| Sandy Dennis | |
|---|---|
| Born | Sandra Dale Dennis April 27, 1937 Hastings, Nebraska, U.S. |
| Died | March 2, 1992 (aged 54) Westport, Connecticut, U.S. |
| Occupation | Actress |
| Years active | 1952–1991 |
Sandra Dale “Sandy” Dennis (April 27, 1937 – March 2, 1992) was an American theater and film actress. In 1966, she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?.
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Dennis was born in Hastings, Nebraska, the daughter of Yvonne, a secretary, and Jack Dennis, a postal clerk.[1] She had a brother, Frank.[2] A high school classmate of Dick Cavett, she attended the Nebraska Wesleyan University and University of Nebraska. Dennis grew up in Kenesaw and Lincoln, Nebraska, appearing in the Lincoln Community Theater Group and moving to New York City at the age of 19.[3]
Dennis made her television debut in 1956 in The Guiding Light and her film debut in Splendor in the Grass (1961). However, she was more committed to following a career in the theater. She won consecutive Tony Awards for her performances in A Thousand Clowns (1963) and Any Wednesday (1964). She won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Honey, the fragile, neurotic young wife of George Segal, in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966). She followed this with well-received performances in Up the Down Staircase (1967), The Fox (1967), Sweet November (1968) and The Out-of-Towners (1970). In 1963, she appeared in the television episode "The Other Side of the Mountain" in The Fugitive which starred David Janssen. In 1964, she appeared in the television episode "Don't Mention My Name in Sheboygan" of Craig Stevens's CBS drama, Mr. Broadway.
An advocate of method acting, Dennis was often described as neurotic and mannered in her performances; her signature style included running words together and oddly stopping and starting sentences, suddenly going up and down octaves as she spoke, and fluttering her hands. Walter Kerr famously remarked that she treated sentences as "weak, injured things" that needed to be slowly helped "across the street"; John Simon said that she acted with "a postnasal drip." Nonetheless, William Goldman, in his book The Season, referred to her as a quintessential "critics' darling" who got rave reviews no matter how unusual her acting and questionable her choice of material. During her stint in Any Wednesday, Kerr said the following: "Let me tell you about Sandy Dennis. There should be one in every home."
Her last significant film role was in Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (1982). In 1991, she played a leading role in the film The Indian Runner, which marked Sean Penn's debut as a film director, and he also wrote the screenplay.
Dennis lived with prominent jazz musician Gerry Mulligan from 1965 until they split up in 1976. Although Mulligan often referred to Dennis as his second wife, Dennis later revealed that they had never married. She also lived with actor Eric Roberts from 1980 to 1985.
Christopher Dennis, a Superman look-alike working on Hollywood Blvd and who resembles Ms. Dennis quite a bit, appears in Matthew Ogen's documentary Confessions of a Superhero claiming that Sandy Dennis is his mother. In the movie, her family questions these claims.
In an interview with People magazine in 1989, Dennis revealed she and Gerry Mulligan had suffered a miscarriage in 1965 and went on to say, "if I'd been a mother, I would have loved the child, but I just didn't have any connection with it when I was pregnant...I never ever wanted children. It would have been like having an elephant."[4] There is no mention of any other pregnancies or children.
Sandy Dennis died from ovarian cancer in Westport, Connecticut, aged 54.
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1961 | Splendor in the Grass | Kay | |
| 1966 | Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? | Honey | Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture |
| 1967 | Up the Down Staircase | Sylvia Barrett | |
| 1967 | The Fox | Jill Banford | |
| 1968 | Teach Me! | ||
| 1968 | Sweet November | Sara Deever | |
| 1969 | That Cold Day in the Park | Frances Austen | |
| 1969 | A Touch of Love | Rosamund Stacey | Also known as Thank You All Very Much |
| 1970 | The Out-of-Towners | Gwen Kellerman | |
| 1974 | Mr. Sycamore | Jane Gwilt | |
| 1976 | God Told Me To | Martha Nicholas | |
| 1977 | Nasty Habits | Sister Winifred | |
| 1981 | The Animals Film | Herself | |
| 1981 | The Four Seasons | Anne Callan | |
| 1982 | Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean | Mona | |
| 1988 | Another Woman | Claire | |
| 1989 | Parents | Millie Dew | |
| 1989 | 976-EVIL | Aunt Lucy | |
| 1991 | The Indian Runner | Mrs. Roberts |