Zoe Caldwell
| Zoe Caldwell | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Ada Caldwell 14 September 1933 Melbourne, Victoria, Australia |
| Residence | Pound Ridge, New York, United States[1] |
| Occupation | Actress |
| Years active | 1960–present |
| Spouse(s) | Robert Whitehead (m. 1968–2002) |
| Children | 2 |
Zoe Caldwell, OBE (born Ada Caldwell; 14 September 1933, Melbourne) is an Australian actress. She is a four-time Tony Award winner, and is the voice of the Grand Councilwoman in the Lilo & Stitch franchise.
Early life
She was born Ada Caldwell in Melbourne, Victoria and raised in the suburb of Balwyn. Her father, Edgar, was a plumber.[2] Caldwell's mother often took some of the neighbourhood kids to the Elizabethan Theatre in Richmond where they could go backstage and watch rehearsals and performances.[3][4]
Career
Caldwell began her career in Melbourne in the 1950s and early 1960s, performing with the newly formed Union Theatre Repertory Company (later the Melbourne Theatre Company).[5]
She emigrated to England upon being invited to join the RSC at a time when Charles Laughton was attempting Lear, and Vanessa Redgrave, Eileen Atkins, Albert Finney were among the other newcomers in the company. She played Bianca in the 1959 production of Othello, starring Paul Robeson. Later she played the indomitable Helena, opposite Dame Edith Evans in a production of All's Well That Ends Well. Her career later brought her to America, where she was one of the original company of actors under Guthrie's direction at the Tyrone Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis. At the Guthrie, she played parts such as Ophelia in Hamlet and Natasha in Three Sisters.
A life member of the Actors Studio,[6] Caldwell has won four Tony Awards for her performances on Broadway in Tennessee Williams' Slapstick Tragedy, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Medea and Master Class. In the last she portrayed opera diva Maria Callas. In Stratford, Ontario she has worked often, including her role as Cleopatra in Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra opposite Christopher Plummer's Mark Antony in 1967.
Other credits on Broadway include Arthur Miller's The Creation of the World and Other Business in which she played Eve, a one-woman play by William Luce based on the life of Lillian Hellman and a production of Macbeth with Christopher Plummer as Macbeth and Glenda Jackson as Lady Macbeth under Caldwell's direction. Caldwell directed, Off-Broadway, a two-woman play, created by Eileen Atkins, Vita and Virginia, based on the letters between Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West. Atkins played Virginia and Vanessa Redgrave played Vita. Caldwell directed the Broadway production of Othello in the late 1970s with James Earl Jones, Christopher Plummer, and Dianne Wiest. She helmed the American Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford, Connecticut for two limited-run seasons as its Artistic Director in the mid-1980s.
She has also appeared on film, most notably as an imperious dowager in Woody Allen's The Purple Rose of Cairo. In 2002, she starred in the film Just a Kiss. She voiced the character of the Grand Councilwoman in Disney's Lilo & Stitch, and continued voicing the character in the franchise's later films and in Lilo & Stitch: The Series, as well as in Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep.[7] She appeared in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close in 2011.
Personal life
Caldwell graduated from the Methodist Ladies College and, much later, received an honorary degree from the University of Melbourne. She was married in 1968 to Canadian-born Broadway producer Robert Whitehead, a cousin of actor Hume Cronyn. They had two sons and were married until Whitehead's death in June 2002.[8]
Filmography
Film
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1959 | A Midsummer Night's Dream | Fairy | Television film |
| 1961 | Macbeth | Lady Macbeth | Television film |
| 1964 | Dear Liar | Mrs. Patrick Campbell | Television film |
| 1968 | The Secret of Michelangelo | Narrator | Television film |
| 1983 | Medea | Medea | Television film |
| 1985 | The Purple Rose of Cairo | The Countess | |
| 1989 | Lantern Hill | Mrs. Kennedy | Television film |
| 2002 | Lilo & Stitch | Grand Councilwoman (voice) | |
| 2003 | Stitch! The Movie | Grand Councilwoman (voice) | Direct-to-video |
| 2004 | Birth | Mrs. Hill | |
| 2004 | Stitch's Great Escape! | Grand Councilwoman (voice) | Short film |
| 2006 | Leroy & Stitch | Grand Councilwoman (voice) | Direct-to-video |
| 2011 | Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close | Oskar's Grandmother |
Theatre Credits
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2003 | The Visit | Claire Zachanassian | Melbourne Theatre Company |
| 2003 | The Play What I Wrote | Mystery Guest Star - replacement | Lyceum Theater |
| 1995-1997 | Master Class | Maria Callas | John Golden Theater - Tony Award |
| 1991 | Park Your Car In Harvard Yard | Director | Music Box Theater |
| 1988 | Macbeth | Director | Mark Hellinger Theatre |
| 1986 | Lillian | Lillian | Ethel Barrymore Theater |
| 1985 | Medea | Medea | Cort Theater - Tony Award |
| 1977 | An Almost Perfect Person | Director | Belasco Theater |
| 1974 | Dance of Death | Alice | Vivian Beaumont Theater |
| 1972 | The Creation of the World and Other Business | Eve | Shubert Theater |
| 1968 | The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie | Jean Brodie | Helen Hayes Theater - Tony Award |
| 1966 | Slapstick Tragedy | Polly | Longacre Theater - Tony Award |
| 1965 | The Devils | Sister Jean of the Angels - replacement | Broadway Theatre |
Television
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1960 | BBC Sunday Night Play | Ruth Honeywill | Episode: "Twentieth Century Theatre: Justice" |
| 1960 | ITV Playhouse | Louise | Episode: "The Song of Louise in the Morning" |
| 1960 | Suspense | Kathy Harrigton | Episode: "Flight 404" |
| 1960 | Theatre 70 | Episode: "The Neighbour" | |
| 1963 | Festival | Episode: "The Doctor's Dilemma" | |
| 1964 | Playdate | Streetwalker | Episode: "A Night Out" |
| 1971 | Great Performances | Sarah Benhardt | Episode: "Sarah ... Sarah Benhardt" |
| 1978 | Play of the Month | Mme. Arkadina | Episode: "The Seagull" |
| 1986 | American Masters | Carlotta Monterey O'Neill | Episode: "Eugene O'Neill: A Glory of Ghosts" |
| 1990 | Road to Avonlea | Old Lady Lloyd | Episode: "Old Lady Lloyd" |
| 2003 | Lilo & Stitch: The Series | Grand Councilwoman (voice) | Episode: "Finder: Experiment #428" |
Video Games
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2002 | Disney's Stitch: Experiment 626 | Grand Councilwoman | |
| 2010 | Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep | Grand Councilwoman |
Bibliography
- Caldwell, Zoe (2001). I will be Cleopatra: An Actress's Journey. Melbourne: Text Publishing. ISBN 1-877008-03-6.
References
- ↑ "Happy Birthday To Pound Ridge's Zoe Caldwell". poundridge.dailyvoice.com. 30 September 2014. Retrieved 14 January 2016.
- ↑ Nightingale, Benedict. Her Infinite Variety, New York Times, 21 October 2001; accessed 27 May 2008.
- ↑ "Zoe Caldwell's honorary degree". University of Melbourne. Archived from the original on 30 August 2006. Retrieved 13 November 2006.
- ↑ "New York State Writers Institute on Caldwell". State University of New York. Archived from the original on 31 October 2006. Retrieved 13 November 2006.
- ↑ "Zoe Caldwell". AusStage.
- ↑ David Garfield (1980). "Appendix: Life Members of the Actors Studio as of January 1980". A Player's Place: The Story of the Actors Studio. New York: MacMillan Publishing Co., Inc. p. 277. ISBN 0-02-542650-8.
- ↑ "Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep details". IMDb. Retrieved 14 January 2015.
- ↑ Gussow, Mel. "Robert Whitehead, Who Brought Top Playwrights to Broadway, Dies at 86" The New York Times, 17 June 2002; accessed 27 January 2014.
External links
- Zoe Caldwell at the Internet Broadway Database
- Zoe Caldwell at the Internet Movie Database
- Zoe Caldwell at the Internet Off-Broadway Database