Geraldine Fitzgerald

Geraldine Mary Wilma Fitzgerald was born on November 24, 1913, at 85 Lower Leeson Street, Dublin, the daughter of lawyer Edward Martin FitzGerald and Edith Catherine FitzGerald, née Richards. The family later settled in Greystones, County Wicklow. Her father was Roman Catholic and her mother was Protestant before converting to Catholicism. Fitzgerald studied painting at the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art before her aunt, actress Shelah Richards, inspired her to pursue acting. She began her stage career in 1932 at Dublin's Gate Theatre, and after two seasons there moved to London, where she appeared in British films including The Mill on the Floss, Turn of the Tide, and Cafe Mascot.

Her success in London brought her to New York and Broadway in 1938, where she made her American stage debut opposite Orson Welles in the Mercury Theatre production of Heartbreak House. Hollywood producer Hal B. Wallis saw her in that production and signed her to a contract with Warner Bros. Her Broadway career spanned from 1938 to 1977, during which she appeared in productions including The Shadow, Ah, Wilderness!, Hide and Seek, and A Touch of the Poet. She also performed in Geraldine Fitzgerald in Songs of the Street. In 1976, she performed as a cabaret singer in Streetsongs, which completed three successful runs on Broadway and was the subject of a PBS television special. She recorded an album of the show for Harbinger Records, produced by Bill Rudman and Ken Bloom and distributed by Ben Bagley's Painted Smiles Records.

Fitzgerald also pursued theatre directing and in 1982 became one of the first women to receive a Tony Award nomination for Best Direction of a Play, for a production of Mass Appeal. She had previously received a Drama Desk Award nomination for Outstanding Director of a Play in 1981. While in New York, she collaborated with playwright and Franciscan brother Jonathan Ringkamp to found the Everyman Theater of Brooklyn, a street theater company that performed throughout the city, including at Ethical Culture and La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club in Manhattan. The company first performed at La MaMa in September 1972 with a production called Everyman at La MaMa, followed in July 1973 by The Francis-Day, a musical about Francis of Assisi.

Her film career launched with a British thriller, Blind Justice, in 1934. In 1939 she earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of Isabella Linton in William Wyler's romantic drama Wuthering Heights, and that same year appeared alongside Bette Davis in Dark Victory. Her subsequent Warner Bros. work included Shining Victory (1941), The Gay Sisters (1942), and Watch on the Rhine (1943), as well as Wilson (1944) for 20th Century Fox. Frequent clashes with studio management, including a dispute with executive Jack L. Warner that cost her the role of Brigid O'Shaughnessy in The Maltese Falcon (1941), hampered her Hollywood momentum. She co-starred with John Garfield in Nobody Lives Forever (1946) before leaving Hollywood to return to New York City. She returned to Britain to film So Evil My Love (1948) and The Late Edwina Black (1951) before resettling in the United States, becoming a naturalized citizen on April 18, 1955.

Her film career revived during the 1960s, when she established herself as a character actor in films such as Ten North Frederick (1958), The Pawnbroker (1964), and Rachel, Rachel (1968). She appeared opposite Art Carney in Harry and Tonto (1974) and received an Australian Film Institute Best Actress nomination for The Mango Tree (1977). In the 1981 comedy Arthur, she portrayed Dudley Moore's wealthy and eccentric grandmother, despite being only 22 years older than Moore. Her later film work included Easy Money (1983), Poltergeist II: The Other Side (1986), and Arthur 2: On the Rocks (1988). In 1983 she portrayed Rose Kennedy in the television miniseries Kennedy alongside Martin Sheen, and in 1985 co-starred with Joanne Woodward in the drama Do You Remember Love. In 1986 she starred alongside Tuesday Weld and River Phoenix in the television film Circle of Violence, about elder abuse, and in 1987 played a title role in the television pilot Mabel and Max, produced by Barbra Streisand.

Her television work spanned decades and included appearances on Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Robert Montgomery Presents, Naked City, St. Elsewhere, Cagney and Lacey, and The Golden Girls. She held a regular role in the short-lived 1965 CBS serial Our Private World. She received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for a guest appearance as Anna in The Golden Girls Mother's Day episode in 1988 and won a Daytime Emmy Award for her performance in the NBC Special Treat episode "Rodeo Red and the Runaways." On February 8, 1960, she was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6353 Hollywood Boulevard for her contributions to motion pictures. She was also a member of the American Theater Hall of Fame. In 2020, The Irish Times ranked her 30th on its list of Ireland's greatest film actors.

In her personal life, Fitzgerald married Sir Edward Lindsay-Hogg, 4th Bt., in London on November 18, 1936, and was granted a divorce in Reno on August 30, 1946. She had one son, director Sir Michael Lindsay-Hogg, from that marriage. She subsequently married American businessman Stuart Straus Scheftel, a grandson of Isidor Straus, with whom she had a daughter, Susan Scheftel. Fitzgerald died on July 17, 2005, in New York City, following a long battle with Alzheimer's disease, at the age of 91. She is buried at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, beside her husband Stuart Straus Scheftel.