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Beatrice Straight

Beatrice Straight built a career across theatre, television and film, bringing the same dramatic weight to classical plays, live anthology programs and the occasional major movie role. Born in Old Westbury, New York, on August 2, 1914, she spent part of her childhood in Devon, England, where she was educated at Dartington Hall and began appearing in amateur theatre productions. She later attended the Cornish School in Seattle before returning to the United States. Straight made her Broadway debut in The Possessed in 1939. Much of her stage career was rooted in the classics, with appearances in Twelfth Night, Macbeth and The Crucible. Her performance in the 1953 production of The Crucible earned her the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play. She was also a member of the Actors Studio from its inception and returned to the New York stage in 1979 to play Gertrude opposite William Hurt in Hamlet. Television gave Straight a particularly broad range of work. She appeared in early anthology series including Studio One, Playhouse 90, Hallmark Hall of Fame and Kraft Television Theatre, then moved through dramatic series such as The Defenders, Route 66, Mission: Impossible and St. Elsewhere. She also played Hippolyta in Wonder Woman. Her film appearances were less frequent, but two roles remain central to her screen career. In Network, Straight played a devastated wife confronting her husband, played by William Holden, over his infidelity. The role occupied only a brief stretch of the film, yet her performance earned the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She later appeared in Poltergeist as paranormal investigator Dr. Martha Lesh, bringing calm authority to a story increasingly overtaken by supernatural chaos. Straight died in 2001, leaving behind work shaped less by sheer volume than by the force she could bring to a scene.