“Actors are one family over the entire world.” - Eleanor Roosevelt
In the spring of 2015, five weeks after turning 94, Elizabeth Wilson died at the Yale New Haven Hospital in Connecticut. I had the great honor of being among the loved ones who held her when she transitioned.
The days that followed were surreal, having the New York Times and the Associated Press call me to confirm the death, being interviewed by the LA Times for the obituary they printed, and witnessing the deluge of tributes and articles that sprang up all over the Internet. Of course I knew she had been a much beloved actress but, to me, she was first and foremost my Mama Liz.
At the beginning of our friendship, in 2001, Liz and her sister, along with me and my sister, formed our own little “chosen family.” Liz proudly called me her daughter and would sometimes introduce me as such, even when it confused people who could clearly see by our ages that it wasn’t biologically possible. We had a running joke between us where she’d posit various theories about who my father was. With a twinkle in her eye, she’d say, “I don’t remember his name but he was very tall and he was not an actor.” A week before she died, she said, “You know, Elizabeth, I think he may have been a Kennedy.”
In actuality, Liz did have more than a few romances over the years, two that were quite serious. At her memorial service, the actor Fritz Weaver reminisced about proposing to her in 1949 and how she’d turned him down to “keep her independence.” Liz always felt strongly that a marriage would threaten her commitment, her devotion, to being an actress.
Elizabeth Welter Wilson was born in 1921 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She was welcomed on the stage as a young actor at the Barter Theatre in Abingdon, Virginia before attending the Neighborhood Playhouse where she studied with her idol, Sanford Meisner. Her first job out of school was with the USO during World War II. Liz performed for troops in the South Pacific and Japan for an entire year before returning to New York. Her first Broadway play, and her first film, was Picnic by William Inge. This catapulted her into a decades long career on the stage and screen.
Elizabeth Wilson in her dressing room for Morning’s At Seven in 1981. Photo credit: Rivka Shifman Katvan
A particularly important theatre experience of hers was the play Big Fish, Little Fish where she was first noticed by Mike Nichols, who went on to cast her in several films and plays. Other favorites of hers were You Can’t Take It With You, Taken in Marriage, Uncle Vanya, A Delicate Balance, Little Murders, and Morning’s at Seven. Liz can be seen in such memorable films as The Graduate, 9 to 5, and The Addams Family, among many others. Her career was truly remarkable and she was widely respected though she never sought fame, preferring to be “a character actress who could disappear into a role.”
David Rabe, the playwright of Sticks & Bones, for which she won a Tony Award, wrote a tribute to her in American Theatre, saying, “Liz, with her smarts, cunning, humor and raw force when needed, made Harriet a comic yet real and complex figure scorched into the minds of so many who saw her.” How I wish I could’ve seen that performance!
In her last years, Liz missed the work very much. She missed the camaraderie of a cast, the rehearsal room, the intense study of a new script. She missed performing in a theatre which, she said, gave her an “indescribable high.” She likened it to flying.
Being an actor myself, it saddens me that I never saw Liz on stage in New York. We met a few months after her last Broadway play, Waiting in the Wings, closed. I did, however, get to see her in two regional theatre productions as well as in several readings. And, in 2011, I was her companion in London when she was wooed out of retirement at the age of 90 to play Sara Roosevelt in the film Hyde Park on Hudson. For those two months, we had our greatest adventure together. Nearly every single day, she would look out a window of our flat -‐ that overlooked rooftops, winding streets, and steeples -‐ and she would say, “Being here... it’s like a dream.” She was so happy.
Over the course of our friendship, I devoured the stories she’d tell about her experiences as an actor. I was particularly moved listening to her talk about who had most inspired her. She recalled that, when she saw Geraldine Page in Summer and Smoke, it was “an incredible awakening” and that she couldn’t speak afterward. She would very reverently talk about “dear Julie” Harris, saying that, in The Member of the Wedding, “she’d hit it.” She worshipped the elusive Kim Stanley whose emotions were so raw “it was as though she had no skin.” And then there were her friends. How she loved and admired her friends! She’d talk so fondly about Colleen Dewhurst, Barnard Hughes, Maureen Stapleton, George Grizzard, Eileen Heckart, George C. Scott, and Jason Robards, to name only a few. The actors whose work inspired Liz most had “a spirit, an energy” about them that she couldn’t quite describe.
After seeing me on stage for the first time, Liz took me aside, grabbed my hands, looked intently into my eyes, and said, “You’ve got it.” This is a memory I will always cherish. Her unceasing support over the years got me through some difficult and disheartening times. I honestly believe that, had I never met Liz, I very well may have given up on an acting career long ago. She was respectful of the profession, reverential toward the artistry, and hopeful about the journey in ways that I often couldn’t muster on my own. And, though she was a mentor to me, she always treated me like a peer. Having this dear woman in my life kept me anchored to our shared vocation during my “rough patches,” as she called them.
When she died, I felt like I’d inherited a rich legacy that I must carry on somehow, though I still have no idea what that looks like. My career has not come close to what hers was. Perhaps the legacy is as simple as carrying Mama Liz in my heart and saying with pride, as she did, “I am an actress.”
heading out together for a night at the theatre in New York City, 2010
I just tried to subscribe but no payment information came up. Love the post. Love seeing photos of the woman you have spoken of over the years with such love. Beautiful tribute.
Oh, I feel like I know her from this piece. How thrilling it must have been in her presence and as her friend, but yet it sounds like she was incredibly down to earth and genuine. I am so happy you had this friendship and I think you are far more successful and talented than you realize. I love you, Liz Morton!!!!
I just tried to subscribe but no payment information came up. Love the post. Love seeing photos of the woman you have spoken of over the years with such love. Beautiful tribute.
Oh, I feel like I know her from this piece. How thrilling it must have been in her presence and as her friend, but yet it sounds like she was incredibly down to earth and genuine. I am so happy you had this friendship and I think you are far more successful and talented than you realize. I love you, Liz Morton!!!!