Mary Alice, Tony and Emmy Award-winning actress who starred in the original Broadway production. fencesplayed a mother of three singing collect and appeared like an oracle matrix revolutions, died. He was 85 years old.
Alice died Wednesday in her Manhattan apartment, a spokeswoman for the NYPD said. the hollywood reporter.
In the 1990s films, Alice played Nurse Margaret opposite Robin Williams and Robert De Niro. awakenings, directed by Penny Marshall; The home of the Charles Burnett family matriarch with a disturbing guest (Danny Glover) angry to bed; and a woman whose son was hit by a car in Brian de Palmas, South Bronx bonfire of vanity.
The former Chicago school teacher received Emmy nominations in 1992 and 1993 – winning her sophomore year – for her portrayal of Marguerite Peck, whose son is murdered, on the NBC legal drama Atlanta. I will flyWith Sam Waterston and Regina Taylor.
She also played dorm manager Letty Bostic in the first two seasons of the NBC series from 1988-1989. a different world; Oprah Winfrey’s Matty Michael’s Mother in the 1989 ABC Miniseries The Women of Brewster Place; and Harold Perrineau Jr’s Augustus Hill mother. in 2002 on HBO Ozzy.
in the cult favorite collect (1976), a story set in Harlem inspired by The Supremes, memorably starring Ellis as Effie, a single mother raising daughters Irene Cara, Lonette McKee and Dwan Smith. (In her final role, Whitney Houston played the character in the 2012 reboot.)
“At age 30, when she took on the role, Alice crystallized and wonderfully greeted all the mothers who went out of their way for their children,” wrote Bob McCann in 2009. Encyclopedia of African American Actors in Film and Television.
After Gloria Foster, who played the Oracle in the first two Matrix films, died in 2001, Alice gave it up to follow a path to enlightenment. matrix revolutions (2003). To explain the change in appearance, it was pointed out that the Oracle’s outer shell was destroyed by a criminal program known as the Merovingian.
Outstanding Alice won a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play in 1987 for her role as Rose, the wife of James Earl Jones’s Troy and Courtney B. Mother of Pulitzer Prize winner August Wilson Vance Corey. fences.
“Mr. Alice’s performance emphasizes power over self-pity, open anger over bitterness,” Frank Ritchie wrote in his letter. New York Times Check. “The actress finds a poignant quotient in the opening that follows Rose’s love for a scarred and deeply complicated man.”
She received another Tony nomination in 1995 for her role as Bessie Delaney. say our wordTwo parts where she and Foster were sisters living their 100th birthday and reflecting on life.
In 2000, he was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame.
From left: Mary Alice, Ray Arana and James Earl Jones in “Fences”
Courtesy of Ron Shirley/Everett Collection
Mary Alice Smith, one of five children, was born on December 3, 1936, in Indianola, Mississippi, and raised in Chicago. Her father Sam worked in a laundry and her mother Ozelari worked in a factory. After college, she was a social security secretary and then a primary school teacher before joining a community theater group.
He got his first paid acting job in 1966 when Douglas Turner Ward, co-founder of the New York-based Negro Ensemble Company, brought a touring group to Chicago to perform. absent days s Happy ending.
“Justice required the crew to use a local actor and they hired me to do some roles and do the laundry,” he said in 1979. “I liked it. I really liked it and didn’t mind washing and ironing twice a week.”
Alice came to New York in 1967 and studied with Lloyd Richards, who directed the original 1959 Broadway production. a raisin in the sun and I guide you fences – The Negro Ensemble before taking the company stage and Wynn Handman’s American Place Theater.
In 1974, Alice starred in the PBS adaptation of Philip Hay’s Dean. blind pig disasterDirected by Ivan Dixon and making his film debut The Education of Sonny Carson. A year later, she appeared as a guest in episodes cop, Good time s sandford and son (Like Freddie’s sister Frances, who just got married to a white man.)
Alice said she never considered herself an actress until working for producer Joseph Papp and his New York Shakespeare Festival, and won an Obie Award for her portrayal of Portia. Julio Cesar in 1979.
Eleven years later, he performed alongside Denzel Washington at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park. The tragedy of Richard III.
Mary Alice and Keanu Reeves in “The Matrix Revolutions” in 2003
Warner Brothers Collection/Courtesy Everett
Alice created the character of Rose. fences 1983 during a workshop at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center in Waterford, Connecticut.
“It wasn’t just based on me, but also on my mother, my aunt, my grandmother and other women I met growing up in Chicago in the 1950s. Sometimes you just feel an affinity; You know right away who the person is and it’s one of those roles that I’m introduced to very quickly,” Alice told her. First in 1987.
“They were uneducated women, living in a time before women’s liberation, and their identity was tied to their husbands. They suffered a lot of disrespect and humiliation for being women and attached to men and their life outside the home was very limited. Besides going to church, it was family. “
Alice’s on-screen resume also included Spike Lee Malcolm X (1992) by Clint Eastwood Perfect world (1993), ink (1994), way home (1994), bed of roses (1996) by Maya Angelou down in the delta (1998), wishing tree (1999) and John Sayles state of the sun (2002).
His last screen credit came with a 2005 episode of the reboot. kojakWith Ving Rhames.
Abbey White contributed to this report.
Source: Hollywood Reporter
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