Julie Harris: Broadway dims lights in memory

The Broadway community mourns the loss of celebrated stage, screen and television actress Julie Harris, who passed away on 24 Aug 2013 at age 87. The marquees of Broadway theatres in New York will be dimmed in her memory on 28 Aug 2013 at exactly 7:45pm for one minute.

Julie Harris was one of the most admired performers of her generation, widely acclaimed for her work on small screens and large ones, but most especially in the theatre where her career lasted more than six decades. She won five TonyAwards, three Emmy Awards, a Grammy Award, and was nominated for an Academy Award. She was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 1994, a Special Tony Award in 2002, and in 2005 she was a Kennedy Center honoree.

She was the first person to win five Tony Awards for performance (Angela Lansbury and Audra McDonald have since won five each) and was nominated ten times, the most ever for a performer. Her Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre made a total of six Tony Awards.

Charlotte St. Martin, Executive Director of The Broadway League said,

Julie Harris was an actor's actor, universally admired and respected. There was always an innate truth in the characters she portrayed. She was a Broadway virtuoso who touched many lives throughout nearly six decades of extraordinary performances. Julie Harris was the first performer to win five Tony Awards, and later received a special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre. She was nominated ten times, the most ever for a performer. Seeing her on stage was always the kind of experience that takes your breath away in the most subtle and satisfying way. Generations of fans discovered her on Broadway and in various mediums, and our thoughts are with them, her friends, and her family.

She made her Broadway debut in 1945 in 'It's a Gift' and went on to appear in more than 30 Broadway productions. She also toured North America in numerous plays including 'Lettice and Lovage,' 'The Belle of Amherst,' 'Driving Miss Daisy' and 'The Gin Game.'

Throughout her career, Harris was drawn to historical figures. Three of her Tony Awards came from portraying characters from real life. In 1955, she won her second Tony in 'The Lark,' an adaptation by Lillian Hellman of Anouilh's retelling of the martyrdom of Joan of Arc, leading a cast that included Christopher Plummer, Boris Karloff and Joseph Wiseman. In December 1972, she opened in 'The Last of Mrs. Lincoln,' a play by James Prideaux. Harris portrayed the poet 'Emily Dickinson' and more than a dozen other characters in 'The Belle of Amherst,' a one-woman show written by William Luce that appeared on Broadway in 1976, followed by a national tour. The show was filmed for public television, and she received a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Recording for the audio recording of the play.

Her final two Broadway performances were in Tennessee Williams's 'The Glass Menagerie,' in which she played 'Amanda Wingfield' in 1994; and opposite Charles Durning in D. L. Coburn's 'The Gin Game' three years later. She had previously starred alongside Durning in another two-person play, Hugh Leonard's 'The Au Pair Man,' in 1973, receiving Tony nominations both times.

Away from Broadway, she played 'Juliet' at the Stratford Festival in Canada, 'Ophelia' in the New York Shakespeare Festival's 'Hamlet' in Central Park and 'Blanche Dubois' in 'A Streetcar Named Desire 'on Cape Cod, to list just a few of her many credits.

Harris's screen debut came in 1952 when she repeated her Broadway success as teenage girl "Frankie" in Carson McCullers's "The Member of the Wedding," for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress. She repeated her Tony-winning stage performance as "Sally Bowles" in the film version of "I Am a Camera" (1955). That year she appeared in Elia Kazan's film of the John Steinbeck novel "East of Eden" with James Dean. Other film credits include "Requiem for a Heavyweight," "Harper" with Paul Newman, "The Haunting," "Reflections in a Golden Eye," "The Bell Jar," "Gorillas in the Mist," "The Hiding Place," "HouseSitter" and the screen version of "The Last of Mrs. Lincoln."

Her TV appearances brought her 11 Emmy Award nominations. She won for James Costigan's "Little Moon of Alban," a role she later reprised on Broadway; as "Queen Victoria" in "Victoria Regina"; and in 2000 for providing the voice of "Susan B. Anthony" in "Not for Ourselves Alone." Her longest and best known TV role was in the 1980s, playing "Lilimae Clements" on the CBS series "Knots Landing."

Other major TV roles included "Nora" in "A Doll's House" and "Eliza Doolittle" in "Pygmalion," both on the Hallmark Hall of Fame; and adaptations of "The Heiress" and "The Belle of Amherst."

Numerous TV credits include appearances on "Scarlett," "Secrets," "The Christmas Wife" with Jason Robards, "The Christmas Tree," "Ellen Foster," and guest spots on a variety of popular dramas, comedies and romances, including "Family Ties, "The Love Boat, "Columbo, "The Name of the Game," "Tarzan" and "Medical Center" and a remarkable number of westerns including "Rawhide," "Laredo," "Daniel Boone," "The Big Valley," "Bonanza," and "The Virginian."