| Frances Lee McCain | |
|---|---|
| Born | July 28, 1943 York, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | Actress |
| Years active | 1969-present |
Frances Lee McCain (born July 28, 1944), also known as Lee McCain, is an American actress.
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McCain was born in York, Pennsylvania and grew up in New York, Illinois, Colorado and California. She graduated from Ripon College with a BA in Philosophy and then studied acting for 3 years at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London, England. She completed a Master's degree in Psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies in 2000.
She returned to New York where she appeared on Broadway in Woody Allen's Play it Again Sam, and off-Broadway in Lanford Wilson's Lemon Sky, creating the role of Carol. She joined the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco under William Ball and played a variety of roles in repertory.
She began her career in film and television after appearing opposite Jon Voight and Faye Dunaway in A Streetcar Named Desire, eventually co-starring with Ronny Cox as the female lead in her own television series, CBS-TV's Apple's Way in 1974. She appeared in a variety of television series and miniseries throughout the 1970s, including the Quincy ME episode Eye Of The Needle playing a Holistic practitioner. In 1978 she played Charles Grodin's wife in Albert Brooks' debut feature film, Real Life.
In the 1980s, she was cast in several major films, usually always playing the mother of a main character. In 1984, she co-starred in the blockbuster film Gremlins as Lynn Peltzer, the mother of main character, Billy Peltzer. Also that year, she played Ethel McCormack, mother to Kevin Bacon's character, in Footloose. In 1985 she appeared in the hit film Back to the Future as Stella Baines, the mother to the character played by Lea Thompson. In 1986, she played the role of Mrs. Lachance, the mother of Gordie Lachance (played by Wil Wheaton), in the hit drama film Stand by Me.
She continued to work in television after relocating to the San Francisco Bay Area in the late 1980s and also appeared in Scream (1996) as the mother of Rose McGowan's character, and Patch Adams (1998).
Frances Lee McCain received a Master's Degree in Psychology from the California Institute of Integral Studies in 2000, and continues to work in Theater extensively in the San Francisco Area.
In 2004 she initiated a theater project based on oral histories of the blue collar workers responsible for the building and maintaining of the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico which received workshop readings at the Lensic Center for Performing Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico, most recently at the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C. McCain is an Associate Artist of the ZSpace Studio in San Francisco, and is an ensemble member of the AlterTheater Ensemble in San Rafael, California.