
Acting
Eileen Heckart
Born 1919-03-29 · Columbus, Ohio, U.S.
Eileen Heckart was an American actress of stage, screen, and television. Born Anna Eileen Herbert, her career spanned nearly 60 years. She first became known for her role as schoolteacher Rosemary Sydney in the original 1953 cast of William Inge's play Picnic on Broadway. She won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance as the overprotective mother of a blind adult son in Butterflies Are Free, a role she originated on Broadway before playing it in the film. She often played mothers, including Rocky Graziano's mother in Somebody Up There Likes Me; the mother of a murdered child in The Bad Seed; the elderly mother of an estranged son in the PBS production of the one-act play Save Me a Place at Forest Law; the overbearing mother of the detective portrayed by George Segal in No Way to Treat a Lady; the mother of reporter Jack Stein on the 1990s television sitcom Love & War; the mother of two separate characters on the daytime soap opera One Life to Live in the 1980s and 1990s; and the meddling mother of a jilted wife (played by Diane Keaton) in The First Wives Club, her last film role. She also had a recurring role on the 1970s sitcom, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, as Mary's Aunt Flo Meredith, a famous woman reporter, which she repeated on the subsequent spin-off series, Lou Grant. In addition to her Academy Award, she also won two Emmy Awards for Save Me a Place at Forest Lawn and Love & War, and a Golden Globe Award for The Bad Seed. She also received a special Tony Award for lifetime achievement in 2000, and has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. She made her final acting appearance in 2000 at age 80 in an off-Broadway production, The Waverly Gallery, in which she played the leading role of an elderly grandmother with Alzheimer's disease. Description above from the Wikipedia article Eileen Heckart, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Acting credits
6.9A hard-nosed, hard-living Marine gunnery sergeant clashes with his superiors and his ex-wife as he takes command of a spoiled recon platoon with a bad attitude.
Heartbreak Ridge
1986
6.7After years of helping their hubbies climb the ladder of success, three mid-life Manhattanites have been dumped for a newer, curvier model. But the trio is determined to turn their pain into gain. They come up with a cleverly devious plan to hit their exes where it really hurts - in the wallet!
The First Wives Club
1996
7.1Air Force Colonel Kenneth Penmark and his wife, Christine, adore their daughter Rhoda, despite her secret tendency for selfishness. Christine keeps her knowledge of her daughter's darker side to herself, but when a schoolmate of Rhoda's dies mysteriously, her self-deception unravels.
The Bad Seed
1956
6.1Cowboys Beauregard Decker and Virgil Blessing attend a rodeo in Phoenix, where Decker falls in love with beautiful cafe singer Cherie. He wants to take Cherie back to his native Montana and marry her, but she dreams of traveling to Hollywood and becoming famous. When she resists his advances, Decker forces Cherie onto the bus back to Montana with him, but, when the bus makes an unscheduled stop due to bad weather, the tables are turned.
Bus Stop
1956
6.5A family moves into a large old mansion in the countryside which seems to have a mysterious and sinister power over its new residents.
Burnt Offerings
1976
6.8The first of three private-eye movies created by Robert Blake about rugged Joe Dancer as the forerunner to a prospective but unrealized series after the retirement of his "Baretta" character. In the initial outing, Blake, as Dancer, follows a trail of bodies through a maze of corruption involving a politically ambitious Beverly Hills family.
Joe Dancer: The Big Black Pill
1981
7.2The story of boxer Rocky Graziano's rise from juvenile delinquent to world champ.
Somebody Up There Likes Me
1956
6.4Zandy Allan purchases a mail-order bride, Hannah Lund. He treats her as a possession, without respect or humanity, until their shared ordeal as they struggle to survive develops in him a growing love.
Zandy's Bride
1974
5.9Alma Duval, a middle-aged housewife, tries to hide how much she suffers from her husband's amorous excursions while trying to help her children solve their problems and doing her best to keep her family together as it's slowly falling apart. Meanwhile, daughter Virginia is dumped by her boyfriend because she cannot help him with his career. Her cheating husband's birthday party is approaching and many lines will be crossed after that event.
Hot Spell
1958
5.0This comedy is about three generations of a Jewish family. All the action takes place around an all purpose dining table, sometimes a restaurant table and other times the dining table of a Jewish mother to end all Jewish mothers. Other characters include an exceedingly irreverent younger son, his martini swilling older brother who is married to a shiksa, and the older brother’s two kids.
Table Settings
1982
6.8Striving to be independent, the blind but determined Don Baker moves away from his overprotective mother. After settling into his new San Francisco digs, Don meets kooky neighbor Jill Tanner. Don's quick wit and good looks disarm the free-spirited Jill, and before long they're more than just friends. Will Mrs. Baker's incessant meddling destroy Don and Jill's budding relationship?
Butterflies Are Free
1972
6.6Christopher Gill is a psychotic killer who uses various disguises to trick and strangle his victims. Moe Brummel is a single and harassed New York City police detective who starts to get phone calls from the strangler and builds a strange alliance as a result. Kate Palmer is a swinging, hip tour guide who witnesses the strangler leaving her dead neighbor's apartment and sets her sights on the detective. Moe's live-in mother wishes her son would be a successful Jewish doctor like his big brother.
No Way to Treat a Lady
1968
7.1Sylvia, a novice schoolteacher, is hired to teach English in a high school, but she’s met with an apathetic faculty, a delinquent student body and an administration that drowns its staff in paperwork. The following days go from bad to worse as Sylvia struggles to reach her most troubled students.
Up the Down Staircase
1967
6.9Corrie and Betsie ten Boom are middle-aged sisters working in their father's watchmaker shop in pre-World War II Holland. Their uneventful lives are disrupted with the coming of the Nazis. Suspected of hiding Jews and caught breaking rationing rules, they are sent to a concentration camp, where their Christian faith keeps them from despair and bitterness.
The Hiding Place
1975
8.0A musician, brooding over the marriage of his sometime girlfriend, decides to take his adopted daughter to his home in Texas to celebrate Christmas with his family. While there, he begins to rekindle the relationship he once had with his childhood girlfriend.
Sunshine Christmas
1977
6.9Wartime romance about a lonely man and woman who meet one rainy afternoon in New York.
Miracle in the Rain
1956
5.8Nineteenth century Wyoming: the wild West. Mild-mannered Tom Healy has a two-wagon theater troupe hounded by creditors because Angela, his leading lady and the object of his affection, constantly buys clothes. In Cheyenne, they meet with applause, so they hope to stay awhile: the theater owner likes Angela, and she keeps him on a string. She's also the object of the attentions of Mabry, a gunslinger who's owed money by the richest man in Bonanza.
Heller in Pink Tights
1960
5.8Based on a true story about two sisters who sue their father for incest and child abuse. As the story unfolds, it is revealed that the father severely abused all six children, and committed incest with all four of his daughters.
Ultimate Betrayal
1994
8.0J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI go after notorious bank robber and kidnapper Alvin Karpis and his gang.
The F.B.I. Story: The FBI Versus Alvin Karpis, Public Enemy Number One
1974
6.3A woman is trapped during a storm in a house with no electricity or phone. A killer has murdered her sister, stuffed the body in the basement, and is now after her.
The Victim
1972
8.0A poor, elderly white woman living in a tenement in a black ghetto is befriended by a neighborhood boy, and the two of them form a mutually beneficial relationship: he provides her companionship and protection, and she becomes the mother he never had.
White Mama
1980
5.6A married couple review their lives and renew their love for one another while driving to a friend's funeral.
Breathing Lessons
1994
4.0A collection of horror stories taking the viewer into the dark world of Stephen King, featuring vampires, strange objects and sinister humor. The five 20-minutes tales were all taken from the Tales from the Darkside TV series and strung together as a video feature.
Stephen King's Golden Tales
1993
5.7A celebrated actress discovers six runaway children living on her country property.
My Six Loves
1963