Eda Reiss Merin

Eda Reiss Merin (July 31, 1913 – March 31, 1998) was an American actress whose work encompassed stage, film, television, and voice performance across more than six decades. Born in New York City, she made her Broadway debut in 1931 and went on to build a career rooted in classical and modern drama before expanding into screen work later in life.

Merin's Broadway appearances spanned from 1944 to 1971 and included productions of Hedda Gabler, A Doll's House, The Good Woman of Setzuan, A Far Country, and the comedy Sophie. Her engagement with the work of Bertolt Brecht extended beyond Broadway: in the 1940s she performed alongside Charles Laughton in Life of Galileo and also appeared in Brecht's The Private Life of the Master Race in New York. In 1965 she took on the role of Bessie Burgess in a production of The Plough and the Stars.

Her regional theater work was extensive. In 1954 she performed at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, where her roles included Gertrude in Hamlet and Mistress Quickly in The Merry Wives of Windsor. She was active at the Charles Playhouse in Boston and participated in productions at the Williamstown Summer Theater. In 1947 she appeared at the San Gabriel Playhouse in a revival of The Mission Play, portraying Señora Josefa de Yorba. Later regional credits included Kenneth H. Brown's Nightlight at the Hartford Stage Company in 1973, Travellers at the Cincinnati Playhouse in 1974, and in 1984 she played Hecuba in Euripides' The Trojan Women at the Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum in Topanga, California. She also appeared in Michel Tremblay's Albertine in Five Times at the Off-Main Street Theatre in Los Angeles in 1987. Alongside her performing career, Merin taught acting at the Seven Arts School in New York.

Her film career began in the late 1940s with appearances in An Act of Murder (1948), Knock on Any Door (1949), The Lady Gambles (1949), Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950), No Way Out (1950), and It Happens Every Thursday (1953). She had a role in Lili (1953) and later appeared in America America (1963) and The World of Henry Orient (1964). Her screen presence continued into subsequent decades with parts in Hester Street (1975), The Frisco Kid (1979), and Turner & Hooch (1989). Her most widely recognized film role came in the comedy Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead (1991), in which she played Mrs. Sturak, a strict babysitter whose early death sets the plot in motion.

In 1985, Merin provided the voice of Orddu, one of three witches, in Disney's animated feature The Black Cauldron. Her television career, which began in the early 1950s, included appearances on anthology series such as Fireside Theatre and Schlitz Playhouse of Stars, as well as DuPont Show of the Month (1959) and East Side West Side (1963). Among her many later television credits were Hill Street Blues, St. Elsewhere, Murder She Wrote, Night Court, Family Ties, Charlie's Angels, Highway to Heaven, Mr. Belvedere, Mama's Family, Baretta, Police Story, Civil Wars, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, ER, and Nurses.

Merin was a member of both the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and AFTRA. She was married to Samuel Merin until his death in 1967 and had one daughter, Jennifer, who became a journalist and critic. Merin lived in Manhattan and later in Los Angeles, where she died on March 31, 1998, at the age of 84. Since 2005, the AFTRA Foundation has presented the Eda Reiss Merin Award in her honor.