Bethel Leslie
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Bethel Leslie (August 3, 1929 - November 28, 1999) was an American theatre, film, and television actress and a screenwriter.
Born in New York City, Leslie was discovered by George Abbott, who cast her in the play Snafu in 1944. Over the next four decades she appeared in a number of Broadway productions, including Goodbye, My Fancy (1948), The Time of the Cuckoo (1952), Inherit the Wind (1955), and Long Day's Journey Into Night (1986), for which she was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Play.
In 1950, Leslie was cast as Cornelia Otis Skinner in The Girls, a television series based on the author's Our Hearts Were Young and Gay. She departed the show after two months to appear with Helen Hayes in the play The Wisteria Trees, adapted from Anton Chekov's The Cherry Orchard by Joshua Logan. She frequently guested on the many anthology series popular in the early to mid-1950s, such as Studio One and Playhouse 90, and also appeared in Maverick, Wanted: Dead or Alive, The Rifleman, Bat Masterson, Perry Masion, Adventures in Paradise, Bonanza, Ben Casey, and Have Gun - Will Travel before becoming a regular on The Richard Boone Show, which garnered her an Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Single Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role. Miss Leslie became a regular on the NBC soap, "The Doctors," when she took over the role of "Maggie Powers" after Ann Williams left the role. She had recurring roles on Another World and All My Children and was featured in the television adaptations of In Cold Blood and Saint Maybe.
Leslie was the head writer for The Secret Storm in 1954. She also scripted episodes for Gunsmoke, Bracken's World, Barnaby Jones, McCloud, Matt Helm, and Falcon Crest.
Leslie's feature film credits include A Rage to Live (1965), The Molly Maguires (1970), Ironweed (1987), and Message in a Bottle (1999).
Leslie died of cancer at age 70 in New York City.
