Mildred Dunnock

Mildred Dunnock
Dunnock in trailer to "Butterfield 8" (1960)
Born	Mildred Dorothy Dunnock (1901-01-25)January 25, 1901 Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.
Died	July 5, 1991(1991-07-05) (aged 90) Oak Bluffs, Massachusetts, U.S.
Occupation	Actress, schoolteacher
Years active	1932–1987
Spouse(s)	Keith Urmy (m. 1933–91) (her death); 2 children

Mildred Dorothy Dunnock (January 25, 1901 – July 5, 1991) was an American theater, film and television actress.

Born in Baltimore, Maryland, she graduated from Western Senior High School. Dunnock was a school teacher who did not start acting until she was in her early thirties. She attended Goucher College where she was a member of Alpha Phi sorority.

After a couple of roles in Broadway productions during the 1930s, Dunnock won praise for her performance as a Welsh school teacher in The Corn is Green in 1940. The 1945 film version marked her screen debut. During the 1940s she performed mainly on stage, in such dramas as Another Part of the Forest (1946) and Death of a Salesman (1949) and in the musical Lute Song (1946). In 1947, Dunnock became a founding member of the Actors Studio.

Dunnock reprised her Salesman role in the 1951 film version. She originated the role of Big Mama in the Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, although she lost the movie role to Judith Anderson. Her films include The Trouble with Harry (1955), Love Me Tender (1956), Baby Doll (1956), Peyton Place (1957), The Nun's Story (1959), Butterfield 8 (1960), Something Wild (1961) and Sweet Bird of Youth (1962). She was the woman in the wheelchair pushed down a flight of stairs to her death by the psychotic villain Tommy Udo (Richard Widmark) in Kiss of Death (1947). She appeared frequently in guest roles on numerous TV series such as Alfred Hitchcock Presents and Ponds Theater, and later in her career, several television movies, including a remake of Death of a Salesman in which she played Linda Loman for the third time, opposite her original Broadway co-star, Lee J. Cobb.