Alice Drummond

Alice Drummond ( born May 21, 1928 in Providence, Rhode Iceland, actually Alice Ruyter ) is an American actress. Since the 1950s, she appeared in over 200 film, theater and television roles of all genres in appearance. Since the 1980s, it is mainly occupied in the role of eccentric older lady who among other things, in movies like Ghostbusters - embodied Ghostbusters (1984 ), To Wong Foo, thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar (1995 ) and Doubt (2008).

Biography

Training and theatrical career

Alice Drummond was born in 1928 as Alice Ruyter in Providence ( other claims to 1929 Pawtucket ). The daughter of a car mechanic and a secretary grew up in Pawtucket. Even as a child she was sometimes taken by her mother to theater performances to Boston. In high school, Drummond arrived in school plays at numerous leading roles and then attended Pembroke College of Brown University in her hometown. There she was in her junior year of student association Phi Beta Kappa. After graduating college in 1950 and appearances in performances of the theater group Brown's Sock and Buskin Drama Society of the mid-1950s, she went to New York to pursue a serious acting career. In the next ten years, however, Drummond had difficulties to get to theater roles and received an invitation to audition for off -Broadway productions. She earned thereupon their livelihood with various office work and performed in summer theater performances in the Midwest and Nantucket.

It was only in her thirties came to Drummond Off-Broadway roles. Fabulous reviews she received for the part of Anne of Cleves in a production of Hermann Gressiekers piece Royal Gambit. This was followed by another off-Broadway roles, however, to the frustration of the actress only a main role in which she played the innocent -naive. Also held Drummond from the late 1950s only minor roles on Broadway, where she made her debut in 1959 in a revival of the Aristophanes comedy Lysistrata. On Broadway, she appeared in both classic pieces such as Ingrid and Lady Northumberland in the Shakespeare works Peer Gynt or Henry IV, Part II (both 1960) as well as contemporary fabrics by Edward Albee (The Ballad of the Sad Cafe, 1963/64; Malcolm, 1966).

One of her greatest achievements was the comedy The Chinese and Dr. Fish (1970 ) on the side of Joseph Bova and William Devane at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre. The part of Mrs. Lee in the one-act play in 1970 earned her first nomination for the Tony Award, the most important American theater award, a. Six years later Drummond was re- nominated for her supporting role of Agnes in Arvin Brown's production of A Memory of Two Mondays at the Playhouse Theatre. In the revival on a play by Arthur Miller, which was performed in conjunction with the Tennessee Williams play 27 Wagons Full of Cotton, included the young actor John Lithgow and Meryl Streep her stage partner. In the early 1990s, the actress cried as scatterbrained and plagued by back pain Aunt Ruth Scott McPherson's award-winning black-humored drama Marvin 's Room (1991 /92) in memory. To the disappointment of Drummonds but it was in the same Oscar -nominated film adaptation of the Off-Broadway piece replaced by Gwen Verdon.

Film career

In addition to her work in the theater appeared Drummond since the mid-1960s to more than 60 film and television production. She debuted the role of Sister Jackson in a few episodes of the popular supernatural television series Dark Shadows on American television. Her first feature film appearance Drummond graduated with a minor role in Carl Reiner's jet-black comedy Where's Daddy? (1970). Subsequently, she appeared regularly in American feature films of all genres, including Peter Yates ' thriller Eyewitness (1981) and The House on Carroll Street ( 1988), George Roy Hill's comedy Funny Farm or Sidney Lumet's drama Running on Empty (both 1988). Although Drummond acted in these productions alongside such well-known fellow actors such as Chevy Chase, Jeff Daniels, William Hurt, Kelly McGillis, River Phoenix and Sigourney Weaver, but it was almost universally subscribed to minor supporting roles or extras parts in which they regularly eccentric elderly ladies a face gave ( " Even when I was on the Brown, I have little old ladies played "). This has favored in later years a rheumatic arthritis slowed her walk and also left traces on their hands.

Among the best known film roles Drummonds include the startled librarian in the opening sequence of Ivan Reitman's Ghostbusters - Ghostbusters (1984 ), the suffering from sleeping sickness patient in Penny Marshall's Oscar -nominated drama Awakenings (1990 ), Alzheimer's sick villager in Robert Benton Nobody's Fool - in the long run irresistible ( 1994) or the slow erblindende Catholic nun in John Patrick Shanley's Veronica Doubt (2008). From the late 1990s, Drummond got larger roles in independent films, including the grandmother of Ally Sheedy in Adrienne Shelly's I'll Take You There (1999), the grandmother Dottie in Pieces of April - A day with April Burns (2003) and the elderly hospital patient in Tom Hines ' award-winning drama Chronic Town (2008), for which she received praise from critics. Frequently Drummond also took on guest appearances on American television series such as Kate & Allie (1988 ), Law & Order (1994 ), Cosby (1996 ) or Boston Legal ( 2005).

From 1951 until the divorce in 1975, the actress was married to Paul Drummond, whose name she took. She lives together with her partner, a retired teacher in Manhattan.

Plays ( selection)

Filmography (selection)

Awards

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