Hope Lange

Hope Elise Ross Lange was born on November 28, 1933, in Redding, Connecticut, and grew up in a theatrical household. Her father, John George Lange, worked as a cellist, music arranger for Florenz Ziegfeld, and conductor for Henry Cohen. Her mother, Minette, was an actress. The family relocated to Greenwich Village in New York City when Lange was young, and her father died in September 1942. Lange had two sisters, Minelda and Joy, and a brother, David. From 1944 to 1956, her mother operated a restaurant called Minette's of Washington Square on Macdougal Street, where the children all worked — Minelda at the cash register, and Joy and Hope waiting tables.

Lange's stage career began in childhood. She sang with other children in the play Life, Laughter and Tears, which opened at the Booth Theatre in March 1942. At age nine, she appeared in a speaking role in the Broadway drama The Patriots, which opened in January 1943. That production marked the beginning of a Broadway career that would span from 1943 to 1981. During her high school years, Lange studied dance, modeled, and appeared on the June 1949 cover of Radio-Electronics magazine. She attended Reed College in Portland, Oregon, where she studied dance and theater under artist Xenia Cage, before transferring to Barmore Junior College in New York, where she met actor Don Murray.

Lange began her television career in the 1950s with appearances on Kraft Television Theatre, which led to a contract with 20th Century Fox. Her first film role came in Bus Stop alongside Marilyn Monroe and Don Murray, whom she married on April 14, 1956. Her performance in the 1957 film Peyton Place, in which she portrayed Selena Cross, earned her both a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress and an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. She subsequently appeared in Nicholas Ray's The True Story of Jesse James as Jesse James's wife opposite Robert Wagner, in The Young Lions with Montgomery Clift, and in the wartime drama In Love and War with Jeffrey Hunter. Those credits led to top billing in The Best of Everything in 1959, alongside Suzy Parker and Joan Crawford.

In 1961, Lange appeared opposite Elvis Presley in Wild in the Country, playing his older psychologist love interest despite being only thirteen months his senior. That same year she appeared in Frank Capra's final film, Pocketful of Miracles, with Glenn Ford, and the following year co-starred with Ford again in the romantic comedy Love Is a Ball. She also appeared as the murdered wife of Charles Bronson's character in Death Wish in 1974, in A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge in 1985, and as Laura Dern's mother in David Lynch's Blue Velvet in 1986. In 1994, she appeared in Clear and Present Danger.

On television, Lange starred in the series The Ghost and Mrs. Muir from 1968 to 1970, playing Carolyn Muir, a role for which she won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series in both 1969 and 1970. She followed that with three seasons on The New Dick Van Dyke Show from 1971 to 1974, playing Jenny Preston, Dick Van Dyke's wife, before declining to return for a fourth season. She also appeared in twelve television movies, including Crowhaven Farm, in which she played a witch, and a television movie based on Danielle Steel's Message from Nam.

Lange returned to Broadway in 1977, appearing in Her Supporting Cast and later in Same Time, Next Year, extending her stage career into 1981. In 1998, she attended the 40th anniversary celebrations of Peyton Place in the Maine town where the film had been shot.

In her personal life, Lange was married three times. Her first marriage to Don Murray produced two children, actor Christopher Murray and photographer Patricia Murray. She left Murray in 1961 for actor Glenn Ford, with whom she had a four-year relationship. From October 19, 1963, until 1971, she was married to film director Alan J. Pakula. In 1986, she married theatrical producer Charles Hollerith, Jr., with whom she remained until her death. Lange died on December 19, 2003, at St. John's Hospital in Santa Monica, California, from an ischemic colitis infection at the age of 70.