Mildred Dunnock


Mildred Dorothy Dunnock was an American stage and screen actress. She received two Academy Award nominations for her supporting performances in Death of a Salesman and Baby Doll. Dunnock was also nominated for three Golden Globe Awards and a Primetime Emmy Award in her career.

Early life

Born in Baltimore, Maryland, Dunnock graduated from Western High School. She developed an interest in theater while she was a student at Goucher College where she was a member of Alpha Phi sorority and the Agora dramatic society. After graduating, she taught English at Friends School of Baltimore and helped with productions of plays there.
While teaching school in New York, she earned her master's degree at Columbia University and acted in a play while she was there.

Career

After roles in Broadway productions of Life Begins and The Hill Between, Dunnock won praise for her performance as a Welsh school teacher in The Corn is Green in 1940 — a role that she performed while she was a full-time teacher at Brearley School. The 1945 film version marked her screen debut. During the 1940s she performed mainly on stage, in such dramas as Another Part of the Forest and Death of a Salesman and in the musical Lute Song.
Dunnock also performed in regional theatrical productions, including those of the Long Wharf Theatre and the Yale Repertory Theatre.
In 1947, Dunnock became a founding member of the Actors Studio.
Dunnock reprised her Salesman role in the 1951 film version. She originated the role of Big Mama in Tennessee Williams' play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, although she lost the movie role to Judith Anderson. Her films include The Trouble with Harry, Love Me Tender, Baby Doll, Peyton Place, The Nun's Story, Butterfield 8, Something Wild and Sweet Bird of Youth. She was the woman in the wheelchair pushed down a flight of stairs to her death by the psychotic villain Tommy Udo in Kiss of Death.
She appeared in guest roles on numerous TV series such as Alfred Hitchcock Presents and Ponds Theater, and later in her career, several television movies, including a 1966 remake of Death of a Salesman in which she played Linda Loman for the third time, opposite her original Broadway co-star, Lee J. Cobb.
Dunnock was twice nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, for Death of a Salesman in 1951, and for Baby Doll in 1956. She was also nominated for the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress for Baby Doll, as well as Viva Zapata! in 1952 and Peyton Place in 1957.
Her final film was The Pick-up Artist, which starred Robert Downey, Jr. and Molly Ringwald.
Dunnock has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contribution to motion pictures, at 6613 Hollywood Boulevard. She is also a member of the American Theater Hall of Fame, which she was inducted into in 1983.

Personal life

Dunnock was married to Keith Urmy, an executive at Chemical Bank in Manhattan, from 1933 until her death, and had one child. She died in Oak Bluffs, Massachusetts at age 90 from natural causes. At the time of her death she was living in West Tisbury, Massachusetts.

Film appearances