Eileen Heckart Movies
Over her long career, character actress Eileen Heckart has distinguished herself on stage, television, and in feature films. Tall and thin with sharp angular features, she often plays outspoken, strong-willed, and highly intelligent women. Fans of The Mary Tyler Moore show from the 1970s will remember Heckart for playing Mary's brassy Aunt Flo. Trained at the American Theater Wing following studies at Ohio State University, Heckart was on Broadway in the early '40s and appeared in numerous major productions. For the 1957-1958 theater season, Heckart earned a New York Drama Critics Award for her work in The Dark at the Top of the Stairs. She has won six Tony nominations during her stage career and in the late '90s was inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame. Heckart began her sporadic television career in 1952 and made her feature-film debut with Miracle in the Rain (1956). She earned a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination that year for her work in The Bad Seed (1956); she was also awarded a Golden Globe for the film. In 1972, she won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar in 1976 for her role in Butterflies Are Free. In 1967, Heckert received an Emmy for Win Me a Place at Forest Lawn. She won her second one in 1994 for a 1993 appearance on the sitcom Love & War. In addition to her many kudos, Heckart has also been awarded three honorary doctorates. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide- 1989
Based on the famous play by Henrik Ibsen, this 1989 adaptation is one of several filmed versions of the classic tale. Claire Bloom stars as Nora Helmer, a housewife who long-ago saved the life of her ailing husband Torvald (Oscar-winner Anthony Hopkins) by forging her father's signature on a loan. She has spent her life in fear that the crime would be exposed. When the truth finally does come out, Nora learns more than she expected to about her controlling husband and her own inner strength. ~ Bernadette McCallion, All Movie Guide
- 1959
A Doll's House is a 90-minute TV adaptation of the 1879 play by Henrik Ibsen. Julie Harris stars as Nora Helmer, the dutiful wife of Torvald Helmer (Christopher Plummer). Though Torvald loves his wife, he considers her a child and a possession. What he doesn't know is that, years earlier, Nora saved his life by borrowing money when he was seriously ill. Now Nils Krogstad (Hume Cronyn) the man who lent Nora the necessary funds, has returned, expecting a special sort of restitution. Torvald's reaction to the crisis transforms Nora from a "doll-wife" into an emancipated woman no longer dependent upon the largess of the men in her life. Richard Thomas, future star of The Waltons, is cast herein as Ivor, the Helmers' young son. Adapted for television by James Costigan, A Doll's House was originally telecast November 15, 1959, on NBC's Hallmark Hall of Fame; the program was originally shown in color, though existing kinescopes are in black-and-white. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1961
Lucy Baldwin (Eileen Heckart) hopes to escape her domineering invalid mother (Madge Kennedy) by marrying her new beau, Arthur (Don DeFore). Assuming that Arthur is just a fortune hunter, Lucy's mom refuses to allow the marriage, prompting Lucy to commit murder. Ultimately, Lucy and Arthur are wed--but their troubles have only just begun. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1976
In the first episode of a two-part story, Eileen Heckart guest stars as Rose, the opinionated, overbearing mother-in-law of widow Alice Hyatt (Linda Lavin). Having always regarded Rose's visits as a cause for alarm, Alice is prepared to spend a miserable weekend with her contentious in-law. But she isn't prepared for Rose's announcement that she has left her husband Charlie and intends to move in with Alice permanently! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1976
In the conclusion of a two-part story, Alice (Linda Lavin) despairs over the likelihood that her overbearing mother-in-law Rose (Eileen Heckart) will move to Phoenix permanently. The only way out of this devastating dilemma is to patch up the differences between Rose and her estranged husband Charlie (Murray Hamilton). Problem is, Charlie is apparently having a grand old time as an "instant" bachelor. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Based on the best-selling memoirs of Lillian Rogers Parks, the NBC miniseries Backstairs at the White House traces over five decades of American political history as witnessed from the vantage point of the servants' quarters. Played by Tania Johnson as a teenager and by Leslie Uggams as an adult, Lillian Rogers Parks served for 52 years as a maidservant at the White House. Though crippled early on with polio, Lillian diligently and loyally stuck to her duties -- and her own rock-solid set of principles and ideals -- through eight highly different Presidential administrations, often (and occasionally reluctantly) acting as friend and confidante to the First Lady of the moment. The large and stellar cast included a number of top-rank film and TV actors, obviously having the time of their lives impersonating such presidents as William Howard Taft, Woodrow Wilson, Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, and Dwight D. Eisenhower, and their respective wives. Also in the cast were several African-American veterans from the landmark TV miniseries Roots. Earning 11 Emmy Award nominations, the nine-hour Backstairs at the White House was seen in five installments from January 29 to February 19, 1979. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Leslie Uggams, Olivia Cole, (more)
- 1994
In this drama based on Anne Tyler's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, the long marriage of a couple en route to a funeral is seen from the viewpoint of those they encounter during the trip. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
Dan Curtis, director of TV's Dark Shadows series, directed this eerie haunted-house thriller about a house which draws energy from its inhabitants and selects its own "keeper" from the family of Ben and Marian Rolf (Oliver Reed & Karen Black), who rent the strangely-affordable house one fateful summer then find themselves slowly succumbing to its creepy powers. The photography is suitably moody, and many of the standard haunted-house cliches are used to decent effect -- particularly a violent scene in which the surrounding woods form a barrier to prevent the family station wagon from escaping the area -- but the pace is too leisurely overall, climaxing with the type of grim ending employed by nearly every mainstream horror film in the late 70's. Black's spooky looks are used to maximum effect, but are never quite as chilling as the final shot of Curtis's TV movie Trilogy of Terror from the previous year. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Karen Black, Oliver Reed, (more)
In this cinemadaptation of William Inge's Broadway comedy Bus Stop, Marilyn Monroe is cast as Cherie, a fifth-rate nightclub chanteuse who captures the heart of Montana rodeo champ Bo (Don Murray). He, in turn, kidnaps Cherie and bundles her off to the roadside bus stop of the title. Gradually, the headstrong Bo learns that you can't rope a gal the same way you lasso a steer, but before this happens his face is rearranged by gallant bus driver Carl (Robert Bray). By this time, however, Cherie has fallen in love with her impulsive but basically good-hearted abductor. Others in the cast include Arthur O'Connell as Bo's level-headed travelling companion and "protector" Virgil, Betty Field as down-to-earth bus stop proprietress Grace, and Eileen Heckart as Cherie's confidante Vera. The film later inspired a 1961 TV series. A few TV prints of Bus Stop still exist bearing the alternate title Wrong Kind of Girl. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Marilyn Monroe, Don Murray, (more)
Leonard Gershe based his play Butterflies are Free on a real-life blind attorney. The film version stars Edward Albert as Don Baker, a self-reliant, sightless young man who becomes the object of affection for kooky Jill (Goldie Hawn). Spending most of the film in nothing but her underwear, Jill makes love to Don, then tries to help him break free from the smothering influence of his mother, a children's-story writer (Eileen Heckart). The situation grows tense when Jill's boyfriend (Paul Michael Glaser) enters the scene. Eileen Heckart won an Academy Award for her performance. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Goldie Hawn, Edward Albert, (more)
- 1980
Jason Robards stars as the ailing, 62-year-old President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in F.D.R.: The Last Year. Though visibly frail and weary, Roosevelt runs for a precedent-setting fourth term. He also oversees plans for the D-Day Invasion and engages in tempestuous summit meetings with his wartime allies Stalin (Nehemiah Persoff) and Churchill (Wensley Pithey). Eileen Heckart co-stars as Eleanor Roosevelt, while Kim Hunter plays his "great and good friend," artist Lucy Rutherfurd, who is at his side when he suffers his fatal cerebral hemorrhage in April of 1945. The 3-hour, made-for-TV F.D.R.: The Last Year was first telecast May 15, 1980. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1982
Loretta Swit was still appearing on a weekly basis in MASH when she starred in the made-for-TV Games Mother Never Taught You. She plays Laura Bentells, the first female executive in a traditionally "good ole boy" office. Refusing to be patronized or disregarded, Laura quickly learns the ropes of corporate gamesmanship. Sam Waterston and Eileen Heckart co-star as, respectively, Laura's husband and mother. And that's an uncredited Madlyn Rhue as the wife of skirt-chasing executive David Spielberg. Based on the "from the front lines" book by Betty Lehan Harrigan, Games Mother Never Taught You first aired November 27, 1982. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Loretta Swit, Edward Grover, (more)
- 1955
This live Goodyear TV Playhouse presentation was a 60-minute extension of The Marriage, a short-lived TV series which starred Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy. It is 23 days until Christmas, and Liz and Ben Marriott (Tandy and Cronyn) are nearly broke. To help pay the bills and finance their upcoming holiday celebration, Liz accepts a temporary job at a New York City department store, much to the dismay of her breadwinner husband Ben. Meanwhile, the couple's children (one of whom is played by Natalie Trundy, later a semi-regular in the Planet of the Apes film series) show signs of rebellion against the modern-day crass commercialization of Christmas. Playwright Ernest Kinoy, the guiding creative force behind the original The Marriage, wrote the teleplay, while costar Hume Cronyn served as one of the two directors. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1956
Hollywood's archetypal "good woman" Greer Garson pulls off an astonishing about-face as the wicked, scheming Regina Giddens in this 90-minute Hallmark Hall of Fame adaptation of Lillian Hellman's 1939 stage drama The Little Foxes. Set in the post-Civil War South, the plot involves the underhanded machinations of the hateful Hubbard family to increase their already considerable financial holdings. Despising each other as much as their neighbors, the Hubbards also connive to cut each other out of the windfall and end up with the lion's share of the money. But the plan hinges upon the financial largess of ailing Horace Giddens (Franchot Tone), estranged husband of the beautiful but deadly Regina Hubbard Giddens (Garson) -- and he's not interested in doing anything to benefit his wife's despicable siblings. This first-ever TV version of The Little Foxes originally aired live and in color. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Having spent much of his directorial career emulating Don Siegel and John Ford, Clint Eastwood borrows a page from the catalogue of Sam Fuller in Heartbreak Ridge. Eastwood casts himself as an old-fashioned Marine Corps sergeant who is out of step with the new-fashioned military. He returns to his old outfit as a gunnery sergeant, where he runs afoul of 1980s-style superior officers to whom the words "Gung Ho" are foolish anachronisms. But through his tough tutelage, Eastwood's lackadaisical platoon is whipped into a first-rate fighting machine, favoring teamwork over such New Age gobbledygook as "self-fulfillment." Eastwood's men prove their mettle during the invasion of Grenada. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Clint Eastwood, Marsha Mason, (more)
The talents of the cast and director George Cukor (A Star Is Born, My Fair Lady), combine to bring off this otherwise routine Western based on a Louis L'Amour novel. Sophia Loren is Angela Rossini, a woman who seems to create the situations she gets into, and Anthony Quinn is the strong, silent but soft-hearted Tom Healy. Rather than playing it straight, Cukor opts for satire and effective comedy in taking "The Great Healy Dramatic and Concert Co.," with its two-wagon loads of thespians and their gear, and turning it into a fun romp. As the troupe carries on with their performances heading through Wyoming, they are fighting for their economic survival and, as often as not, running like the devil from the law. There is a likeable villain in the piece, Mabry (Steve Forrest), a zany woman who has "sacrificed" her own dubious stage career for that of her daughter (Eileen Heckart), a so-called Shakespearean actor (Edmund Love), a banker with menacing undertones (Ramon Novarro), and a really hysterical Indian attack. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sophia Loren, Anthony Quinn, (more)
- 1985
A strong cast of veteran stage and screen actors distinguish this episode, in which a neighborhood largely comprised of senior citizens is in danger of obliteration. A soulless band of businessman intends to seize the neighborhood in a hostile corporate takeover for their own selfish purposes. If ever a situation needed the strong, guiding hand of angels Jonathan Smith (Michael Landon) and Mark Gordon (Victor French), this is it! ~ All Movie Guide
- 1958
Anthony Quinn and Shirley Booth play a married couple who cling and claw like cats in a bathtub in this sudsy melodrama set in steamy New Orleans. Booth does most of the clinging as a neglected wife struggling to reassemble her battered marriage to Quinn who plays a faithless husband in love with tender young Valerie Allen, something Booth tries her best to ignore. Unfortunately, despite her efforts, her children are not spared the spousal turmoil. Matters are not helped when Earl Holliman, the eldest son, decides to leave his father's employment business and start his own. The youngest son Clint Kimbrough finds it all terribly upsetting. Meanwhile his sister Shirley MacLaine becomes deeply depressed after her father threatens her boyfriend in an effort to get him to marry her. Now MacLaine is left with no one. The fur really begins to fly when Quinn, tired of the tumult, decides to chuck the whole family and move to Florida with Allen. Tragedy ensues for the wicked duo. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Shirley Booth, Anthony Quinn, (more)
- 1979
Ray Bolger guest stars in this special 90-minute episode as Toby Noe, a hard-drinking drifter whom the Ingalls befriended while living in Winoka. Shambling into Walnut Grove just before a much-anticipated community dance, Toby immediately sets his cap for prudish spinster Amanda Jane Cooper (Eileen Heckart). Though it would seem that no romance could possibly bloom from this situation, Laura (Melissa Gilbert) and Albert (Matthew Laborteaux) nonetheless decide to try their hand at matchmaking. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michael Landon, Karen Grassle, (more)
The fate that brings lovers together can easily tear them apart as can be seen in this sentimental tragedy that centers on an ordinary-looking secretary's (Jane Wyman) lonely life. Other than working and spending some free time with a spinster (Eileen Heckart), who is her best friend, the woman devotes most of her time attempting to cheer up her deeply depressed, eternally grieving mother, who has never recovered from her husband's leaving her. One day the secretary is in Central Park when a cloudburst occurs and she ends up meeting a handsome young soldier from Tennessee (Van Johnson). Although they couldn't be more different, they fall deeply in love. Unfortunately, he goes overseas and gets killed. The poor secretary nearly falls apart both mentally and physically. She seems near death when one day she is walking near St. Patrick's Cathedral when a second miracle occurs, giving her the will to live again. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jane Wyman, Van Johnson, (more)
- 1963
This was the first film directed by dancer and choreographer Gower Champion, already experienced at directing television and theatrical productions by the early '60s. The routine romantic comedy, somewhat bogged down by the children it features, is centered on overwrought actress Janice Courtney (Debbie Reynolds). She has had it with paparazzi and publicity campaigns and escapes to the Connecticut countryside for a little R & R. At that point, a half-dozen youngsters intrude into her life after they are abandoned by their ne'er-do-well guardians, and though she is anything but enthusiastic, Janice takes them under her frayed wings. The local pastor, Rev. Jim Larkin (Cliff Robertson) has something to do with that, and ultimately, more than a little something to do with Janice's personal life. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Debbie Reynolds, Cliff Robertson, (more)
- 1962
Greenwich Village poet Duncan Kleist (Burgess Meredith) goes on a violent rampage early one morning, accosting people he meets for money and for help in mailing a parcel he's carrying. This leads to a confrontation with Stanley Dorkner (Herschel Bernardi). The two argue and fight, and Kleist is left to die on the street alone, his parcel gone and no witnesses to the assault. Detective Adam Flint (Paul Burke) leads the investigation -- but to determine who killed Kleist, he must first find out why he was killed. Flint interviews Mildred Pepper (Eileen Heckart), whom he lived with and abused for 20 years; Kleist's boyhood friend Kip Harris (Sanford Meisner), now a successful publisher, who wanted to see more of Kleist's work in print; Dorkner, to whom Kleist owed a 500-dollar bar tab; and the people with whom Kleist crossed paths on the last night of his life. The detective pieces together the tormented life of a shattered genius and finds out that Kleist had just been told that he had only days to live, a result of his alcoholism; he also learns that Kleist had planned to mail his unpublished manuscripts to his home town in Iowa, specifically to a woman he'd conjured up in his ramblings across the years named Gloria Christmas. Flint also discovers that the manuscripts were valuable enough to kill for -- and for Kleist to kill for. A humiliating confrontation with a young poet (Alan Alda) at Dorkner's tavern the night before Kleist's death had only brought matters to a head, and led to the murderous confrontation. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Burgess Meredith, Herschel Bernardi, (more)
New York detective Moe Brummell (George Segal) is assigned to track down a serial killer who has been preying on lonely middle-aged ladies. Each of the bodies is discovered with a lipstick kiss drawn on the forehead. We know (but Brummell doesn't) that the murderer is Christopher Gill (Rod Steiger), a round-the-bend actor whose hatred for his mother has driven him to his killing spree. Gill is fond of adopting a different personality and costume with each killing (a priest, a homosexual, a plumber etc.), making him doubly difficult to trace. When Brummell comments to the media that he's up against a criminal genius, he finds himself the reluctant recipient of Gill's anonymous phone calls, wherein the killer plants cryptic clues leading to his next crime. It may not be readily apparent from the previous sentence, but No Way to Treat a Lady is a comedy-albeit a jet-black one. Moe Brummell is hampered with an archetypal Jewish mamma (Eileen Heckart), who in her own way is as deadly as the elusive Christopher Gill. Lee Remick plays Brummell's girl friend, who, as the only person who might be able to identify Gill, is placed in harm's way at the film's climax. A curious by-product of No Way to Treat a Lady is the fact that Rod Steiger was cast in the lead in the 1976 biopic W.C. Fields and Me on the basis of the third-rate Fields imitation he offers to George Segal during one of his taunting phone calls. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Rod Steiger, Lee Remick, (more)
