Grayson Hall

Grayson Hall, born Shirley Grossman on September 18, 1922, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was an American actress whose career spanned stage, film, and television from the 1940s through the early 1980s. The only child of Eleanor and Joseph Grossman, she was raised in a Jewish immigrant household; her father had emigrated from Latvia and her mother, who had performed in the Yiddish theatre, came from South Africa. Her parents separated when she was eight years old, though they never divorced. Hall developed an interest in acting during her childhood years and was auditioning for plays in New York City while still a student at Simon Gratz High School in North Philadelphia. She enrolled at Temple University but did not complete her studies there. Her first professional engagement came in 1942 with a summer stock company on Long Island.

Hall married fellow actor Ted Brooks in Philadelphia in 1946; the two separated in 1949 and she returned to New York. In 1952 she married writer Sam Hall, with whom she had a son, Matthew, born in 1958. She had long performed under the name Shirley Grayson, but Sam Hall referred to her as Grayson, and she ultimately adopted Grayson Hall as her professional name. In 2006, a biography titled Grayson Hall: A Hard Act to Follow was published.

Her stage work in New York included roles in off-Broadway productions of significant avant-garde plays. She appeared in a 1955 production of Luigi Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author at the Phoenix Theatre and played the madam Irma in the first New York production of Jean Genet's The Balcony at the Circle in the Square Theatre Downtown in Greenwich Village, a run that extended for more than a year. Hall made her film debut in 1961 in Run Across the River and also appeared in Satan in High Heels as Pepe, a cabaret club owner, though she later disavowed that film.

In September 1963, Hall traveled to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, to film John Huston's adaptation of Tennessee Williams's The Night of the Iguana, in which she played Judith Fellowes. Her performance earned her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress at the 37th Academy Awards as well as a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress at the 22nd Golden Globe Awards. The following year she portrayed Margaret Miller, a kidnapped bank teller, in Walt Disney Productions' That Darn Cat! (1965). She also guest-starred in a 1967 episode of The Man from U.N.C.L.E.

Hall's most prominent television role was Dr. Julia Hoffman on the gothic soap opera Dark Shadows, which she played from 1966 to 1971. The character served as loyal confidant and friend to the vampire Barnabas Collins, portrayed by Jonathan Frid. Hall also took on several additional roles within the series, including Countess Natalie du Pres, the Gypsy Magda Rakosi, a housekeeper named Hoffman, Julia Collins, and Constance Collins. She reprised Dr. Julia Hoffman in the 1970 feature film House of Dark Shadows and appeared as the housekeeper Carlotta Drake in the 1971 feature Night of Dark Shadows. After Dark Shadows concluded, she briefly portrayed reporter Marge Grey on All My Children in 1973, and later appeared as Euphemia Ralston on One Life to Live from July 1982 through April 1983.

During the 1970s, Hall appeared in several television films, among them Gargoyles, filmed in New Mexico with Cornel Wilde for ABC, the Dan Curtis production The Great Ice Rip-Off for ABC with Lee J. Cobb and Gig Young, and the mystery film The Two Deaths of Sean Doolittle for ABC, which was written by her husband Sam Hall. Her stage work continued during this period as well, including a production of Jean Genet's The Screens in 1971–72 and a role in Happy End in 1977 alongside Meryl Streep and Christopher Lloyd.

Hall's Broadway career extended from 1955 to 1980 and included productions such as Happy End, The Leaf People, Those That Play the Clowns, and the 1980 Broadway premiere of The Suicide, in which she appeared with Derek Jacobi. She also appeared off-Broadway in a revival of The Madwoman of Chaillot opposite Geraldine Page, Carrie Nye, and Madeleine Sherwood.

After a six-month illness from lung cancer, Hall died on August 7, 1985, at New York Hospital in Manhattan at the age of 62. She is memorialized by a marker near her home in Rhinebeck, New York, bearing her name and the date of her death.