Beatrice Straight

Beatrice Whitney Straight (August 2, 1914 – April 7, 2001) was an American actress who worked across theatre, film, television, and radio, and a member of the prominent Whitney family. Born in Old Westbury, New York, she was the daughter of Dorothy Payne Whitney and Willard Dickerman Straight, an investment banker, diplomat, and career U.S. Army officer. Her maternal grandfather was the political leader and financier William Collins Whitney. Her father died in France in 1918 from influenza during the great epidemic while serving with the United States Army in World War I, leaving Straight four years old at the time of his death. Her mother remarried British agronomist Leonard K. Elmhirst in 1925, and the family relocated to Devon, England, where Straight received her education at Dartington Hall and began performing in amateur theatrical productions. During the 1930s she attended the Cornish School in Seattle, an institution to which both she and her mother became major benefactors.

Straight returned to the United States and made her Broadway debut in The Possessed in 1939, launching a stage career that would span nearly three decades, through 1967. Her subsequent Broadway roles included Viola in Twelfth Night in 1941, Catherine Sloper in The Heiress in 1947, and Lady Macduff in Macbeth in 1948. She appeared in The Wanhope Building, The Grand Tour, Everything in the Garden, The Innocents, and The Crucible, among other productions. Her portrayal of Elizabeth Proctor in The Crucible in 1953 earned her the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play. From the inception of the Actors Studio, Straight was a member of the organization, attending the class conducted three times weekly by founding member Robert Lewis alongside classmates that included Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift, Jerome Robbins, Sidney Lumet, and approximately twenty others.

In film, Straight is perhaps most recognized for her role as a wife confronting her husband's infidelity in the satirical film Network in 1976, in which her character's husband was played by William Holden. Despite accumulating only five minutes and two seconds of screen time — the shortest performance ever to win an Academy Award for acting — she received the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for the role. She also appeared as Mother Christophe in The Nun's Story in 1959 and as paranormal investigator Dr. Martha Lesh in the horror film Poltergeist in 1982.

Straight was active in the early years of television, appearing in anthology series including Armstrong Circle Theatre, Hallmark Hall of Fame, Kraft Television Theatre, Studio One, Suspense, The United States Steel Hour, and Playhouse 90. Her dramatic series credits included Dr. Kildare, Ben Casey, The Defenders, Route 66, Mission: Impossible, St. Elsewhere, and Alfred Hitchcock Presents. She also appeared as Hippolyta in the Wonder Woman series. Her television work brought her a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for the miniseries The Dain Curse in 1978.

On February 22, 1942, Straight married Louis Dolivet, a Free French leader, in Polk County, Iowa, while she was on a midwest road tour of Twelfth Night. Dolivet had served in the French Air Force until June 1940 and was co-editor of The Free World magazine and secretary general of the International Free World Association. The couple had one child, Willard Whitney Straight Dolivet, born in 1945. Straight obtained a divorce from Dolivet in Reno, Nevada, on May 24, 1949. In 1952, their seven-year-old son Willard accidentally drowned in a pond on the family farm in Armonk, New York. Dolivet, then living in Paris, was denied a visa to attend the funeral due to alleged pro-communist activities, which he denied.

While appearing in The Heiress on Broadway in 1948, Straight met actor Peter Cookson. They married in 1949 and remained married until Cookson's death in 1990. Cookson had two children from a previous marriage, and together he and Straight had two children, Gary Cookson and Anthony Cookson. In her final years, Straight reportedly suffered from Alzheimer's disease. She died from pneumonia on April 7, 2001, in Northridge, Los Angeles, at the age of 86.