Dorothy Stickney

Dorothy Stickney (June 21, 1896 – June 2, 1998) was an American actress and book writer who worked across stage, film, and television, with a Broadway career spanning from 1926 to 1975. Born in Dickinson, North Dakota, she is best known for her role as Vinnie in the long-running Broadway production of Life with Father.

Stickney's childhood was shaped by a medical condition that made exposure to bright light harmful, keeping her largely indoors during her early years. Family members read the classics aloud to her, and because reading remained difficult, she channeled her energies into dancing and elocution. Visits to the theater with her family cultivated an ambition to become an actress. After a series of eye surgeries restored enough of her vision during her teenage years, she was able to pursue formal training, attending the North Western Dramatic School in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Before reaching Broadway, Stickney performed as one of four Southern Belles in vaudeville and gained experience in summer stock, including work with Atlanta's Forsyth Players in the early 1920s. She made her Broadway debut in 1926 in The Squall and quickly established herself in a succession of notable productions, frequently cast in eccentric roles. She played Liz, the mad scrubwoman, in the original nonmusical version of Chicago, and Mollie Molloy, the character who throws herself from a pressroom window, in The Front Page. Her stage credits continued to grow with Philip Goes Forth, Another Language, On Borrowed Time, The Small Hours, To Be Continued, and The Honeys, among others.

In 1927, Stickney married actor and writer Howard Lindsay, and the two remained together until his death in 1968. Their professional lives were closely intertwined: Lindsay co-wrote Life with Father, in which both performed. In 1940, Stickney received the Barter Theatre Award for outstanding performance by an American player for her portrayal of Vinnie in that production, an honor presented to her by Eleanor Roosevelt. Stickney also starred in The Act and appeared in A Lovely Light, End of the World, and A Gala Tribute to Joshua Logan, extending her Broadway presence into the 1970s.

One of her later stage roles was Berthe in the original Broadway run of Pippin, which ran from 1972 to 1977. She took over the part in 1973 from Irene Ryan, who died during the production's run. Her television work included playing the Queen in the original 1957 broadcast of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella and Aunt Abby in the 1962 Hallmark production of Arsenic and Old Lace, opposite Boris Karloff. On November 16, 1966, she appeared on ABC's Stage 67 in Stephen Sondheim's television musical Evening Primrose, portraying Mrs. Monday, the leader of mannequins who come to life each evening in a department store. She also created the role of Emily Baldwin in The Homecoming: A Christmas Story, the television film that served as the pilot for The Waltons.

Beyond performing, Stickney wrote poems, including You're Not the Type and My Dressing Room, and in 1979 published a memoir, Openings and Closings, which documented her career and her private struggle with stage fright. In 1961, she became the second inductee of the North Dakota Roughrider Award. Beginning in 1935, she and Lindsay maintained a weekend and vacation home in the Stanton section of Readington Township, New Jersey, a farmstead originally built in 1745; the township purchased the property from Stickney, then a centenarian, in 1997 for preservation purposes. She died on June 2, 1998, in New York City.