Elizabeth Franz, Tony-winning ‘Death of a Salesman’ actor, dies at 84
Theater veteran Elizabeth Franz, who won a Tony Award for her role in a Broadway revival of “Death of a Salesman,” has died. She was 84.
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Theater veteran Elizabeth Franz, who won a Tony Award for her bold reinvention as the wife of the everyman title character in the 1999 Broadway revival of Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman,” has died. She was 84.
The actor died Nov. 4 at her home in Woodbury, Conn., after a battle with cancer, her husband, screenwriter Christopher Pelham, confirmed to The Times. Franz had leukemia and lung cancer, Pelham said, and had a severe reaction to the medication being used to treat her.
“The legacy she leaves behind as an actor is the dying out of a breed of performer who learned how to act in summer stock and had to build sets and paint things and do lights — learned every aspect of show business while you also got a chance to act in all these parts,” Pelham said. “She would principally call herself a stage actor — her whole thing was to communicate to the audience. That was her calling.”
And the stage took note. She took on varied roles in a durable career that spanned more than five decades. There were three performances, though, according to Pehlham, that were enduring to Franz and seminal in establishing her as an actor to behold: her turn in 1981 as the strict nun in Christopher Durang’s off-Broadway comedy “Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You,” which earned her an Obie Award; that performance caught the attention of Neil Simon, who cast her as Kate Jerome in his Broadway play “Brighton Beach Memoirs” in 1983; and her Tony-winning take on Linda Loman, the wife of Brian Dennehy’s Willy Loman, in the 50th anniversary production of “Death of a Salesman.”
Her take on Linda carried a quiet ferocity and protectiveness that was a departure from the character’s usual defeated energy and took even playwright Miller by surprise.
“She has discovered in the role the basic underlying powerful protectiveness, which comes out as fury, and that in the past, in every performance I know of, was simply washed out,” Miller said in a 1999 interview with the New York Times. The production, which originated at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre before Broadway, eventually made its way to L.A.’s Ahmanson Theatre. Alongside Dennehy, Franz later reprised the role of Linda in Showtime’s TV adaptation of the play in 2000, which earned her an Emmy Award nomination.
Actor Sally Kirkland has died at 84. The Golden Globe winner and Oscar nominee for the 1987 movie ‘Anna’ had gone into hospice care over the weekend.
She previously received a Tony nomination in 1983 for her turn as Matthew Broderick’s onstage mother in Simon’s “Brighton Beach Memoirs,” and later earned another nod in 2002 for “Morning’s at Seven,” in which she played the youngest of four Midwest sisters. Her other stage credits include “The Cherry Orchard,” “The Cemetery Club” and — in her final role on Broadway in 2010 — “The Miracle Worker.”
“She was particularly adept at finding natural, behavioral humor in text that was not thought of as funny,” Pelham said. “She knew her characters inside and out and often wrote biographies of them, which she kept under her pillow.”
Born June 18, 1941, in Akron, Ohio, Elizabeth Jean Frankovitch grew up the daughter of Joe, a Yugloslavian factory worker, and Harriet, who worked part time as a waitress when Joe died to make ends meet and battled mental illness, sometimes disappearing for long stretches. Franz had a sister and two brothers.
Her love of acting took hold as a child, watching Loretta Young in the 1947 film “The Bishop’s Wife.” She spoke often about her urgent need to turn to other worlds as a way to cope with her environment at home. She eventually attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in Manhattan, where she graduated in 1962.
“I always knew there were a lot of women inside me, and I think acting was just the right way of finding and expressing them,” she told the New York Times in 1987.
In the early days of her career, she performed at Weathervane Playhouse in Akron, the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis and the Dorset Playhouse in Vermont, where she appeared in 58 summer stock productions over the years. She made her Broadway debut in 1967 with Tom Stoppard’s “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead,” propelling her extensive stage career.
Franz’s career also included onscreen roles. She appeared in the television soap operas “As the World Turns” and “Another World,” as well as “Judging Amy,” “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Roseanne” and “Homeland.” A generation, though, came to know her as Mia Bass, the owner of the Independence Inn in Stars Hollow, in a Season 2 episode of “Gilmore Girls.” The minor but essential-to-the-lore character was later recast in Season 7. She also appeared in the films “Sabrina,” “School Ties,” “A Fish in the Bathtub” and “Christmas With the Kranks.”
Franz’s first marriage, to actor Edward Binns, ended with his death in 1990. She eventually remarried after meeting Pelham at an unsanctioned dog park in Pacific Palisades — she was out with her German shepherd, Max, while Pelham was training his golden retriever, Chloe.
“One day I’m holding a ball waiting for the path to clear so I can throw it,” Pelham said, “And this German shepherd nearly takes my hand off. And I said, ‘Whose dog’s this?’ Well, it was Elizabeth’s. Max had an underbite and was very friendly. It all turned out OK.”
Franz’s passion for acting wasn’t limited to her own. She relished watching other performances. When she was a member of the Screen Actors Guild nominating committee, she’d dutifully make her way through the cavalcade of screeners, Pelham said. A recent standout series? Colin Farrell’s “The Penguin.” While her health still allowed, she found comfort in life’s simple pleasures beyond the screen, Pelham said, namely gardening and taking long walks — often logging up to 30 miles a week: “After she got neurotherapy, which was unrelated to this cancer, it made her balance and walking difficult, but she would do 100 miles a week on a recumbent bike.”
In addition to Pelham, Franz is survived by a brother, Joe.
