Anne Haney(1934-2001)
- Actress
Anne Haney held prominent roles acting on stage, on the screen, and on
TV. All these achievements came in her mid-40s, after she had raised a
daughter and buried a husband. It wasn't until after she had packed her
daughter off to college and "the maid quit", as she said, that she
decided to try her hand at acting. She was born in Memphis, Tennessee
and studied drama, radio and TV at the University of North Carolina,
where she met her husband, John Haney. She did apply her schooling
briefly at a Memphis television station, but soon settled down with her
husband and devoted herself to family life. "I was a lovely faculty
wife. We made ambrosia salad. We did good works. We played a lot of
bridge", she said of those times. By the 1970s, however, Haney began
seeking work in local theatre productions and television commercials.
Soon, she was traveling with a touring company performing as the maid
in Noël Coward's "Fallen Angels". She toured for two years. Eventually, she
joined the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of T.V. and
Radio Artists. She and her husband had, in fact, planned to move to
Southern California after his retirement. She was eager to experience
and, she hoped, benefit from the variety and prestige available only in
Hollywood. Those plans changed when Mr. Haney died of kidney disease in
1980; Anne Haney made the trek to California, alone. Not long after
arriving, she had an agent and a part in the Walter Matthau vehicle Jeux d'espions (1980).
As her career took off, she also secured roles on stage, notably the
role of Margaret Fielding in the Theatre West production of
"Verdigris". When asked whether she ever dwelled on the prospect that
had she begun her career too late, she replied that "this is gravy to
me. It's a wonderful way to spend the last third of my
life".
