Florence Stanley
Encyclopedia
Florence Stanley was an American
actress of stage, film, and television.
, the daughter of Hanna (née
Weil) and Jack Schwartz. She began a long career on stage, film and TV starting in the 1940s. Her earliest theatrical performances include The Importance of Being Earnest with the Touring Players, Bury The Dead at New York's Cherry Lane Theatre, and Machinal
.
During the 1950s, Stanley appeared in numerous live TV shows, and gave an acclaimed performance as Clytemnestra
in the New York Shakespeare Festival
's 1964 production of Electra
, opposite Lee Grant
, who played the title role. Stanley began her long career on Broadway as Maureen Stapleton
's understudy in a 1965 revival of The Glass Menagerie
.
In 1966 she took over the role of Yente in Broadway's Fiddler On The Roof
from Beatrice Arthur
, leaving in 1971 (after over 2,000 performances) to open in Neil Simon
's The Prisoner of Second Avenue
, directed by Mike Nichols
. In 1972 she went on to tap dance in the Broadway production of The Secret Affairs Of Mildred Wild, and in 1981 went back to work for Neil Simon in the Broadway production of Fools.
(which starred Sandy Dennis
) in 1967. In 1973 she was asked by Mike Nichols to play a small role in his film The Day of the Dolphin
. She recreated her role in the film version of Prisoner (1975), was again cast by Nichols for The Fortune
(1975), which starred Warren Beatty
and Jack Nicholson
. She then went on to appear in the television series Joe and Sons
for CBS in 1975; that same year Barney Miller
producer Danny Arnold
cast Stanley as Bernice Fish, the wife of Detective Fish (played by Abe Vigoda
). After Barney Miller, Stanley recreated her role as Bernice Fish on the spinoff, Fish. She was in a 1994 movie called Trapped in Paradise
as Edna Ma Firpo.
, and directed three episodes of the series. She made a guest appearance on the TV series Night Court
where she played Judge Wilbur. She later played Dr. Amanda Riskin on Nurses
, provided the voice for Grandma Ethyl Phillips on Dinosaurs
and made guest appearances on such television series as Mad About You
, Malcolm in the Middle
, Mr. Belvedere
and Cybill
. Later film roles include Trouble Bound (1993), Bulworth (1998) and Down With Love (2003). Stanley also played Thelma Griffin in Family Guy
, but was replaced by Phyllis Diller
after her death.
In 2001, she provided the voice of Wilhelmina Packard in Disney's 40th animated feature film, Atlantis: The Lost Empire
, and the direct-to-video
sequel
, Atlantis: Milo's Return
, in 2003.
. She was survived by her husband, Martin Newman, and their two children.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
actress of stage, film, and television.
Early life and career
Florence Stanley was born as Florence Schwartz in ChicagoChicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, the daughter of Hanna (née
Married and maiden names
A married name is the family name adopted by a person upon marriage. When a person assumes the family name of her spouse, the new name replaces the maiden name....
Weil) and Jack Schwartz. She began a long career on stage, film and TV starting in the 1940s. Her earliest theatrical performances include The Importance of Being Earnest with the Touring Players, Bury The Dead at New York's Cherry Lane Theatre, and Machinal
Machinal
Machinal is a play written by American playwright and journalist Sophie Treadwell, inspired by the real life case of convicted and executed murderess Ruth Snyder...
.
During the 1950s, Stanley appeared in numerous live TV shows, and gave an acclaimed performance as Clytemnestra
Clytemnestra
Clytemnestra or Clytaemnestra , in ancient Greek legend, was the wife of Agamemnon, king of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Mycenae or Argos. In the Oresteia by Aeschylus, she was a femme fatale who murdered her husband, Agamemnon – said by Euripides to be her second husband – and the Trojan princess...
in the New York Shakespeare Festival
New York Shakespeare Festival
New York Shakespeare Festival is the previous name of the New York City theatrical producing organization now known as the Public Theater. The Festival produced shows at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park, as part of its free Shakespeare in the Park series, at the Public Theatre near Astor Place...
's 1964 production of Electra
Electra
In Greek mythology, Electra was an Argive princess and daughter of King Agamemnon and Queen Clytemnestra. She and her brother Orestes plotted revenge against their mother Clytemnestra and stepfather Aegisthus for the murder of their father Agamemnon...
, opposite Lee Grant
Lee Grant
Lee Grant is an American stage, film and television actress, and film director. She was blacklisted for 12 years from film work beginning in the mid-1950s, but worked in the theatre, and would eventually win the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance as Felicia Carp in the...
, who played the title role. Stanley began her long career on Broadway as Maureen Stapleton
Maureen Stapleton
Maureen Stapleton was an American actress in film, theater and television.-Early life:Stapleton was born Lois Maureen Stapleton in Troy, New York, the daughter of Irene and John P. Stapleton, and grew up in a strict Irish American Catholic family...
's understudy in a 1965 revival of 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...
.
In 1966 she took over the role of Yente in Broadway's Fiddler On The Roof
Fiddler on the Roof
Fiddler on the Roof is a musical with music by Jerry Bock, lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, and book by Joseph Stein, set in Tsarist Russia in 1905. It is based on Tevye and his Daughters by Sholem Aleichem...
from Beatrice Arthur
Beatrice Arthur
Beatrice "Bea" Arthur was an American actress, comedienne and singer whose career spanned seven decades. Arthur achieved fame as the character Maude Findlay on the 1970s sitcoms All in the Family and Maude, and as Dorothy Zbornak on the 1980s sitcom The Golden Girls, winning Emmy Awards for both...
, leaving in 1971 (after over 2,000 performances) to open in Neil Simon
Neil Simon
Neil Simon is an American playwright and screenwriter. He has written numerous Broadway plays, including Brighton Beach Memoirs, Biloxi Blues, and The Odd Couple. He won the 1991 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his play Lost In Yonkers. He has written the screenplays for several of his plays that...
's The Prisoner of Second Avenue
The Prisoner of Second Avenue
The Prisoner of Second Avenue is an American black comedy play by Neil Simon, later made into a film released in 1975.The play ran on Broadway from November 1971 until September 1973, with Peter Falk and Lee Grant starring as Mel and Edna Edison, and Vincent Gardenia as Mel's brother Harry. The...
, directed by Mike Nichols
Mike Nichols
Mike Nichols is a German-born American television, stage and film director, writer, producer and comedian. He began his career in the 1950s as one half of the comedy duo Nichols and May, along with Elaine May. In 1968 he won the Academy Award for Best Director for the film The Graduate...
. In 1972 she went on to tap dance in the Broadway production of The Secret Affairs Of Mildred Wild, and in 1981 went back to work for Neil Simon in the Broadway production of Fools.
Film roles
Her film roles began with Up the Down StaircaseUp the Down Staircase
Up the Down Staircase is a humorous novel written by Bel Kaufman, and published in 1965.-Plot summary:The plot revolves around Sylvia Barrett, an idealistic English teacher at an inner-city high school who hopes to nurture her students' interest in classic literature and writing...
(which starred Sandy Dennis
Sandy Dennis
Sandra Dale “Sandy” Dennis 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?.-Early life:...
) in 1967. In 1973 she was asked by Mike Nichols to play a small role in his film The Day of the Dolphin
The Day of the Dolphin
The Day of the Dolphin is a 1973 American science-fiction thriller film directed by Mike Nichols and starring George C. Scott. Loosely based on the 1967 novel, Un animal doué de raison , by French writer Robert Merle, the screenplay was written by Buck Henry.-Plot:A brilliant and driven scientist,...
. She recreated her role in the film version of Prisoner (1975), was again cast by Nichols for The Fortune
The Fortune
The Fortune is a 1975 American comedy film starring Jack Nicholson and Warren Beatty, and directed by Mike Nichols. The screenplay by Adrien Joyce focuses on two bumbling con men who plot to steal the money of a wealthy young heiress.-Plot:...
(1975), which starred Warren Beatty
Warren Beatty
Warren Beatty born March 30, 1937) is an American actor, producer, screenwriter and director. He has received a total of fourteen Academy Award nominations, winning one for Best Director in 1982. He has also won four Golden Globe Awards including the Cecil B. DeMille Award.-Early life and...
and Jack Nicholson
Jack Nicholson
John Joseph "Jack" Nicholson is an American actor, film director, producer and writer. He is renowned for his often dark portrayals of neurotic characters. Nicholson has been nominated for an Academy Award twelve times, and has won the Academy Award for Best Actor twice: for One Flew Over the...
. She then went on to appear in the television series Joe and Sons
Joe and Sons
Joe and Sons was a short-lived television series broadcast on CBS from September 9, 1975 to January 13, 1976. It had 15 episodes.The show focused on an Italian-American widower Joe Vitalie who lived in Hoboken, New Jersey with his two teenage sons, Mark and Nick. Gus Duzik worked with him as a...
for CBS in 1975; that same year Barney Miller
Barney Miller
Barney Miller is a situation comedy television series set in a New York City police station in Greenwich Village. The series originally was broadcast from January 23, 1975 to May 20, 1982 on ABC. It was created by Danny Arnold and Theodore J. Flicker...
producer Danny Arnold
Danny Arnold
Danny Arnold was an American producer, writer, comedian, actor and director known for producing Barney Miller, That Girl and Bewitched.-Life and career:...
cast Stanley as Bernice Fish, the wife of Detective Fish (played by Abe Vigoda
Abe Vigoda
Abe Vigoda is an American movie and television actor. Vigoda is well known for his portrayal of Sal Tessio in The Godfather, and for his portrayal of Detective Sgt. Phil Fish on the sitcom television series Barney Miller from 1975–1977 and on its spinoff show Fish that aired from February 1977 to...
). After Barney Miller, Stanley recreated her role as Bernice Fish on the spinoff, Fish. She was in a 1994 movie called Trapped in Paradise
Trapped in Paradise
Trapped in Paradise is a 1994 Christmas-themed crime comedy film written and directed by George Gallo, and starring Nicolas Cage, Jon Lovitz, and Dana Carvey.-Plot:...
as Edna Ma Firpo.
Later roles
She starred as Judge Wilbur on the TV series My Two DadsMy Two Dads
My Two Dads is an American sitcom that starred Staci Keanan, Paul Reiser and Greg Evigan. It aired on NBC from 1987 to 1990 and was produced by Michael Jacobs Productions in association with TriStar Television and distributed by TeleVentures.-Show synopsis:The show begins when Marcy Bradford , the...
, and directed three episodes of the series. She made a guest appearance on the TV series Night Court
Night Court
Night Court is an American television situation comedy that aired on NBC from January 4, 1984, to May 20, 1992. The setting was the night shift of a Manhattan court, presided over by the young, unorthodox Judge Harold T. "Harry" Stone...
where she played Judge Wilbur. She later played Dr. Amanda Riskin on Nurses
Nurses (TV series)
Nurses is an American sitcom that aired on NBC from 1991 to 1994, developed and produced by Susan Harris as a spin-off of Empty Nest .-Synopsis:...
, provided the voice for Grandma Ethyl Phillips on Dinosaurs
Dinosaurs (TV series)
Dinosaurs is an American family sitcom that was originally broadcast on ABC from April 26, 1991 to July 20, 1994. The show, about a family of anthropomorphic dinosaurs, was produced by Michael Jacobs Productions and Jim Henson Television in association with Walt Disney Television and Buena Vista...
and made guest appearances on such television series as Mad About You
Mad About You
Mad About You is an American sitcom that aired on NBC from September 23, 1992 to May 24, 1999. The show starred Paul Reiser and Helen Hunt as a newly married couple in New York City. Reiser played Paul Buchman, a documentary film maker. Hunt played Jamie Stemple Buchman, a public relations specialist...
, Malcolm in the Middle
Malcolm in the Middle
Malcolm in the Middle is an American television sitcom created by Linwood Boomer for the Fox Network. The series was first broadcast on January 9, 2000, and ended its six-and-a-half-year run on May 14, 2006, after seven seasons and 151 episodes...
, Mr. Belvedere
Mr. Belvedere
Mr. Belvedere is an American sitcom that originally aired on ABC from March 15, 1985, until July 8, 1990. The series was based on the Lynn Aloysius Belvedere character created by Gwen Davenport for her 1947 novel Belvedere, which was later adapted into the 1948 film Sitting Pretty...
and Cybill
Cybill
Cybill is an American television sitcom created by Chuck Lorre, which aired on CBS from January 2, 1995 to July 13, 1998. Starring Cybill Shepherd, the series revolves around Cybill Sheridan, a twice-divorced single mother of two and struggling actress in her 40s, who has never gotten her show...
. Later film roles include Trouble Bound (1993), Bulworth (1998) and Down With Love (2003). Stanley also played Thelma Griffin in Family Guy
Family Guy
Family Guy is an American animated television series created by Seth MacFarlane for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series centers on the Griffins, a dysfunctional family consisting of parents Peter and Lois; their children Meg, Chris, and Stewie; and their anthropomorphic pet dog Brian...
, but was replaced by Phyllis Diller
Phyllis Diller
Phyllis Diller is an American actress and comedian. She created a stage persona of a wild-haired, eccentrically dressed housewife who makes jokes about a husband named "Fang" while pretending to smoke from a long cigarette holder...
after her death.
In 2001, she provided the voice of Wilhelmina Packard in Disney's 40th animated feature film, Atlantis: The Lost Empire
Atlantis: The Lost Empire
Atlantis: The Lost Empire is a 2001 American animated film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation. Written by Tab Murphy, directed by Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise, and produced by Don Hahn, it is the first science fiction film in the Disney animated features canon and the 41st overall. The film...
, and the direct-to-video
Direct-to-video
Direct-to-video is a term used to describe a film that has been released to the public on home video formats without being released in film theaters or broadcast on television...
sequel
Sequel
A sequel is a narrative, documental, or other work of literature, film, theatre, or music that continues the story of or expands upon issues presented in some previous work...
, Atlantis: Milo's Return
Atlantis: Milo's Return
Atlantis: Milo's Return, released in 2003, is Disney's twentieth animated direct-to-video sequel. It is a sequel to the film Atlantis: The Lost Empire....
, in 2003.
Death
On October 3, 2003, Stanley died of complications from a strokeStroke
A stroke, previously known medically as a cerebrovascular accident , is the rapidly developing loss of brain function due to disturbance in the blood supply to the brain. This can be due to ischemia caused by blockage , or a hemorrhage...
. She was survived by her husband, Martin Newman, and their two children.