Dolores Sutton

Dolores Sutton, born Dolores Lila Silverstein on February 4, 1927, in New York City, was an American actress, writer, and playwright whose professional career extended across seven decades and encompassed stage, television, and film work. She was the daughter of Benjamin and Mary Silverstein and earned a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy from New York University in 1948. While pursuing a master's degree, she wrote a radio script titled Siblings, sold it to NBC, and performed the voice role herself, an early step that established her simultaneously as both a writer and an actress.

Sutton built her stage foundation in experimental theater and with the National Repertory Company before her Broadway career took shape in the early 1960s. Her Broadway appearances spanned from 1961 to 1993 and included three productions: Rhinoceros, in which she played Daisy; General Seeger, in which she appeared as The Woman; and My Fair Lady, in which she played Mrs. Higgins. Alongside her Broadway work, she accumulated a substantial Off-Broadway record, taking on lead roles in productions that included The Man with the Golden Arm, Career, Brecht on Brecht, To Be Young Gifted and Black, and The Seagull, in which she played Irina Arkadina.

A notable early Off-Broadway credit came in 1960, when playwright Sophie Treadwell, having observed Sutton's television work, selected her for the female lead in a revival of Machinal. Sutton played Helen Jones in that production and received the Vernon Rice Citation for the performance.

Sutton's work extended beyond acting into playwriting. She adapted Thomas Wolfe's novel The Web and the Rock for the stage, also taking the lead role of Esther in the 1972 Off-Broadway production. Critic John Simon, reviewing the production in New York magazine, wrote that most of the novel's sweep and period panorama had been lost, characterizing what remained as churning, puerile poeticism. A separate reviewer noted that Sutton performed better as an actress than as a writer.

Her film appearances included The Mugger in 1958, Nine Miles to Noon in 1963, The Trouble with Angels in 1966, Where Angels Go, Trouble Follows in 1968, Crossing Delancey in 1988, and Crimes and Misdemeanors in 1989. On television, she appeared in a 1963 episode of Gunsmoke, playing Jenny Gant. Sutton died of cancer on May 11, 2009, at the Actors Home in Englewood, New Jersey, at the age of 82.