Maureen Stapleton

Broadway: The Golden Age is the most important, ambitious and comprehensive film ever made about America's most celebrated indigenous art form. Award-winning filmmaker Rick McKay filmed over 100 of the greatest stars ever to work on Broadway or in Hollywood. He soon learned that great films can be restored, fine literature can be kept in print - but historic Broadway performances of the past are the most endangered. They leave only memories that, while more vivid, are more difficult to preserve. In their own words — and not a moment too soon — Broadway: The Golden Age tells the stories of our theatrical legends, how they came to New York, and how they created this legendary century in American theatre. This is the largest cast of legends ever in one film.

Good-natured astronomer Sam is devastated when the love of his life leaves him for a suave Frenchman. He therefore does what every other normal dumpee would do — go to New York and set up home in the abandoned building opposite his ex-girlfriend's apartment, wait until she decides to leave her current lover, and then win her back.

Thrown for a loop by the unexpected news that Dad has suddenly gone to his reward, the grieving eccentric Scanian clan are drawn together in a test of familial endurance that soon has them at each other's throats.

The Martin kids learn of a magic spell that will take them to the 'mommy market' so they can get a more user friendly model. After giving a few other moms a try, they want their own back. But that is not so easy.

A teen gives her graduation address and reveals her involvement in the disappearance of one her classmates, a boy who had taunted her. The film then moves into flashback to tell the story.

A study of Tennessee Williams's life and work as a whole, ranging from his youth in Mississippi and in St. Louis to success and acclaim, followed by the final difficult years. Includes some of the most celebrated scenes from film adaptations of Williams' work, among them extracts of A Streetcar Named Desire (1951),Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958), Night of the Iguana, The (1964), and Suddenly, Last Summer (1993) (TV). Contains footage of Williams being interviewed, including conversations with David Frost, 'Edward R. Murrow (I)', and Melvyn Bragg, as well as reminiscences from people who knew and worked with him, among them Edward Albee, Gore Vidal, and his lifelong friend, Lady Maria St. Just. Features readings from Elia Kazan's Notebook by Kim Hunter.

A grandmother tells her young grandchild the moving tale of a lonely girl and an unforgettable magical cat in this animated short narrated by Oscar®, Emmy and Tony award winner Maureen Stapleton. The film is based on a short story written by Dayal Kaur Khalsa and adapted by two-time Governor General's award recipient Tim Wynne-Jones.

Two sisters, one a Polish concentration camp survivor, the other safely relocated to America with her father, are reunited in New York in 1947.

A woman with cancer seeks the assistance of her daughter in fulfilling her last wish - a wish to die with dignity.

A reclusive aging widower struggling with tax problems has a complete change in his views of life as he has a chance encounter with a young woman who moves in with him briefly.

Jack Lemmon made over 60 films and received numerous awards, including eight Academy Award Nominations and two Oscars. Later in life, his achievement was enriched by new challenges in which he exposed the vulnerability and emotion of the later years as few had dared. He reveled in his ongoing screen partnerships with directors like Billy Wilder and stars like Walter Matthau. Narrated on-camera by Jack Lemmon, this documentary includes interviews with Lemmon's son, the actor Chris Lemmon. Also appearing are such legends as Jack's life-long friend, the writer and director Billy Wilder, writer-director Garson Kanin, drama teacher Uta Hagen and actor Gregory Peck.

Famous actors read testimonies from people close to Lincoln about him and his actions during the Civil War.

After being evicted from their Manhattan apartment, a couple buy what looks like the home of their dreams—only to find themselves saddled with a bank-account-draining nightmare. Struggling to keep their relationship together as their rambling mansion falls to pieces around them, the two watch in hilarious horror as everything—including the kitchen sink—disappears into the Money Pit.

She's a magazine writer who gives up her career for love and family. He's a playboy newspaper columnist who can't quite give up his old tricks. And if that combination doesn't give a relationship heartburn, nothing will.

The reinvigorated elderly group that left Earth comes back to visit their relatives. Will they all decide to go back to the planet where no one grows old, or will they be tempted to remain on Earth?

When a group of trespassing seniors swim in a pool containing alien cocoons, they find themselves energized with youthful vigor.

An account of the revolutionary years of the legendary American journalist John Reed, who shared his adventurous professional life with his radical commitment to the socialist revolution in Russia, his dream of spreading its principles among the members of the American working class, and his troubled romantic relationship with the writer Louise Bryant.

An honest, goodhearted man is forced to turn to a life of crime to finance his neurotic mother's skyrocketing medical bills.

Deceased drifter Mike arrives in Heaven and quickly falls for newborn soul Annie, soon to start her assignment on Earth. When Annie leaves, Mike follows.

A record store clerk is an obsessed fan of an actress of stage and screen. However, when faced with rejection, the fan strikes out in increasingly violent ways.

A high-class call girl accused of murder fights for the right to stand trial rather than be declared mentally incompetent.

Three generations of women spend an emotional weekend that will change them forever.

A documentary incorporating footage of Montgomery Clift’s most memorable films; interviews with family and friends, and rare archival material stretching back to his childhood. What develops is the story of an intense young boy who yearned for stardom, achieved notable success in such classic films as From Here to Eternity and I Confess, only to be ruined by alcohol addiction and his inability to face his own fears and homosexual desires. Montgomery Clift, as this film portrays him, may not have been a happy man but he never compromised his acting talents for Hollywood.

After Lee Strasberg’s death in 1982, the most prestigious talents from the Actors Studio assumed the leadership of this exceptional organization. For the first time ever, filmmakers have been allowed to film their work.

A study of the Group Theatre, a company that changed the face of American drama. The Group was founded in 1931 by Cheryl Crawford, Harold Clurman and Lee Strasberg, who were strongly influenced by the naturalistic acting of Konstantin Stanislavski’s Moscow Art Theatre.

This special is the second "Night of 100 Stars" to benefit The Actors Fund of America. Edited from a seven-hour live entertainment marathon that was taped February 17, 1985, at New York's Radio City Music Hall, this sequel to the 1982 "Night of 100 Stars" special features 288 celebrities.

The most glittering, expensive, and exhausting videotaping session in television history took place Friday February 19, 1982 at New York's Radio City Music Hall. The event, for which ticket-buyers paid up to $1,000 a seat (tax-deductible as a contribution to the Actors' Fund) was billed as "The Night of 100 Stars" but, actually, around 230 stars took part. And most of the audience of 5,800 had no idea in advance that they were paying to see a TV taping, complete with long waits for set and costume changes, tape rewinding, and the like. Executive producer Alexander Cohen estimated that the 5,800 Radio City Music Hall seats sold out at prices ranging from $25 to $1,000. The show itself cost about $4 million to produce and was expected to yield around $2 million for the new addition to the Actors Fund retirement home in Englewood, N. J. ABC is reputed to have paid more than $5 million for the television rights.

Ryan Richmond is an eccentric teenager living with his mother, father, sister and brother in the Holiday Inn they own in Sunnyvale, Arizona, the prune capital of the world. Is it any wonder that he wants to go to Saudi Arabaia for college and leave Sunnyvale far, far behind? He spends his days at school with his sex-obsessed best friend Dan Forrester and lusts after Lisa Winston, the sexy lounge singer who his parents have hired to perform at the Holiday Inn. Stuck without a date for his brother's wedding to a senator's daughter, Ryan goes to a computer dating service, which asks him such questions as "Can you breathe foreign substances?" Soon, Ryan is told that he may be an alien stuck on Earth along with thousands of others. Soon, Charles and Edna Pinsky show up and tell him that he may an alien prince meant to lead his brethren home. And that's when things get out of control...

A gifted classical pianist, fueled by poverty, Wladiziu Valentino Liberace was already playing with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at the age of 17. Through a variety of his highs and lows, chaptered in TV-style format, Liberace's life from his early years through his death are chronicled.

From the elaborate Broadway revival of the 1932 Eva Le Gallienne/Florida Friebus production comes a whimsical retelling of the Lewis Carroll classic.

Lester is a homeless shoeshine boy living in a railway station. He's got this funny knack for picking the winning horses' names out of the paper while shining shoes. When word gets around, though, everyone wants a piece of the action.

A therapist goes outside his office and into his patients' personal lives to help them. He is treating a man who is hearing sounds but apparently there is nothing wrong with him psychologically. And a woman who despite being in a healthy relationship goes around picking up guys and having sex with them. She decides to seek help and what the doctor learns is that the problem goes back to her childhood and her family.

To a family whose children are traumatized by the death of their mother, help comes in a most bizarre way. They receive three pieces, that when joined together, give a recording for an offer for an electric grandmother. They go to a bizarre factory, where they customize their new grandmother, and within a short time, she arrives. The android is equipped with everything needed as a parent and the boys are charmed. The daughter, however, still misses her mother and she bears no welcome for this interloper.

Serio-comic look at the residents and staff of a Catskill Mountains resort during its final days.

Documentary about early 20th-century photographer Lewis Hine, who helped to expose grim working conditions in American factories and mines, especially the abuse and exploitation of children by their employers. Later, he became the official photographer for the construction of the Empire State Building.

An airport manager tries to keep his terminals open during a snowstorm, while a suicide bomber plots to blow up a Boeing 707 airliner in flight.

Over the summer of 1942 on Nantucket Island, three friends -- Hermie, Oscy and Benjie -- are more concerned with getting laid than anything else. Hermie falls in love with the married Dorothy, whose husband is an army pilot recently sent to the battlefront of World War II.

When Eve, an interior designer, is deserted by her husband of many years, Arthur, the emotionally glacial relationships of the three grown-up daughters are laid bare. Twisted by jealousy, insecurity and resentment, Renata, a successful writer; Joey, a woman crippled by indecision; and Flyn, a budding actress; struggle to communicate for the sake of their shattered mother. But when their father unexpectedly falls for another woman, his decision to remarry sets in motion a terrible twist of fate…

Film version of the Neil Simon play has three separate acts set in the same hotel suite in New York's Plaza Hotel with Walter Matthau in a triple role. In the first, Karen Nash tries to get her inattentive husband Sam's attention and help save their failing marriage. In the second, brash film producer Jesse Kiplinger tries to seduce his former one-time flame Muriel. In the third, Roy Hubley and his wife Norma try and persuade their daughter, a bride to-be with cold feet, out of the bathroom before her approaching wedding ceremony.

Dick Van Dyke stars as a priest accused of murdering a nun. Directed by Stanley Kramer, this 1979 drama also features Kathleen Quinlan, Maureen Stapleton, Ray Bolger, Beau Bridges and Tammy Grimes.

A middle-aged woman finds herself simply a widow, a grandmother and a person when a friend takes her to the Stardust Ballroom, a dance hall which recreates the music and atmosphere of the 1940s. There she encounters a most unlikely Prince Charming, a middle-aged mailman. With this encounter, life takes on a new meaning for the film's heroine.

Kermit the Frog throws a glamorous party at the Cocoanut Grove nightclub to celebrate the premiere of the Muppets' first feature film, The Muppet Movie. Hosts Dick van Dyke and Rita Moreno interview the wide array of celebrities and Muppets who attend the event. Gary Owens serves as off-camera announcer, and appears on-screen to introduce Miss Piggy.

When Adam Thornton learns that he only has a little time left, he decides that he wants to make peace with his family. Only problem is that most of his family are not exactly fond of him because he walked out on his wife and of his stubborn nature and he hasn't spoken to his youngest son after having an argument with him which he was in the wrong but only realize after his son left and has not been heard from since. But he goes to her to help him find him. But when his doctor says that it won't be good for him to travel, she suggests that they invite them all for Christmas. While most of them come, Adam's attempt at reconciliation won't be easy.

An alcoholic ex-football player drinks his days away, having failed to come to terms with his sexuality and his real feelings for his football buddy who died after an ambiguous accident. His wife is crucified by her desperation to make him desire her: but he resists the affections of his wife. His reunion with his father—who is dying of cancer—jogs a host of memories and revelations for both father and son.

While visiting Switzerland, an American college professor, Adam, keeps running into a divorced British secretary, Patricia, wherever they go. First their cars collide. Then they smash into one another on a ski slope, each breaking a leg. In between numerous quarrels, the two develop lust and love. They hastily marry, but the disagreements continue. Patricia decides to leave, so Adam decides to fake a suicide. They lose and find each other, again and again.

Filmmaker Harry Rasky presents an intimate portrait of Arthur Miller, exploring the playwright’s life, influences, and literary achievements. Through extended interviews, archival materials, and clips from productions of his plays and screenplays, Miller reflects on the themes behind works such as The Crucible and The Misfits, his resistance to McCarthy-era political pressure, and the personal experiences—including his marriage to Marilyn Monroe—that shaped one of the most influential voices in modern American drama.

Mother Earth and Father Time converse about the choices humans make. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2010.

When aging newspaper Editor Frank Miller is fired after decades of service and replaced by a computer, he cannot take this fate quietly. Frank becomes enraged and starts writing letters to his son, Richard, expressing his fury.

Two Christmases have passed and widow Kate Thornton has taken over Thornton Industries and is wooed by a courtly financier.

The brutes and the belles. The gadflies and the good ol' boys. The taboos and the profound truths. They're all part of a tennessee state of mind -- a realm of places, personalities and ideas. Williams is front and center for this exploration, reading from his works, placing them in the context of his life, and serving as guide in visits to his career-shaping refuge in New Orleans and his later-day writing quarters in Key West. Also, dramatizations by distinguished actors -- including Jessica Tandy, Broadway's original Blanche DuBois, in a recreation of her A Streetcar Named Desire triumph -- give flesh-and-bone immediacy to some of the writer's famed works. In his own words. In his own places. The resilient character and memorable characters of one of our greatest writers reside in Tennessee Williams' South.

A boy and his dog take a wondrous trip under the earth's crust and through the geological eras of time, introducing children to geology in the form of a musical fantasy.

Val Xavier, a drifter of obscure origins, arrives at a small town and gets a job in a store run by Lady Torrence. Her husband, Jabe M. Torrance, is dying of cancer. Val is pursued by Carol Cutere, the enigmatic local tramp-of-good-family.

A singer goes to a small town for a performance before he is drafted.

Eddie Carbone, a Brooklyn longshoreman is unhappily married to Beatrice and unconsciously in love with Catherine, the niece that they have raised from childhood. Into his house come two brothers, illegal immigrants, Marco and Rodolpho. Catherine falls in love with Rudolpho; and Eddie, tormented but unable to admit even to himself his quasi-incestuous love, reports the illegal immigrants to the authorities.

Trilogy is an anthology film of three adaptations of Truman Capote short stories: Miriam, Among the Paths to Eden and A Christmas Memory. It was listed to compete at the 1968 Cannes Film Festival, but the festival was cancelled due to the events of May 1968 in France.

A down-on-his-luck writer publishes a best-selling, but lurid novel under a pseudonym and discovers that his fictional personae has suddenly appeared and taken on a life of his own.

In New York, a surly, down-on-his-heels playwright meets a country girl who's giving up trying to act and returning home. He goes with her for inspiration when his agent convinces a stage star to take his next effort. When he returns to Broadway, his girl stays behind and starts seeing a local businessman.

Burdened by a family secret, Adam White lands a job as a newspaper advice columnist. Little does he realize that it's all part of a nasty desire by cynical editor William Shrike to crush the souls of his underlings. Adam feels his readers' pain, and eventually, he takes an assignment to meet with Faye Doyle, who is exasperated by her crippled husband. When Faye tries to seduce Adam, he must choose between his job and his girl.

The life of populist Southerner Willie Stark, a political creature loosely based on Governor Huey Long of Louisiana, based upon the Robert Penn Warren-novel.

During the Spanish Civil War, an American allied with the Republicans finds romance during a desperate mission to blow up a strategically important bridge.