Who Played Edith Bunker on All in the Family
- She won three Emmys playing Archie Bunker%27s compassionate-but-ditzy wife in the groundbreaking TV show
- Stapleton had a long career on Broadway before landing on Tv
- She as well made several film appearances
NEW YORK (AP) — Jean Stapleton, the stage-trained character actress who played Archie Bunker's far better half, the sweetly naive Edith, in Television set's groundbreaking 1970s comedy All in the Family, has died. She was 90.
Stapleton died Friday of natural causes at her New York Urban center home surrounded by friends and family unit, her son, John Putch, said Sat.
Picayune known to the public before All In the Family, she co-starred with Carroll O'Connor in the top-rated CBS sitcom nigh an unrepentant bigot, the wife he churlishly but fondly chosen "Dingbat," their daughter Gloria (Sally Struthers) and liberal son-in-police force Mike, aka Meathead (Rob Reiner).
Stapleton received eight Emmy nominations and won three times during her eight-yr tenure with All in the Family unit. Produced by Norman Lear, the series bankrupt through the timidity of U.S. Telly with social and political jabs and ranked every bit the No. 1-rated plan for an unprecedented five years in a row. Lear would go on to create a run of socially conscious sitcoms.
Stapleton also earned Emmy nominations for playing Eleanor Roosevelt in the 1982 flick Eleanor, Showtime Lady of the Earth and for a guest advent in 1995 on Grace Under Burn down.
Her large-screen films included a pair directed by Nora Ephron: the 1998 Tom Hanks-One thousand thousand Ryan romance You lot've Got Mail and 1996'southward Michael starring John Travolta. She also turned downwards the take chances to star in another popular sitcom, Murder, She Wrote, which became a showcase for Angela Lansbury.
The theater was Stapleton'due south showtime love and she compiled a rich resume, starting in 1941 equally a New England stock role player and moving to Broadway in the 1950s and '60s. In 1964, she originated the role of Mrs. Strakosh in Funny Girl with Barbra Streisand. Others musicals and plays included Bells Are Ringing, Rhino and Damn Yankees, in which her performance — and the nasal tone she used in All in the Family — attracted Lear's attention and led to his auditioning her for the role of Archie's wife.
"I wasn't a leading lady type," she once told the Associated Press. "I knew where I belonged. And actually, I found graphic symbol work much more interesting than leading ladies." Edith, of the dithery manner, cheerfully high-pitched voice and family loyalty, charmed viewers but was viewed by Stapleton as "submissive" and, she hoped, removed from reality. In a 1972 New York Times interview, she said she didn't think Edith was a typical American housewife — "at to the lowest degree I hope she'south not."
"What Edith represents is the housewife who is still in bondage to the male figure, very submissive and restricted to the dwelling. She is very naive, and she kind of thinks through a mist, and she lacks the instruction to expand her earth. I would hope that near housewives are not like that," said Stapleton, whose graphic symbol regularly obeyed her husband's demand to "stifle yourself."
But Edith was honest and compassionate, and "in most situations she says the truth and pricks Archie's inflated ego," she added.
She confounded Archie with her malapropos — "You know what they say, misery is the all-time company" — and open-hearted acceptance of others, including her beleaguered son-in-police force and African-Americans and other minorities that Archie disdained.
As the series progressed, Stapleton had the chance to offering a deeper take on Edith as the character faced milestones including a chest cancer scare and menopause. She was proud of the show's political edge, citing an episode almost a draft dodger who clashes with Archie equally a personal favorite.
But Stapleton worried about typecasting, rejecting whatsoever roles, commercials or sketches on variety shows that chosen for a character similar to Edith. Despite pleas from Lear not to allow Edith dice, Stapleton left the bear witness, re-titled Archie'south Place, in 1980, leaving Archie to behave on every bit a widower.
"My decision is to get out into the world and do something else. I'yard not constituted every bit an actress to remain in the aforementioned role…. My identity as an actress is in jeopardy if I invested my unabridged career in Edith Bunker," she told The Associated Press in 1979.
She had no problem shaking off Edith — "when you finish a role, you're washed with it. There's no deep, spooky connection with the parts you lot play," she told the AP in 2002 — but later on O'Connor's 2001 death she got condolence letters from people who thought they were really married. When people spotted her in public and called her "Edith," she would politely remind them that her name was Jean.
Stapleton proved her ain toughness when her husband of 26 years, William Putch, suffered a fatal center attack in 1983 at age threescore while the couple was touring with a play directed by Putch.
Stapleton went on stage in Syracuse, N.Y., that nighttime and continued on with the bout. "That's what he would accept wanted," she told People magazine in 1984. "I realized it was a refuge to have that play, rather than to sit and wallow. And it was his show."
Stapleton was born in New York City to Joseph Murray and his wife, Marie Stapleton Murray, a vocalizer. She attended Hunter Higher, leaving for a secretarial stint before embarking on acting studies with the American Theatre Wing and others.
Stapleton had a long working relationship with playwright Horton Foote, starting with i of his commencement full-length plays in 1944, People in the Show, and continuing with six other works through the 2000s.
"I was very impressed with her. She has a wonderful sense of character. Her sense of coming to life on stage — I never get tired of watching," Foote told the AP in 2002. He died in 2009.
Her early TV career included guest appearances on series including Lux Video Theatre, Dr. Kildare and The Defenders.
She and Putch had two children, John and Pamela, who followed their parents into the entertainment industry.
Source: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/06/01/son-jean-stapleton-beloved-edith-bunker-on-all-in-the-family-dies-in-nyc-at-90/2380961/
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