Frances Sternhagen, the legendary Broadway actress who won two Tony Awards, was nominated for another five and achieved lasting and widespread recognition for her comedically stern portrayal of Esther Clavin, the demanding mother of insufferable postman Cliff Claven on Cheers, died Nov. 27 of natural causes. She was 93.
Her death was announced by her son, the actor John Carlin, on Instagram.
“Frannie. Mom. Frances Sternhagen. On Monday night, Nov 27, she died peacefully at her home, a month and a half shy of her 94th birthday,” Carlin wrote today, ending the tribute with “Fly on, Frannie. The curtain goes down on a life so richly, passionately, humbly and generously lived.”
See Carlin’s Instagram post below.
Sternhagen, one of the New York stage’s most celebrated and beloved stars, gave indelible performances in productions including the 1972 production of The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window, Equus in 1975, Angel in 1978, On Golden Pond in 1979 and, in 2002, Morning’s at Seven. She earned Tony nominations for all five of those shows.
Her Tony wins — for Best Featured Actress/Play — came in 1974 and 1995 for, respectively, Neil Simon’s The Good Doctor and Augustus Goetz’s The Heiress.
While she did not reprise two of her most noted stage performances for subsequent film adaptations – Joan Plowright was cast as Equus‘ Dora Strang and Katharine Hepburn famously played Ethel Thayer in the starry movie On Golden Pond – Sternhagen made memorable, often scene-stealing, appearances in such films as Up the Down Staircase (1967), Paddy Chayefsky’s The Hospital (1971), Billy Wilder’s Fedora (1978) and, in 1988, Bright Lights, Big City, in which she played the stern boss of the magazine fact-checker portrayed by Michael J. Fox.
Frances Sternhagen and John Ratzenberger on ‘Cheers’ in 1986
Paramount Television/Everett Collection
While TV viewers might best remember Sternhagen for her recurring, twice-Emmy nominated (1991 and 1992) role on Cheers (opposite John Ratzenberger’s Cliff), she played pivotal characters – often domineering, though loving, matriarch types – on ER (as Millicent Carter, grandmother of Noah Wyle’s Dr. John Carter); Sex and the City (scoring a third Emmy nomination in 2002 as Bunny MacDougal, stuffy mom of Kyle MacLachlan’s Trey and mother-in-law of Kristin Davis’ Charlotte); and The Closer, where she recurred as Willie Rae Johnson, mother of Kyra Sedgwick’s Brenda Leigh Johnson.
Other TV credits stretching from the 1950s through 2012 include Westinghouse Studio One, The Defenders, Spencer, The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd, Law & Order, Tales From The Crypt, The Laramie Project, The Simpsons, Becker, and Parenthood. She was a familiar presence on daytime TV as well, appearing on soaps Another World, The Secret Storm, Love of Life, The Doctors and One Life to Live.
Born January 13, 1930, in Washington D.C., Sternhagen attended Vassar College and, for graduate studies, the Catholic University of America. She studied acting at the Perry Mansfield School of the Theatre and New York City’s Neighborhood Playhouse.
Sternhagen made her Broadway debut as Miss T. Muse in 1955’s The Skin of Our Teeth, and appeared regularly on stage throughout the decades until her final major performance in 2005 as Nancy in a revival of Edward Albee’s Seascape. She played Clairee in 2005’s Steel Magnolias revival, Mary Tyrone in 1998’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night, and Nora in a 1967 production of A Doll’s House.
Sternhagen is survived by six children, nine grandchildren and two great-grandchildren (her husband, the actor Thomas A. Carlin, died in 1991). A celebration of her career and life will be planned for mid-January.
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