Atkinson for her early               
work. She eventually attended The Actors Studio, studying under Elia Kazan and               
Lee Strasberg.                                                                               
                                                                                             
She starred in such Broadway hits as Picnic (1953), playing Millie Owens, and               
Bus Stop (1955), playing Cherie.                                                             
                                                                                             
She received the 1952 Theatre World Award for her performance of Anna Reeves in             
The Chase; and was nominated for the 1959 Tony Award for Best Actress in a                   
Play for A Touch of the Poet and the 1962 Tony for Best Actress in a Play for A             
Far Country.                                                                                 
                                                                                             
Stanley was also the leading lady of live television drama, which flourished in             
New York City during the 1950s. Among her many starring roles was Wilma, a star-struck       
15-year-old girl from the U.S. Gulf Coast of Texas in Horton Foote's A Young                 
Lady of Property, which aired on the Philco-Goodyear Television Playhouse April             
5, 1953.                                                                                     
                                                                                             
A savaging by English critics after her London performance of Masha in The Actor's           
Studio production of Anton Chekhov's play The Three Sisters (1965) made her vow             
never to perform on stage again, a vow she kept for the rest of her life.                   
                                                                                             
Stanley had four husbands, Bruce Hall (married 1945-divorced 1946), Curt Conway             
(married 1949-divorced 1956), Alfred Ryder (married 1958-divorced 1964) and                 
Joseph Siegel (married 1964-divorced 1967).                                                 
                                                                                             
She had three children, one by Conway, one by Brooks Clift (brother of                       
Montgomery Clift) while she was married to Conway, and one by Ryder. During her             
marriage to Alfred Ryder, Kim Stanley converted to Judaism.                                 
                                                                                             
Her first movie was The Goddess (1958), playing an unstable movie star, Rita                 
Shawn. In 1964, she starred in Seance on a Wet Afternoon and was nominated for               
the Best Actress in a Leading Role.                                                         
                                                                                             
In 1982, she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress in a                       
Supporting Role and a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for her             
performance as Frances Farmer's possessive mother in Frances. She also played               
Pancho Barnes in The Right Stuff (1983).                                                     
                                                                                             
While her on-screen legacy is stunning, some believe Kim Stanley's most powerful             
role in a movie is an off-screen one. She serves as the uncredited narrator in               
the 1962 film To Kill a Mockingbird. As the narrator, she represents the                     
character Jean Louise Finch (Scout) as an adult. Mary Badham portrays Scout as a             
child in the film.                                                                           
                                                                                             
She received an Emmy Award for Outstanding Single Performance by an Actress in a             
Leading Role in the episode A Cardinal Act of Mercy on the TV series Ben Casey (1963)       
and an Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited Series or a Special             
for playing Big Mama in Tennessee Williams' Southern melodrama Cat on a Hot Tin             
Roof (1985).                                                                                 
                                                                                             
Kim Stanley died of uterine cancer at her home in Santa Fe, New Mexico at the               
age of 76. She was survived by her first husband, Bruce Hall, her brother Justin             
Truman Reid, and her three children. Her biography, Female Brando: the Legend of             
Kim Stanley by Jon Krampner, was published in the spring of 2006 by Back Stage               
Books, a division of Watson-Guptill Publications.