Frances Sternhagen, the legendary Broadway actress who received two Tony Awards, was nominated for an additional 5 and achieved lasting and widespread recognition for her comedically stern portrayal of Esther Clavin, the demanding mom of unbearable postman Cliff Claven on Cheers, died Nov. 27 of pure causes. She was 93.
Her demise was introduced by her son, the actor John Carlin, on Instagram.
“Frannie. Mother. Frances Sternhagen. On Monday evening, Nov 27, she died peacefully at her residence, a month and a half shy of her 94th birthday,” Carlin wrote as we speak, ending the tribute with “Fly on, Frannie. The curtain goes down on a life so richly, passionately, humbly and generously lived.”
See Carlin’s Instagram publish beneath.
Sternhagen, one of many New York stage’s most celebrated and beloved stars, gave indelible performances in productions together with the 1972 manufacturing of The Check in Sidney Brustein’s Window, Equus in 1975, Angel in 1978, On Golden Pond in 1979 and, in 2002, Morning’s at Seven. She earned Tony nominations for all 5 of these exhibits.
Her Tony wins — for Greatest Featured Actress/Play — got here in 1974 and 1995 for, respectively, Neil Simon’s The Good Physician and Augustus Goetz’s The Heiress.
Whereas she didn’t reprise two of her most famous stage performances for subsequent movie variations – Joan Plowright was forged as Equus‘ Dora Strang and Katharine Hepburn famously performed Ethel Thayer within the starry film On Golden Pond – Sternhagen made memorable, typically scene-stealing, appearances in such movies as Up the Down Staircase (1967), Paddy Chayefsky’s The Hospital (1971), Billy Wilder’s Fedora (1978) and, in 1988, Vivid Lights, Large Metropolis, through which she performed the strict boss of the journal fact-checker portrayed by Michael J. Fox.
Frances Sternhagen and John Ratzenberger on ‘Cheers’ in 1986
Paramount Tv/Everett Assortment
Whereas TV viewers may finest keep in mind Sternhagen for her recurring, twice-Emmy nominated (1991 and 1992) position on Cheers (reverse John Ratzenberger’s Cliff), she performed pivotal characters – typically domineering, although loving, matriarch varieties – on ER (as Millicent Carter, grandmother of Noah Wyle’s Dr. John Carter); Intercourse and the Metropolis (scoring a 3rd Emmy nomination in 2002 as Bunny MacDougal, stuffy mother of Kyle MacLachlan’s Trey and mother-in-law of Kristin Davis’ Charlotte); and The Nearer, the place she recurred as Willie Rae Johnson, mom of Kyra Sedgwick’s Brenda Leigh Johnson.
Different TV credit stretching from the Fifties via 2012 embody Westinghouse Studio One, The Defenders, Spencer, The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd, Legislation & Order, Tales From The Crypt, The Laramie Undertaking, The Simpsons, Becker, and Parenthood. She was a well-known presence on daytime TV as effectively, showing on soaps One other World, The Secret Storm, Love of Life, The Docs and One Life to Stay.
Born January 13, 1930, in Washington D.C., Sternhagen attended Vassar Faculty and, for graduate research, the Catholic College of America. She studied performing on the Perry Mansfield College of the Theatre and New York Metropolis’s Neighborhood Playhouse.
Sternhagen made her Broadway debut as Miss T. Muse in 1955’s The Pores and skin of Our Enamel, and appeared recurrently on stage all through the many years till her ultimate main efficiency in 2005 as Nancy in a revival of Edward Albee’s Seascape. She performed Clairee in 2005’s Metal Magnolias revival, Mary Tyrone in 1998’s Lengthy Day’s Journey Into Night time, and Nora in a 1967 manufacturing of A Doll’s Home.
Sternhagen is survived by six kids, 9 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren (her husband, the actor Thomas A. Carlin, died in 1991). A celebration of her profession and life might be deliberate for mid-January.
