Trivia

She was awarded the 1986 Drama Logue Award for Outstanding Performance for "night, Mother" at the Mark Taper Forum Theatre in Los Angeles, California.

When she was in her 50s, with her marriage having ended in divorce and her children grown, she decided to study acting at the Lee Strasberg Theater Institute. She became a resident actor at the acclaimed Actors Theater in Louisville, Kentucky, and quickly developed a following.

Was nominated twice for Broadway's Tony Award: as Best Actress (Play) in 1983, for "'night, Mother;" and as Best Actress (Featured Role - Play) in 1994, for a revival of William Inge's "Picnic."

She graduated from what is now the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Soon afterward, she joined the USO and met her future husband, a soldier, when they both were in a USO show in Japan. Other than a few parts in summer-stock theater right after college, she spent most of her career doing TV and radio commercials.