Image by getty images

Tony-winning actress Marian Seldes, regarded as one of the great ladies of the American stage and famed for never missing a single performance during an entire four-year Broadway run of “Deathtrap,” died her Manhattan home on Monday at age 86.

Her death, which followed a prolonged illness, was announced by her brother, Timothy Seldes, in a statement issued through a longtime publicist, Sam Rudy.

In a career spanning six decades, Seldes performed in film, television and radio but was most celebrated for her theater work, making her Broadway debut in 1948 in the Robinson Jeffers adaptation of “Medea,” directed by John Gielgud and starring Judith Anderson in the title role.

Forwarding the News

Thoughtful, balanced reporting from the Forward and around the web, bringing you updated news and analysis each day.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

Seldes earned five Tony nominations, winning the award her first time out in 1967 for her supporting role in “A Delicate Balance” by the playwright Edward Albee, with whom she had a long association. She also appeared in productions of Albee’s “The Play About the Baby,” “Tiny Alice,” “Counting the Ways” and “Three Tall Women.”

She received a Tony Lifetime Achievement Award in 2010 honoring her contribution to the theater. Taking the stage to accept the accolade, she famously placed her hand over her heart, gazed out at the audience of stage luminaries and exited without uttering a word.

She later explained, “They said to keep it short, so I decided I would just say nothing.”

Seldes’ influence on American theater and the world of entertainment at large extended to her work as a renowned acting teacher at the Juilliard School, and later as an adjunct professor at Fordham University.

Among her better-known students were such stars as Kevin Kline, Laura Linney, William Hurt, Kelsey Grammer, Christopher Reeve, Kevin Spacey, Patti LuPone, Viola Davis and Robin Williams.

Seldes’s paternal grandparents were Russian Jewish immigrants.

Born and raised in Manhattan, Seldes secured a place in the Guinness World Records book, and in Broadway lore, for appearing in Ira Levin’s “Deathtrap” from 1978 until late 1982 without missing a single show.

The comedy-thriller play within a play also earned Seldes a Tony nomination in 1978, her third, following a nod for “Father’s Day.”

Other notable stage acting credits include “Equus,” “Painting Churches,” “the Chalk Garden,” and Tony-nominated turns in “Ring Around the Moon” and a revival of “Dinner at Eight.”

Her final appearance on Broadway was in the 2007 in Terrence McNally’s “Deuce.”

Seldes also boasted roughly 20 feature film credits, mostly smaller roles in the latter part of her career, and numerous guest television appearances on shows ranging from “Gunsmoke” and “Perry Mason” to “Murphy Brown,” “Sex and the City” and “Frasier.”

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

2X match on all Passover gifts!

$90 → $180 $180 → $360

$360 → $720

Other amount