Helen Stenborg, 86, veteran stage actress

March 26, 2011|By Mark Kennedy, Associated Press

Helen Stenborg appeared in Morris Panychs Vigil. (Carol Rosegg/Associated…)

NEW YORK — Helen Stenborg, a Tony-nominated stage, film, and TV actress who was the wife of the late Tony Award-winning actor Barnard Hughes and mother of the Tony Award-winning director Doug Hughes, died Tuesday. She was 86.

Ms. Stenborg, who earned a Tony nomination for her 1999 role as pyromaniac Sarita Myrtle in Noel Coward’s “Waiting in the Wings,’’ died at her Manhattan apartment.

Ms. Stenborg and her husband celebrated their 50th anniversary onstage in the Coward play and were honored with Drama Desk Awards for Lifetime Achievement in 2000.

Ms. Stenborg’s last Broadway performance was in 2002 in Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible’’ with Liam Neeson and Laura Linney.

She was a longtime member of New York’s Circle Repertory Company, appearing with William Hurt, Jeff Daniels, and Judd Hirsch in the original productions of Lanford Wilson’s “The Hot L Baltimore,’’ and “Talley and Son,’’ for which she won an Obie Award in 1986.

Her film credits includes the Academy Award-winning short, “Her Mother Dreams,’’ as well as the movies “On the Hook’’ with Frank Langella and Elliot Gould; “Three Days of the Condor;’’ “Starting Over’’ with Jill Clayburgh and Burt Reynolds; “Enchanted;’’ and “Doubt’’ with Meryl Streep. She also played an evil housekeeper on the soap opera “Another World.’’

In September, Ms. Stenborg appeared in Morris Panych’s “Vigil’’ off-Broadway with Malcolm Gets, winning The Richard Seff Award for the best performance by a veteran female character actress in a supporting role.