Elizabeth Franz
Encyclopedia
Elizabeth Franz is an American
stage
and television
actress.
, the daughter of a factory worker.
On the stage, Franz has won a Tony Award
, for her role as Linda Loman in the 1999 production of Death of a Salesman
, which also earned her nominations for Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle awards, and she won Chicago's Joseph Jefferson Award, Boston's Eliot Norton Award, and Los Angeles' Ovation Award for a tour of the same production. She has also won an Obie Award
and Drama Desk nomination for her role in the 1980 Off-Broadway
production Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You
and the Lucille Lortel Award for the 2007 production of Julia Cho's The Piano Teacher at the Vineyard Theatre
in New York. Franz has also been nominated two other times for a Tony Award
, for 1983's Brighton Beach Memoirs
and 2002's Morning's at Seven
, for which she also received Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle nominations. In 2004 and 2005, Franz appeared at the Royal National Theatre
in London
, in the Sam Shepard
play Buried Child
. She has starred in numerous Off-Broadway
and regional theater productions, including the world premiere of Kelly Masterson
's Against the Rising Sea, the American premiere of Frank McGuinness
's Bird Sanctuary, Long Day's Journey into Night
with Sam Waterston
, Autumn Garden, The Glass Menagerie
, The Cripple of Inishman, The Comedy of Errors
, Minutes from the Blue Route, Madwoman of Chaillot, Lion in Winter, A View from the Bridge
, The Matchmaker
, The Wizard of Oz, Great Expectations
, The Model Apartment, and Woman in Mind
. In 2003 she received the Dramatist Guild Fund's Lifetime Achievement in the Theater award.
On television, Franz is most notably a character actor
. She became best known for her role as the villainess Alma Rudder on the soap opera
Another World
, which she portrayed from 1982 to 1983, while she was performing Brighton Beach Memoirs
on Broadway. She also played the role of Helen Wendall on As the World Turns
from 1994 to 1995, and guest-starred in several episodes of Roseanne
, as free-spirited beauty salon owner Marsha. She also made guest appearances in the series Gilmore Girls
, as the inn owner, Mia, and in Law & Order
, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
, Cold Case, Dear John
and Judging Amy
. She was nominated for an Emmy Award
and a SAG Award for the Showtime production of Death of a Salesman
and got another Emmy nomination for the TV movie A Town's Revenge. Other TV movies include A Girl Thing, An Unexpected Love, The Rise and Rise of Daniel Rocket, Dottie
, Love and Other Sorrows, and House of Mirth.
In the movies Franz has appeared in the remake of Sabrina
, Christmas with the Kranks
, The Substance of Fire
, The Pallbearer
, Stephen King’s Thinner, Fish in a Bathtub, The Secret of My Success, School Ties
and Jacknife
. In 2005 Franz won the Best Actress Award from the NYC Home Film Festival for her appearance in a short film The Reader.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
stage
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
and television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
actress.
Life and career
Franz was born Betty Jean Frankovich in Akron, OhioAkron, Ohio
Akron , is the fifth largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Summit County. It is located in the Great Lakes region approximately south of Lake Erie along the Little Cuyahoga River. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 199,110. The Akron Metropolitan...
, the daughter of a factory worker.
On the stage, Franz has won a Tony Award
Tony Award
The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...
, for her role as Linda Loman in the 1999 production of Death of a Salesman
Death of a Salesman
Death of a Salesman is a 1949 play written by American playwright Arthur Miller. It was the recipient of the 1949 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and Tony Award for Best Play. Premiered at the Morosco Theatre in February 1949, the original production ran for a total of 742 performances.-Plot :Willy Loman...
, which also earned her nominations for Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle awards, and she won Chicago's Joseph Jefferson Award, Boston's Eliot Norton Award, and Los Angeles' Ovation Award for a tour of the same production. She has also won an Obie Award
Obie Award
The Obie Awards or Off-Broadway Theater Awards are annual awards given by The Village Voice newspaper to theatre artists and groups in New York City...
and Drama Desk nomination for her role in the 1980 Off-Broadway
Off-Broadway
Off-Broadway theater is a term for a professional venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, and for a specific production of a play, musical or revue that appears in such a venue, and which adheres to related trade union and other contracts...
production Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You
Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You
Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All For You is a play by Christopher Durang first performed on December 14, 1979, at the Ensemble Studio Theatre in New York City. It was performed on a bill with one-act plays that included works by David Mamet, Marsha Norman, and Tennessee Williams...
and the Lucille Lortel Award for the 2007 production of Julia Cho's The Piano Teacher at the Vineyard Theatre
Vineyard Theatre
The Vineyard Theatre is an Off-Broadway non-profit theatre company, located at 108 East 15th Street in Manhattan, New York City, near Union Square. Its first production was in 1981...
in New York. Franz has also been nominated two other times for a Tony Award
Tony Award
The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...
, for 1983's Brighton Beach Memoirs
Brighton Beach Memoirs
Brighton Beach Memoirs is a semi-autobiographical play by Neil Simon, the first chapter in what is known as his Eugene trilogy. It precedes Biloxi Blues and Broadway Bound.-Characters:*Eugene Morris Jerome, almost 15...
and 2002's Morning's at Seven
Morning's at Seven
Morning's at Seven is a play by Paul Osborn.Its plot focuses on four aging sisters living in a small Midwestern town in 1938, and it deals with ramifications within the family when two of them begin to question their lives and decide to make some changes before it’s too late.The original Broadway...
, for which she also received Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle nominations. In 2004 and 2005, Franz appeared at the Royal National Theatre
Royal National Theatre
The Royal National Theatre in London is one of the United Kingdom's two most prominent publicly funded theatre companies, alongside the Royal Shakespeare Company...
in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, in the Sam Shepard
Sam Shepard
Sam Shepard is an American playwright, actor, and television and film director. He is the author of several books of short stories, essays, and memoirs, and received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1979 for his play Buried Child...
play Buried Child
Buried Child
Buried Child is a play by Sam Shepard first presented in 1978. It won the 1979 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and launched Shepard to national fame as a playwright...
. She has starred in numerous Off-Broadway
Off-Broadway
Off-Broadway theater is a term for a professional venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, and for a specific production of a play, musical or revue that appears in such a venue, and which adheres to related trade union and other contracts...
and regional theater productions, including the world premiere of Kelly Masterson
Kelly Masterson
Kelly Masterson is an American screenwriter, playwright and writer who currently lives in New Jersey. He wrote the screenplay for the film Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, for which he is best known. Before moving to New York to stage several of his early plays, he studied Theology at the...
's Against the Rising Sea, the American premiere of Frank McGuinness
Frank McGuinness
Professor Frank McGuinness is an award-winning Irish playwright and poet. As well as his own works, which include Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme, he is recognised for a "strong record of adapting literary classics, having translated the plays of Racine, Sophocles, Ibsen and...
's Bird Sanctuary, Long Day's Journey into Night
Long Day's Journey Into Night
Long Day's Journey Into Night is a 1956 drama in four acts written by American playwright Eugene O'Neill. The play is widely considered to be his masterwork...
with Sam Waterston
Sam Waterston
Samuel Atkinson "Sam" Waterston is an American actor and occasional producer and director. Among other roles, he is noted for his Academy Award-nominated portrayal of Sydney Schanberg in 1984's The Killing Fields, and his Golden Globe- and Screen Actors Guild Award-winning portrayal of Jack McCoy...
, Autumn Garden, The Glass Menagerie
The Glass Menagerie
The Glass Menagerie is a four-character memory play by Tennessee Williams. Williams worked on various drafts of the play prior to writing a version of it as a screenplay for MGM, to whom Williams was contracted...
, The Cripple of Inishman, The Comedy of Errors
The Comedy of Errors
The Comedy of Errors is one of William Shakespeare's earliest plays. It is his shortest and one of his most farcical comedies, with a major part of the humour coming from slapstick and mistaken identity, in addition to puns and word play. The Comedy of Errors is one of only two of Shakespeare's...
, Minutes from the Blue Route, Madwoman of Chaillot, Lion in Winter, A View from the Bridge
A View from the Bridge
A View from the Bridge is a play by American playwright Arthur Miller that was first staged on September 29, 1955 as a one-act verse drama with A Memory of Two Mondays at the Coronet Theatre on Broadway. The play was unsuccessful and Miller subsequently revised the play to contain two acts; this...
, The Matchmaker
The Matchmaker
The Matchmaker is a play by Thornton Wilder.The play has a long and colorful history. John Oxenford's 1835 one-act farce A Day Well Spent had been extended into a full-length play entitled Einen Jux will er sich machen by Austrian playwright Johann Nestroy in 1842...
, The Wizard of Oz, Great Expectations
Great Expectations
Great Expectations is a novel by Charles Dickens. It was first published in serial form in the publication All the Year Round from 1 December 1860 to August 1861. It has been adapted for stage and screen over 250 times....
, The Model Apartment, and Woman in Mind
Woman In Mind
Woman in Mind is the 32nd play by English playwright, Alan Ayckbourn. It was premiered at the Stephen Joseph Theatre In The Round, Scarborough, in 1985. Despite pedestrian reviews by many critics, strong audience reaction resulted in a transfer to London's West End...
. In 2003 she received the Dramatist Guild Fund's Lifetime Achievement in the Theater award.
On television, Franz is most notably a character actor
Character actor
A character actor is one who predominantly plays unusual or eccentric characters. The Oxford English Dictionary defines a character actor as "an actor who specializes in character parts", defining character part in turn as "an acting role displaying pronounced or unusual characteristics or...
. She became best known for her role as the villainess Alma Rudder on the soap opera
Soap opera
A soap opera, sometimes called "soap" for short, is an ongoing, episodic work of dramatic fiction presented in serial format on radio or as television programming. The name soap opera stems from the original dramatic serials broadcast on radio that had soap manufacturers, such as Procter & Gamble,...
Another World
Another World (TV series)
Another World is an American television soap opera that ran on NBC from May 4, 1964 to June 25, 1999. It ran for a total of 35 years. It was created by Irna Phillips along with William J...
, which she portrayed from 1982 to 1983, while she was performing Brighton Beach Memoirs
Brighton Beach Memoirs
Brighton Beach Memoirs is a semi-autobiographical play by Neil Simon, the first chapter in what is known as his Eugene trilogy. It precedes Biloxi Blues and Broadway Bound.-Characters:*Eugene Morris Jerome, almost 15...
on Broadway. She also played the role of Helen Wendall on As the World Turns
As the World Turns
As the World Turns is an American television soap opera that aired on CBS from April 2, 1956 to September 17, 2010. Irna Phillips created As the World Turns as a sister show to her other soap opera Guiding Light...
from 1994 to 1995, and guest-starred in several episodes of Roseanne
Roseanne (TV series)
Roseanne is an American sitcom broadcast on ABC from October 18, 1988 to May 20, 1997. Starring Roseanne Barr, the show revolved around the Conners, an Illinois working class family...
, as free-spirited beauty salon owner Marsha. She also made guest appearances in the series Gilmore Girls
Gilmore Girls
Gilmore Girls is an American family comedy-drama series created by Amy Sherman-Palladino, starring Lauren Graham and Alexis Bledel. On October 5, 2000, the series debuted on The WB and was cancelled in its seventh season, ending on May 15, 2007 on The CW...
, as the inn owner, Mia, and in Law & Order
Law & Order
Law & Order is an American police procedural and legal drama television series, created by Dick Wolf and part of the Law & Order franchise. It aired on NBC, and in syndication on various cable networks. Law & Order premiered on September 13, 1990, and completed its 20th and final season on May 24,...
, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit is an American police procedural television drama series set in New York City, where it is also primarily produced...
, Cold Case, Dear John
Dear John
Dear John may refer to:* Dear John letter, a break-up letter to an absent boyfriend or husband* Dear John Doe letter, a letter sent to a soldier's family notifying them the soldier has died.-Film and television:...
and Judging Amy
Judging Amy
Judging Amy is an American television drama that was telecast from September 19, 1999, through May 3, 2005, on CBS-TV. This TV series starred Amy Brenneman and Tyne Daly...
. She was nominated for an Emmy Award
Emmy Award
An Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...
and a SAG Award for the Showtime production of Death of a Salesman
Death of a Salesman
Death of a Salesman is a 1949 play written by American playwright Arthur Miller. It was the recipient of the 1949 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and Tony Award for Best Play. Premiered at the Morosco Theatre in February 1949, the original production ran for a total of 742 performances.-Plot :Willy Loman...
and got another Emmy nomination for the TV movie A Town's Revenge. Other TV movies include A Girl Thing, An Unexpected Love, The Rise and Rise of Daniel Rocket, Dottie
Dottie
Dottie is the name of an album by country music singer, Dottie West, released in 1978.This was West's second album as a solo artist under her new label, United Artists Records. The year the album was released, West also released an album with Kenny Rogers entitled, Every Time Two Fools Collide. The...
, Love and Other Sorrows, and House of Mirth.
In the movies Franz has appeared in the remake of Sabrina
Sabrina
-People:*Sabrina , a feminine given name *Sabrina , British entertainer*Sabrina *Sabrina *Sabrina Salerno , Italian pop singer aka Sabrina...
, Christmas with the Kranks
Christmas with the Kranks
Christmas with the Kranks is a 2004 American comedy film directed by Joe Roth and starring Tim Allen and Jamie Lee Curtis. The screenplay by Chris Columbus is based on the 2001 novel Skipping Christmas by John Grisham.-Plot:...
, The Substance of Fire
The Substance of Fire
The Substance of Fire is a play by Jon Robin Baitz.At its core is Isaac Geldhart, a childhood survivor of the Holocaust, who arrived in New York City an orphan, reinvented himself as a bon vivant, married well, and found fame and fortune as a champion of authors who are passionate about their work...
, The Pallbearer
The Pallbearer
The Pallbearer is a 1996 American romantic comedy film starring David Schwimmer, Gwyneth Paltrow, Toni Collette, Michael Vartan, Michael Rapaport, and Barbara Hershey. It was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1996 Cannes Film Festival....
, Stephen King’s Thinner, Fish in a Bathtub, The Secret of My Success, School Ties
School Ties
School Ties is a 1992 film directed by Robert Mandel starring Brendan Fraser, Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Chris O'Donnell, Cole Hauser, Randall Batinkoff, and Anthony Rapp....
and Jacknife
Jacknife
Jacknife is a 1989 American film directed by David Jones and starring Robert De Niro and Ed Harris. The film focuses on a small, serious story, with emphasis on characterization and the complex tension between people in a close relationship...
. In 2005 Franz won the Best Actress Award from the NYC Home Film Festival for her appearance in a short film The Reader.