Geraldine Page -- Summer and Smoke

 

Geraldine Sue Page (November 22, 1924 – June 13, 1987) was an American actress. With a career which spanned four decades across film, stage, and television, Page was the recipient of numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, two Primetime Emmy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, and four nominations for the Tony Award.

A native of Kirksville, Missouri, Page studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and with Uta Hagen and Lee Strasberg in New York City before being cast in her first credited part in the Western film Hondo (1953), which earned her her first Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. During the McCarthyism era, she was blacklisted in Hollywood based on her association with Hagen and did not work in film for eight years. Page continued to appear on television and on stage and earned her first Tony Award nomination for her performance in Sweet Bird of Youth (1959–60), a role she reprised in the 1962 film adaptation, the latter of which earned her a Golden Globe Award.

She earned additional Academy Award nominations for her roles in Summer and Smoke (1961) (another Golden Globe award for Best Actress - Drama), You're a Big Boy Now (1966) and Pete 'n' Tillie (1972), followed by a Tony nomination for her performance in the stage production of Absurd Person Singular (1974–75). Other film appearances during this time included in the thrillers What Ever Happened to Aunt Alice? (1969) opposite Ruth Gordon, and The Beguiled (1971) opposite Clint Eastwood. In 1977, she provided the voice of Madam Medusa in Walt Disney's The Rescuers, followed by a role in Woody Allen's Interiors (1978), which earned her a BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role.

After being inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 1979 for her stage work, Page returned to Broadway with a lead role in Agnes of God (1982), earning her third Tony Award nomination. Page was nominated for Academy Awards for her performances in The Pope of Greenwich Village (1984) and The Trip to Bountiful (1985), the latter of which earned her the Academy Award for Best Actress. Page died in New York City in 1987 in the midst of a Broadway run of Blithe Spirit, for which she earned her fourth Tony Award nomination. 

Page was born November 22, 1924, in Kirksville, Missouri, the first child of Edna Pearl (née Maize) and Leon Elwin Page who worked at Andrew Taylor Still College of Osteopathy and Surgery (combined with the American School of Osteopathy, eventually to form A.T. Still University). He was an author whose works included Practical Anatomy (1925), Osteopathic Fundamentals (1926), and The Old Doctor (1932). She had one younger brother, Donald.

At age five, Page relocated with her family to Chicago.^[1] Raised a Methodist by her mother, Page was an active parishioner of the Englewood Methodist Church in Chicago, where she had her first foray into acting within the church's theatre group, appearing in a play called Excuse My Dust, then playing Jo March in a 1941 production of Louisa May Alcott's Little Women. After graduating from Chicago's Englewood Technical Prep Academy, she attended the Goodman School of Drama at the Art Institute of Chicago (now at DePaul University), with the intention of becoming an actress. Page had aspirations of becoming a pianist or visual artist, but at 17 she appeared in her first amateur theatre production, and from that point, she never wavered from her desire to be a professional actress.

After graduating from the Art Institute of Chicago in 1945, Page studied acting at the Herbert Berghof School and the American Theatre Wing in New York City, studying with Uta Hagen for seven years, and then at the Actors Studio with Lee Strasberg. During this time, Page would return to Chicago in the summers to perform in repertory theatre in Lake Zurich, Illinois, where she and several fellow actors had established their own independent theater company. She also spent two critically successful years performing with a winter stock company called the Woodstock Players another group from Goodman who performed mostly at the Woodstock Opera House where she was singled out by critic Claudia Cassidy of The Chicago Tribune as destined to be a star to bear watching. During that time she was called "the lady with the thousand faces" for her ability to change her looks and actions to an extent that her most devoted fans were unable to recognize her. While attempting to establish her career, she worked various odd jobs, including as a hat-check girl, theater usher, lingerie model, and a factory laborer.

Page was married to violinist Alexander Schneider from 1954 to 1957. On September 8, 1963, she married actor Rip Torn, who was six years her junior, in Pinal, Arizona. They had played opposite one another in Sweet Bird of Youth on Broadway and in the 1962 film. They had three children: a daughter, actress Angelica Page, and twin sons, Anthony "Tony" and Jonathan "Jon" Torn.

Beginning in the early 1980s, Page and Torn lived separately after he started dating actress Amy Wright; Torn had first met Wright in 1976 and began an affair shortly after. Page was aware of Torn and Wright's relationship, and appeared onstage opposite Wright in the 1977 Off-Broadway production of The Stronger, under Torn's direction. In 1983, Torn fathered a child with Wright. Upon the birth of the child, Page was questioned about her marriage by columnist Cindy Adams, to which she responded: "Of course Rip and I are still married. We've been married for years. We're staying married. What's the big fuss?" In spite of their separation, Page and Torn remained married until her death; her daughter described their relationship as still "close" up until Page died in 1987.

Page considered herself a gourmand, once joking: "Greedy gut is my middle name...Rip is wonderful. He does the cooking and I do the eating. I love everything but eggplant."