Tammy Grimes

Tammy Lee Grimes (January 30, 1934 – October 30, 2016) was an American actress and singer whose Broadway career spanned from 1955 to 1989. Born in Lynn, Massachusetts, to Eola Willard Grimes, a naturalist and spiritualist, and Luther Nichols Grimes, an innkeeper, country-club manager, and farmer, she attended Beaver Country Day School and Stephens College before training at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York City, where she also studied singing with Beverley Peck Johnson.

Grimes made her New York stage debut at the Neighborhood Playhouse in May 1955 in Jonah and the Whale. That same year she performed the title role in The Amazing Adele during tryout and tour engagements, a production that never reached Broadway. Her Broadway debut came in June 1955 as an understudy to Kim Stanley in Bus Stop. In 1956 she appeared in the off-Broadway production The Littlest Revue and joined the Stratford Festival of Canada acting company. Playwright Noël Coward discovered her performing in a nightclub and cast her in the lead role of his 1959 Broadway production Look After Lulu!, for which she received a Theatre World Award.

Her breakthrough came with the 1960 musical The Unsinkable Molly Brown, in which she originated the role of Molly Tobin, a rough-hewn Colorado social climber who survived the sinking of the Titanic. The performance earned her the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical in 1961. In 1964 she returned to Broadway in High Spirits, a musical adaptation of Coward's Blithe Spirit, originating the role of Elvira Condomine. After a period away from Broadway that included television and nightclub work, Grimes returned to the stage in 1969 in a revival of Coward's Private Lives, playing Amanda Prynne. That performance won her the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play in 1970, as well as the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Performance that same year.

Grimes originated the role of Diana in the Broadway production of California Suite, a role later played in the film adaptation by Maggie Smith, who won an Academy Award for her performance. In 1978 Grimes played Elmire in the Broadway and television production of Tartuffe. She starred in the original Broadway production of the musical 42nd Street in 1980 and appeared in Tricks and Orpheus Descending during her Broadway career as well. In 1982 she returned to the Stratford Festival of Canada to play Madame Arcati in Blithe Spirit.

Beyond the stage, Grimes maintained an active presence in television and film. In 1966 she starred in her own ABC series, The Tammy Grimes Show, playing a modern-day heiress; the series ran for only one month despite six additional completed episodes. She had been offered the role ultimately given to Elizabeth Montgomery in Bewitched but declined in favor of her own series. Her film appearances included Play It as It Lays (1972), Mr. North (1988), and High Art (1998). In 1974 she provided a voice in the Rankin-Bass television special Twas the Night Before Christmas and later worked with Rankin-Bass again on The Last Unicorn (1982). In 1982 she also hosted the final season of the CBS Radio Mystery Theater.

Grimes was known for her distinctive speaking voice and her cabaret performances at New York City nightclubs. She recited poetry as part of a 1968 solo act at the Persian Room of the Plaza Hotel and recorded several albums of songs, including contributions to Ben Bagley's Painted Smiles Records anthology series. In 2003 she was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame and was invited by the Noël Coward Society to lay flowers on the statue of Coward at the Gershwin Theatre in Manhattan. She later served as vice president of the Noël Coward Society.

In her personal life, Grimes married actor Christopher Plummer on August 16, 1956; they divorced in 1960 and had one daughter, actress Amanda Plummer. Her second marriage, to actor Jeremy Slate in 1966, ended in divorce a year later. Her third husband was composer Richard Bell, who remained her partner until his death in 2005. Plummer, their daughter Amanda, and Grimes herself are each Tony Award winners. Grimes died on October 30, 2016, in Englewood, New Jersey, at the age of 82.