Elizabeth Franz, the Tony-winning actress best known for her role in the 1999 Broadway revival of “Death of a Salesman,” died November 4 in her home in Connecticut. She was 84.
Franz’s husband, Christopher Pelham, told the New York Times she died of cancer.
Franz enjoyed a lengthy career onstage that included roles in the Off-Broadway comedy “Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You” as well as productions of “Brighton Beach Memoirs” and “Broadway Bound.”
Though she was born and raised in Akron, Ohio, Franz moved to New York City to pursue a career in acting. As she recalled in a 2004 interview with What’s On Stage, she soon found her place in the city.
“Our neighbor had friends there, way up in the Bronx, and I stayed with them for my first year, and then I got digs with four others,” Franz explained.
She also shared, “I trained at the same place and at the same time as M Emmet Walsh, with whom I am reunited in this production: the American Academy of Dramatic Art in New York, from 1961 to 1962. After that, we both went to summer stock in Dorset, Vermont, and we did a play a week for 20 weeks.”
Her first break came when she was cast in “Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You.” Franz added of the play, “With Sister Mary, I loved the role; this was a woman I identified with. When I said that to Chris and Jerry Zaks, who directed it, they looked at me and you could tell they were thinking, ‘She must be crazy if she understands that woman!’”
Her 1999 portrayal of Linda Loman in “Death of Salesman” won her both a Tony Award and high praise from the play’s author, Arthur Miller. He told the New York Times in the same year that Franz “has discovered in the role the basic underlying powerful protectiveness, which comes out as fury, and that in the past, in every performance I know of, was simply washed out.”
Elizabeth Jean Frankovitch was born on June 18, 1941, in Akron, Ohio. According to the Times, the 1947 film “The Bishop’s Wife” inspired her to become an actress, and she took classes at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in Manhattan.
In addition to her stage work, Franz’s career included stints on “As the World Turns,” “Roseanne” and “Gilmore Girls.” She is survived by her husband and her brother.
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