Aline MacMahon; Actress’s Career Spanned Half a Century

Aline MacMahon, stage, screen, radio and television actress for more than half a century, has died in New York. She was 92.

Miss MacMahon, who performed in 43 movies, died Saturday in her Manhattan home of pneumonia.

She was nominated once for an Academy Award--as best supporting actress in 1944 for the film, “Dragon Seed.”

A native of McKeesport, Pa., Miss MacMahon grew up in Brooklyn and began acting as a student in Barnard College’s drama society.

Her professional career began on Broadway in 1921 in “The Mirage.” She made her film debut a decade later as a wise-cracking secretary in “Five Star Final.”

Her final stage appearance was in 1975 with Meryl Streep in “Trelawny of the Wells,” a play in which she had starred at Barnard 55 years earlier.

Usually cast in supporting roles, Miss MacMahon appeared in such movies as “The Mouthpiece,” “Gold Diggers of 1933,” “Babbitt,” “Ah, Wilderness,” “Back Door to Heaven,” “The Flame and the Arrow,” “The Eddie Cantor Story” and “All the Way Home.”

Her Broadway credits included “The Dover Road,” “Beyond the Horizon,” Cyrano de Bergerac,” and “The Crucible.”

She was the widow of architect Clarence Stein. There are no survivors.