| Kathleen Widdoes | |
|---|---|
| Born | Kathleen Effie Widdoes March 21, 1939 Wilmington, Delaware, U.S. |
| Occupation | Actress |
| Spouse | Richard Jordan (1964-1972) 1 Child Jerry Senter (?-present) |
Kathleen Effie Widdoes[1] (born March 21, 1939) is an American actress.
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Widdoes was born in Wilmington, Delaware, the daughter of Bernice (née Delapo) and Eugene Widdoes.[1] Widdoes moved to New York City to pursue stage work and studied at the Sorbonne in Paris under a Fulbright scholarship. From 1964 to 1972 she was married to well known actor Richard Jordan, with whom she had her daughter Nina. She is currently married with one child and one grandchild.
Although returning frequently to New York theatre, Widdoes is probably most known for her work in soaps; she was an original cast member of Young Doctor Malone, playing Jill Malone from 1958 to 1959. She played Rose Perrini on Another World from 1978 to 1980 and appeared for a short time on Ryan's Hope in 1983 as the vindictive villainess Una McCurtain.
In 1985, she began her best known role as Emma Snyder on As the World Turns. The character of Emma was the matriarch of a new core family, based on the real family of then-head writer Douglas Marland. Widdoes is currently a recurring character on the show. She was prominently featured during the show's 50th anniversary program in April 2006 and continued to make regular appearances.
She was menaced in the Dissolve to Black episode of Roald Dahl's Way Out (1961), and in 1967, she appeared in The Invaders TV series as Ellen Woods, supposedly deranged after seeing extraterrestrials in a barn near her town. She had a featured role in the HBO series Oz.
Her film credits include The Group (1966), Petulia (1968), Sidney Lumet's The Sea Gull (1968), The Mephisto Waltz (1971), James Ivory's Savages (1972), I'm Dancing as Fast as I Can (1982) and Courage Under Fire (1996).
She received a 1973 Tony Award nomination (Best Actress in a Play) for her work as Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing for the New York Shakespeare Festival in a production which transferred to Broadway from the Delacorte and was also preserved for television. She played other roles for the Festival, including Titania. In 2002, she received the Lucille Lortel Award for Featured Actress for her work in the play "Franny's Way" Off-Broadway.