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Elizabeth Ashley

  • ️Wed Aug 30 1939

Elizabeth Ashley

Ashley in 1971

Born

Elizabeth Ann Cole


(1939-08-30) August 30, 1939 (age 85)
Occupation Actress
Years active 1960–present
Spouses

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(m. 1962; div. 1965) ​

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(m. 1966; div. 1972) ​

James McCarthy

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(m. 1975; div. 1981) ​

Children 1

Elizabeth Ann Cole (born August 30, 1939), known professionally as Elizabeth Ashley, is an American actress of theatre, film, and television. She has been nominated for three Tony Awards, winning once in 1962 for Take Her, She's Mine. Ashley was also nominated for the BAFTA and Golden Globe awards for her supporting performance in The Carpetbaggers (1964), and was nominated for an Emmy Award in 1991 for Evening Shade. Elizabeth was a guest on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson 24 times. She appeared in several episodes of In the Heat of the Night as Maybelle Chesboro. She also appeared in an episode of Mannix, "The Dark Hours", in 1974. She is a 2024 inductee into the Theatre Hall of Fame.[1]

Ashley was born Elizabeth Ann Cole in Ocala, Florida, to music teacher Arthur Kingman Cole and the former Lucille Ayer.[2][3] She grew up in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.[4]

Ashley left Louisiana State University after her freshman year and moved to New York. She studied acting at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre there, supporting herself by working as the Jell-O pudding girl on a television program and as a showroom model.[5]

Ashley won a Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play for Take Her, She's Mine, then later starred as Corie in the original Broadway production of Neil Simon's Barefoot in the Park (1963) and, later, as Maggie in a Broadway revival of Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1974). She received Tony nominations for both performances.[6] She appeared on Broadway as Dr. Livingstone in Agnes of God (1982) and was a replacement in the role of Mattie Fae during the original Broadway run of August: Osage County.[7]

She has been featured in major motion pictures over five decades, including early roles in The Carpetbaggers (1964), Ship of Fools (1965), and The Third Day (1965). Her other film credits include The Marriage of a Young Stockbroker (1971), Rancho Deluxe (1975), Coma (1978), Paternity (1981), Dragnet (1987), and Vampire's Kiss (1989), and she starred as the villain in the controversial film Windows (1980).

She first appeared with Burt Reynolds in a 1969 season episode of Love, American Style, then later in the movie Paternity in 1981, as a guest star in his television series B.L. Stryker in 1989, and finally as a cast member in his final television series, Evening Shade, from 1990 to 1994 as Aunt Frieda Evans.[8]

Ashley had the role of Kate in Sandburg's Lincoln, a six-part dramatization that ran on NBC in the mid-1970s.[8]: 926  Her other television appearances include the 1987 miniseries The Two Mrs. Grenvilles, and guest roles in Ben Casey; Route 66; Sam Benedict; Stoney Burke; The Six Million Dollar Man; Family; Miami Vice; Caroline in the City; Mission: Impossible; Murder, She Wrote; Dave's World; Law & Order; Law & Order: Special Victims Unit; Touched by an Angel; The Larry Sanders Show; Homicide: Life on the Street; Russian Doll; and Better Things. She was featured in 14 episodes of the HBO series Treme as Aunt Mimi.

Ashley's autobiography Actress: Postcards from the Road was published in a hardcover edition on June 1, 1978 by M. Evans & Co (now part of the Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group). A paperback publication followed on October 12, 1979 through Fawcett Publications.[9]

Ashley is thrice married and divorced. Her first and second husbands were actors James Farentino and George Peppard.[10] The latter was her leading man in her first movie, The Carpetbaggers (1964). The couple had a son, Christian.[11] Her divorce from Peppard is rumored to have caused the cancellation of his television series Banacek. According to an unconfirmed story, he quit the show to prevent her from receiving a larger percentage of his earnings as part of their divorce settlement.[12] Filmink called the account of Peppard in Ashley's memoirs "fascinating – paying tribute to his talent, charisma and kindness, as well as his violent, abusive, alcoholic nature."[13]

At 25, Ashley retired from acting "to make a home for my husband, see that he had his dinner on time, realize myself as a woman." She resumed her career four years later.[14] She dated writer Tom McGuane and credits their liaison with reawakening a sexuality that she put to good use when she portrayed Maggie in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in 1974.[4]

  1. ^ "2024 Theater Hall of Fame Inductees". Playbill.com. Playbill. Retrieved July 8, 2024.
  2. ^ "Elizabeth Ashley". Playbill. Retrieved November 28, 2022.
  3. ^ "ELIZABETH ASHLEY". Turner Classic Movies. Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. n.d. Retrieved November 28, 2022.
  4. ^ a b Smith, Zach (December 30, 2011). "Persona: Elizabeth Ashley". New Orleans Magazine.
  5. ^ Reed, Rex (September 22, 1974). "Two First-Rate Talents On Second-Hand Broadway". New York Daily News. p. Leisure-5. Retrieved April 27, 2018 – via Newspapers.com.
  6. ^ "Elizabeth Ashley". Tony Awards. Archived from the original on April 28, 2018. Retrieved April 27, 2018.
  7. ^ Elizabeth Ashley at the Internet Broadway Database
  8. ^ a b Terrace, Vincent (January 10, 2014). Encyclopedia of Television Shows, 1925 through 2010 (2nd ed.). Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Co. p. 313. ISBN 978-0-7864-8641-0. Retrieved December 27, 2020.
  9. ^ Actress: Postcards from the Road. Fawcett Crest. 1978. ISBN 978-0-4492-4104-2.
  10. ^ Manners, Dorothy (May 29, 1966). "George Peppard retains his image as a loner". The News and Courier. Charleston, S.C.
  11. ^ Gates, Anita (January 20, 2008). "The Unsinkable Elizabeth Ashley". The New York Times. Retrieved December 27, 2020.
  12. ^ "6 RICH FACTS YOU NEVER KNEW ABOUT BANACEK". Heroes & Icons. April 19, 2019. Retrieved August 14, 2022.
  13. ^ Vagg, Stephen (December 29, 2024). "Movie Star Cold Streaks: George Peppard". Filmink. Retrieved December 29, 2024.
  14. ^ Smith, Cecil (November 21, 1969). "Elizabeth Ashley Returns to Acting". Los Angeles Times. p. Part IV - 25. Retrieved December 27, 2020 – via Newspapers.com.