Kim Stanley

Kim Stanley, born Patricia Reid on February 11, 1925, in Tularosa, New Mexico, was an American actress whose career spanned theatre, television, and film from the late 1940s through the 1980s. Her father, J. T. Reid, was a professor of philosophy and education at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, and her mother, Ann, worked as an interior decorator. Reid was of Irish or Scottish descent and had been born and raised in Texas, where he met his wife, who was of German and English ancestry. Stanley had three older brothers — Howard Clinton Reid, a psychiatrist; Kenneth Reid, who was killed during pilot training in World War II; and Justin Truman Reid, a lawyer — as well as a half-sister, Carol Ann Reid. She studied drama at the University of New Mexico before continuing her training at the Pasadena Playhouse. She adopted her maternal grandmother's surname as her professional name.

Stanley arrived on Broadway in 1949 and went on to study at the Actors Studio in New York under Elia Kazan, Lee Strasberg, and Vivian Nathan. Her early stage work drew notice from New York Times critic Brooks Atkinson. She received the Theatre World Award in 1952 for her portrayal of Anna Reeves in The Chase. The following year she appeared in Picnic, playing Millie Owens, and in 1955 she starred in Bus Stop as Cherie. Her Broadway credits also included The Traveling Lady, A Clearing in the Woods, and Chéri. She received Tony Award nominations for Best Actress in a Play for two productions: A Touch of the Poet in 1959 and A Far Country in 1962, in which she portrayed Elizabeth von Ritter in Henry Denker's play. Her Broadway career extended through 1964.

Beyond Broadway, Stanley performed in London in the original production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, playing Maggie, and in 1965 she took on the role of Masha in an Actors Studio production of Anton Chekhov's The Three Sisters. After critics responded harshly to that London production, she kept a promise to herself never to perform on stage again. A filmed version of the Strasberg-directed Three Sisters, released in 1966, preserves her performance as Masha alongside Geraldine Page, Sandy Dennis, and Shelley Winters.

During the 1950s, Stanley was a prominent figure in live television drama, which was centered in New York City at the time. On October 17, 1950, she appeared in The Vanishing Lady on The Trap. She also starred as Wilma, a fifteen-year-old girl from the Gulf Coast of Texas, in Horton Foote's A Young Lady of Property, which aired on The Philco-Goodyear Television Playhouse on April 5, 1953. She later received an Emmy Award for Outstanding Single Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role for her appearance in the Ben Casey episode A Cardinal Act of Mercy in 1963. In 1984 she played Big Mama in a television adaptation of Tennessee Williams's Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, earning a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie.

Her film work, though less frequent than her stage and television output, produced several notable performances. Her first film role was in The Goddess in 1958, in which she played a tragic movie star. She served as the uncredited narrator of To Kill a Mockingbird in 1962, voicing the adult Jean Louise Finch while Mary Badham portrayed Scout as a child. Her performance in Séance on a Wet Afternoon in 1964 earned her the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress, the National Board of Review Award for Best Actress, a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress, and a nomination for the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role. In 1982 she played Frances Farmer's possessive mother in Frances, receiving nominations for both the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress. The following year she appeared as Pancho Barnes in The Right Stuff.

In 1985, the same year she received her Emmy for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Stanley was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame. She was later inducted into the New Mexico Entertainment Hall of Fame in 2012. Outside of performing, she taught her approach to Method Acting in New York City, Los Angeles, and Santa Fe, New Mexico. Her technique incorporated modified Meisner repetition exercises, Sense Memory, and Affective Memory within a relaxation-based framework that emphasized needs, place, and relationships as the foundation of performance.

Stanley was married four times: to Bruce Hall from 1945 to 1946, Curt Conway from 1949 to 1956, Alfred Ryder from 1958 to 1964, and Joseph Siegel from 1964 to 1967, with all four marriages ending in divorce. She had three children and converted to Judaism during her marriage to Ryder. Stanley died of cancer in Santa Fe at the age of 76 on August 20, 2001, survived by her brother Justin, her children, and three grandchildren. A biography, Female Brando: the Legend of Kim Stanley, written by Jon Krampner, was published by Back Stage Books in 2006.