Geraldine Fitzgerald

Acting

Geraldine Fitzgerald

Born 1913-11-24 · Greystones, County Wicklow, Ireland

Geraldine Fitzgerald, Lady Lindsay-Hogg was an Irish-American actress and a member of the American Theatre Hall of Fame. She was born south of Dublin, the daughter of Edith Catherine and Edward Martin FitzGerald. She studied painting at the Dublin School of Art. Inspired by her aunt, and began her acting career in at Dublin's Gate Theatre. After two seasons in Dublin, she moved to London, where she found success in films The Mill on the Floss, The Turn of the Tide, and Cafe Mascot. Fitzgerald's success led her to the Broadway stage in 1938. She made her American debut in the Mercury Theatre production of Heartbreak House. Producer Hal B. Wallis saw her in this production and subsequently signed her to a contract with Warner Bros, where she starred in Dark Victory and Wuthering Heights. Afterwards, appeared in Shining Victory, The Gay Sisters, and Watch on the Rhine, but her career was hampered by her frequent clashes with studio management. Although she continued to work throughout the 1940s, the quality of her roles began to diminish and her career lost momentum. In 1946, shortly after completing work on Three Strangers, she left Hollywood to return to New York City, where she married her second husband, Stuart Scheftel, a grandson of Isidor Straus. She returned to Britain to film So Evil My Love, receiving strong reviews, and The Late Edwina Black, before returning to the United States. She became a naturalized United States citizen on April 18, 1955. The 1950s provided her with few opportunities in film, but during the 1960s she asserted herself as a character actor and her career enjoyed a revival. Among her successful films of this period were Ten North Frederick, The Pawnbroker, and Rachel, Rachel. Her later films included The Mango Tree, for which she received an Australian Film Institute Best Actress nomination, and Harry and Tonto, in a scene opposite Art Carney. She also starred in Arthur 1 and 2, miniseries Kennedy, Do You Remember Love, Easy Money, Poltergeist 2, as in Circle of Violence, a television film about elder abuse. Fitzgerald returned to stage acting, and won acclaim for her performance in the 1971 revival of Long Day's Journey Into Night. In 1976, she performed as a cabaret singer with the show Streetsongs, recorded an album of the show for Ben Bagley's Painted Smiles label. She also achieved success as a theatre director; becoming one of the first women to receive a Tony Award nomination for Best Direction of a Play. While in New York, Fitzgerald collaborated with playwright and Franciscan brother Jonathan Ringkamp to found the Everyman Theater of Brooklyn, a street theater company, that performed throughout the city. She appeared on television, in such series as Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Robert Montgomery Presents, Naked City, St. Elsewhere, The Golden Girls, and Cagney and Lacey. As well, she starred in Our Private World, and Mabel and Max. She won a Daytime Emmy Award as best actress for her appearance in the NBC Special Treat episode "Rodeo Red and the Runaways". Description above from the Wikipedia article Geraldine Fitzgerald, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Acting credits

Poltergeist II: The Other Side poster
6.0

The Freeling family move in with Diane's mother in an effort to escape the trauma and aftermath of Carol Anne's abduction by the Beast. But the Beast is not to be put off so easily and appears in a ghostly apparition as the Reverend Kane, a religious zealot responsible for the deaths of his many followers. His goal is simple - he wants the angelic Carol Anne.

Poltergeist II: The Other Side

1986

Wuthering Heights poster
7.2

Young orphan Heathcliff is adopted by the wealthy Earnshaw family and moves into their estate, Wuthering Heights. Soon, the new resident falls for his compassionate foster sister, Cathy. The two share a remarkable bond that seems unbreakable until Cathy, feeling the pressure of social convention, suppresses her feelings and marries Edgar Linton, a man of means who befits her stature. Heathcliff vows to win her back.

Wuthering Heights

1939

Arthur poster
6.5

Arthur is a 30-year-old child who will inherit $750 million if he complies with his family's demands and marries the woman of their choosing.

Arthur

1981

Arthur 2: On the Rocks poster
5.5

Arthur loses his fortune for staying with Linda, right as the two were preparing to adopt a child. As their marriage suffers, Arthur plans for a way to get his money back, but first he must sober up and get a real job.

Arthur 2: On the Rocks

1988

Watch on the Rhine poster
6.9

On the eve of World War II, the German Kurt Müller, his American-born wife Sara, and their three children, having lived in Europe for years, visit Sara's wealthy mother near Washington, DC. Kurt secretly works for the anti-Nazi resistance. A visiting Romanian count, becoming aware of this, seeks to blackmail him.

Watch on the Rhine

1943

Dark Victory poster
6.9

Socialite Judith Traherne lives a lavish but emotionally empty life. Riding horses is one of her few joys, and her stable master is secretly in love with her. Told she has a brain tumor by her doctor, Frederick Steele, Judith becomes distraught. After she decides to have surgery to remove the tumor, Judith realizes she is in love with Dr. Steele, but more troubling medical news may sabotage her new relationship, and her second chance at life.

Dark Victory

1939

The Pawnbroker poster
7.1

A Jewish pawnbroker, a victim of Nazi persecution, loses all faith in his fellow man until he realizes too late the tragedy of his actions.

The Pawnbroker

1965

Easy Money poster
6.0

To inherit his mother-in-law's colossal fortune, a hard living gambling addict must change his unhealthy ways before it gets the best of him.

Easy Money

1983

Tartuffe poster
7.0

Donald Moffat stars in Moliere's classic comedy about lovable scoundrel Tartuffe, who befriends the wealthy Orgon and then attempts to seduce both his new friend's wife and daughter in this TV presentation from the Broadway Theatre Archive. Tartuffe pretends to be a pious man whose faith convinces Orgon and his family to succumb to his influence, but he's undone when his womanizing ways make it clear that his piety is a charade.

Tartuffe

1978

Wilson poster
5.6

The political career of Woodrow Wilson is chronicled, beginning with his decision to leave his post at Princeton to run for Governor of New Jersey, and his subsequent ascent to the Presidency of the United States. During his terms in office, Wilson must deal with the death of his first wife, the onslaught of German hostilities leading to American involvement in the Great War, and his own country's reticence to join the League of Nations. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation in 2006.

Wilson

1944

Harry and Tonto poster
7.1

Harry Coombes is a retired teacher in his 70s who has lived in the Upper West Side of New York City all his life. When his building is torn down to make way for a parking garage, Harry and his beloved cat Tonto begin a journey across the United States — visiting his children, seeing a world he never seemed to have the time to see before, making new friends, and saying goodbye to old friends.

Harry and Tonto

1974

The Lad poster
6.2

An ex-con searching for a hidden jewel is assumed by a group of people to be investigating them.

The Lad

1935

The Last American Hero poster
5.7

A young hell raiser quits his moonshine business and tries to become the best NASCAR racer the south has ever seen. Loosely based on the true story of NASCAR driver Junior Johnson.

The Last American Hero

1973

A Child is Born poster
7.1

A pregnant prison inmate shares her problems with the patients in a maternity ward.

A Child is Born

1939

Rachel, Rachel poster
6.6

Rachel is a 35-year-old school teacher who has no man in her life and lives with her mother. When a man from the big city returns and asks her out, she begins to have to make decisions about her life and where she wants it to go.

Rachel, Rachel

1968

Three Strangers poster
6.4

On the eve of the Chinese New Year, three strangers, Crystal Shackleford, married to a wealthy philanderer; Jerome Artbutny, an outwardly respectable judge; and Johnny West, a seedy sneak thief, make a pact before a small statue of the Chinese goddess of Destiny. The threesome agree to purchase a sweepstakes ticket and share whatever winnings might accrue.

Three Strangers

1946

Dark Possession poster
NR

A woman is accused by a poison-pen letter of murdering her husband.

Dark Possession

1954

So Evil My Love poster
6.4

In the late 19th century, on board a ship sailing from Jamaica to England, Olivia Harwood, a recent widow, takes on the task of caring for several malaria patients, including Mark Bellis, a mysterious and tormented painter.

So Evil My Love

1948

The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry poster
6.2

George Sanders stars in this engrossing melodrama about a very domineering sister who holds a tight grip on her brother -- especially when he shows signs of falling in love.

The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry

1945

'Til We Meet Again poster
6.4

Dying Joan Ames meets criminal Dan Hardesty on a luxury liner as he is being transported back to America by policeman Steve Burke to face execution. Joan and Dan fall in love, their fates unbeknownst to one another.

'Til We Meet Again

1940

Bye Bye Monkey poster
6.2

In metahistorical New York city electrotechnician Lafayette deals with a megalomaniac director of a wax museum of ancient Rome, an italian lonely anarchist, a group of feminist actresses - including Angelica who falls in love with him - and a small adopted chimpanzee.

Bye Bye Monkey

1978

Lovespell poster
5.0

Romantic tragedy, the story of Tristan and Isolde.

Lovespell

1981

Shining Victory poster
6.1

In a Scottish sanitarium, a brilliant research psychiatrist works on a treatment for dementia praecox. He falls for his altruistic female lab assistant and they begin a passionate, tragic relationship.

Shining Victory

1941

Echoes of a Summer poster
5.4

A young girl with a terminal heart condition plans to celebrate her 12th birthday on one last summer holiday with her parents in Nova Scotia.

Echoes of a Summer

1976