Maureen Stapleton (Paperback)

High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Maureen Stapleton (June 21, 1925 - March 13, 2006) was an American actress in film, theater and television. She was also elected to the American Theatre Hall of Fame. Stapleton was born Lois Maureen Stapleton in Troy, New York, the daughter of Irene (nee Walsh) and John P. Stapleton, and grew up in a strict Irish American Catholic family. Her father was an alcoholic and her parents separated during her childhood. Stapleton moved to New York City at the age of eighteen, and did modeling to pay the bills. She once said that it was her infatuation with the handsome Hollywood actor Joel McCrea which led her into acting. She made her Broadway debut in the production featuring Burgess Meredith of The Playboy of the Western World in 1946. That same year, she played the role of Iras in Shakespeare's "Antony and Cleopatra" in a touring production by actress and producer Katharine Cornell.