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Telegram & Gazette (12/Sep/1994) - Jessica Tandy dies of cancer

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Jessica Tandy dies of cancer

Jessica Tandy, who won an Academy Award at age 80 for her portrayal of a spirited Southern matriarch in "Driving Miss Daisy," died yesterday in her Easton, Conn., home after a four-year battle with ovarian cancer. She was 85.

Her husband, actor Hume Cronyn, was by her side when she died about 6 a.m., Leslee Dart, the couple's press agent, said in announcing the death.

Tandy's acting career spanned more than 60 years, mostly on stage in New York and London. She was Broadway's original Blanche DuBois in the memorable 1947 production of Tennessee Williams' "A Streetcar Named Desire" that co-starred Marlon Brando as Stanley Kowalski.

Some of her best-known stage appearances were with Cronyn, her second husband. Together they starred on Broadway in such plays as "The Fourposter," "The Physicists," "A Delicate Balance," "Noel Coward in Two Keys," "The Gin Game," "Foxfire" and "The Petition."

Both were nominees in yesterday's Emmy awards for their performances in "Hallmark Hall of Fame: To Dance With the White Dog." The CBS made-for-TV movie is about an elderly man who loses his wife and is comforted when her spirit returns to him in the form of a white dog.

MARRIED 50 YEARS

Tandy and Cronyn celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in 1992. Dart said it was "hard to imagine one without the other."

The actress won three Tony awards, Broadway's highest honor — first for "Streetcar" in 1948, then "The Gin Game" in 1978 and "Foxfire" in 1983.

But it was as Daisy Werthan, the independent, crotchety widow who forms a deep friendship with her black chauffeur, that Tandy scored her biggest popular success. "Driving Miss Daisy," adapted from Alfred Uhry's Pulitzer Prize-winning play, was a box-office and artistic hit, grossing more than $100 million and winning a best-picture Oscar in 1990 as well as the top acting award for Tandy.

"I'm not a big movie name, and I knew they needed someone who was bankable," Tandy said at the time. "Certainly, in films, I've played small supporting roles for the most part. What has been happening to the film is remarkable, but there is something about the story that has allowed the play to run for years."

Karl Malden, who starred with Tandy and Brando in "Streetcar" in 1947 and remained a friend of Tandy and Cronyn for 47 years, said she had a gentle way of keeping the other actors in line in "Streetcar."

"We used to kid about it but we meant it — she was like the mother hen, she was the real pro in that company," Malden said. "She really kept it together. She did it with class. There was no screaming and shouting. She said, "It's time to go to work, let's go to work and get it over with,' and we did."

Besides "Miss Daisy," Tandy's movies included "The Seventh Cross" (1944), "Forever Amber" (1947), Walt Disney's "Light in the Forest" (1958), Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds" (1963), "Butley" (1974) with Alan Bates, "The World According to Garp" (1982) with Robin Williams, "The Bostonians" (1984), "Cocoon" (1985), "Fried Green Tomatoes" (1991) and "Used People" (1992).

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