Biography
Lois Maureen Stapleton (June 21, 1925 – March 13, 2006) was an American actress. She was the recipient of an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, a Golden Globe Award, two Tony Awards, and a Primetime Emmy Award, and is one of the few performers to achieve the Triple Crown of Acting.
Known For
Complete Filmography

Broadway: The Golden Age, by the Legends Who Were There
2003
as Self
Broadway: The Golden Age is the most important, ambitious and comprehensive film ever made about America's most celebrated indigenous art form. Award...
Wilbur Falls
1998
as Wilbur Falls High Secretary
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 m...

Snow Cat
1998
as Grandma (voice)
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®, ...

Addicted to Love
1997
as Nana
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...

Jack Lemmon: America's Everyman
1996
as Self
Jack Lemmon made over 60 films and received numerous awards, including eight Academy Award Nominations and two Oscars. Later in life, his achievement ...

Tennessee Williams: Orpheus of the American Stage
1994
as Self
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 t...

The Last Good Time
1994
as Ida Cutler
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 ...

Trading Mom
1994
as Mrs. Cavour, the Gardener
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 ...
Lincoln
1992
as Sarah Bush Lincoln (voice)
Famous actors read testimonies from people close to Lincoln about him and his actions during the Civil War.

Miss Rose White
1992
as Tanta Perla
Two sisters, one a Polish concentration camp survivor, the other safely relocated to America with her father, are reunited in New York in 1947.

Passed Away
1992
as Mary Scanlan
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...

Last Wish
1992
as Ida Rollin
A woman with cancer seeks the assistance of her daughter in fulfilling her last wish - a wish to die with dignity.

When We Were Young: Growing Up on the Silver Screen
1989
as Self
A documentary about the careers of child stars of the '40s in Hollywood, featuring movie clips with Shirley Temple, Margaret O'Brien, and numerous oth...
Broadway's Dreamers: The Legacy of the Group Theatre
1989
as Herself
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 ...

Hello Actors Studio
1988
as Self
After Lee Strasberg’s death in 1982, the most prestigious talents from the Actors Studio assumed the leadership of this exceptional organization. For ...

Liberace: Behind the Music
1988
as Frances Liberace
A gifted classical pianist, fueled by poverty, Wladiziu Valentino Liberace was already playing with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at the age of 17. ...

Doin' Time on Planet Earth
1988
as Helium Balloon Saleslady
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...

Cocoon: The Return
1988
as Mary Luckett
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 ...

Nuts
1987
as Rose Kirk
A high-class call girl accused of murder fights for the right to stand trial rather than be declared mentally incompetent.

Made in Heaven
1987
as Aunt Lisa
Deceased drifter Mike arrives in Heaven and quickly falls for newborn soul Annie, soon to start her assignment on Earth. When Annie leaves, Mike follo...

Sweet Lorraine
1987
as Lillian Garber
Serio-comic look at the residents and staff of a Catskill Mountains resort during its final days.

Heartburn
1986
as Vera
Rachel is a food writer at a New York magazine who meets Washington columnist Mark at a wedding and ends up falling in love with him despite her reser...

The Cosmic Eye
1986
as Mother Earth (voice)
Earth is visited by a race of aliens, who issue an ultimatum: either peace or complete destruction.

The Money Pit
1986
as Estelle
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-...

Cocoon
1985
as Mary Luckett
When a group of trespassing seniors swim in a pool containing alien cocoons, they find themselves energized with youthful vigor.

Private Sessions
1985
as Dr. Liz Bolger
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 ther...

Night of 100 Stars II
1985
as Self
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 t...

Johnny Dangerously
1984
as Mom
An honest, goodhearted man is forced to turn to a life of crime to finance his neurotic mother's skyrocketing medical bills.
America and Lewis Hine
1984
as Voice
Documentary about early 20th-century photographer Lewis Hine, who helped to expose grim working conditions in American factories and mines, especially...

Family Secrets
1984
as Maggie Lukauer
Three generations of women spend an emotional weekend that will change them forever.

Sentimental Journey
1984
as Ruthie
A precocious child has a profound effect on the lives of a successful Broadway producer and her husband.

Alice in Wonderland
1983
as White Queen
From the elaborate Broadway revival of the 1932 Eva Le Gallienne/Florida Friebus production comes a whimsical retelling of the Lewis Carroll classic.

Montgomery Clift
1983
as Self
A documentary incorporating footage of Montgomery Clift’s most memorable films; interviews with family and friends, and rare archival material stretch...

Night of 100 Stars
1982
as Self
The most glittering, expensive, and exhausting videotaping session in television history took place Friday February 19, 1982 at New York's Radio City ...

The Electric Grandmother
1982
as Grandmother
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...

Reds
1981
as Emma Goldman
An account of the revolutionary years of the legendary American journalist John Reed, who shared his adventurous professional life with his radical co...

The Fan
1981
as Belle Goldman
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 vio...

On the Right Track
1981
as Mary the Bag Lady
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...

The Gathering, Part II
1979
as Kate Thornton
Two Christmases have passed and widow Kate Thornton has taken over Thornton Industries and is wooed by a courtly financier.

Letters from Frank
1979
as Betty Miller
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...

The Runner Stumbles
1979
as Mrs. Shandig
Dick Van Dyke stars as a priest accused of murdering a nun. Directed by Stanley Kramer, this 1979 drama also features Kathleen Quinlan, Maureen Staple...

Lost and Found
1979
as Jemmy
While visiting Switzerland, an American college professor, Adam, keeps running into a divorced British secretary, Patricia, wherever they go. First th...

The Muppets Go Hollywood
1979
as Self
Kermit the Frog throws a glamorous party at the Cocoanut Grove nightclub to celebrate the premiere of the Muppets' first feature film, The Muppet Movi...

Interiors
1978
as Pearl
When Eve, an interior designer, is deserted by her husband of many years, Arthur, the emotionally glacial relationships of the three grown-up daughter...

The Gathering
1977
as Kate
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 hi...

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
1976
as Big Mama
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 w...
A Mother's Tale
1976
as Narrator
A parable about a family of cows which poses the problem of resistance to truth, the risks of individuality versus the pressure to conform, and the te...

Queen of the Stardust Ballroom
1975
as Bea Asher
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 recr...

Voyage to Next
1974
as Mother Earth (voice)
Mother Earth and Father Time converse about the choices humans make. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2010.
Tell Me Where It Hurts
1974
as Connie
A housewife, increasingly disenchanted with her homemaker role, looks for new meaning in her life and organizes a discussion group, changing the lives...

A Sunday Dinner
1974
A homeless man and woman prepare for and enjoy a special Sunday dinner

Tennessee Williams' South
1973
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 ...

Dig: A Journey Into Earth
1972
as Mother (voice)
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...

Plaza Suite
1971
as Karen Nash
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...

Summer of '42
1971
as Hermie's Mother (voice) (uncredited)
Over the summer of 1942 on Nantucket Island, three friends -- Hermie, Oscy and Benjie -- are more concerned with getting laid than anything else. Herm...

Airport
1970
as Inez Guerrero
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.

Mirror, Mirror Off the Wall
1969
as Ruthie Maxwell
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 ...

Trilogy
1969
as Mary O'Meaghan
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 liste...

Bye Bye Birdie
1963
as Mama Mae Peterson
A singer goes to a small town for a performance before he is drafted.

A View from the Bridge
1962
as Beatrice Carbone
Eddie Carbone, a Brooklyn longshoreman is unhappily married to Beatrice and unconsciously in love with Catherine, the niece that they have raised from...

The Fugitive Kind
1960
as Vee Talbot
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 dy...

For Whom the Bell Tolls
1959
as Pilar
During the Spanish Civil War, an American allied with the Republicans finds romance during a desperate mission to blow up a strategically important br...

Lonelyhearts
1959
as Fay Doyle
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 cy...

All the King's Men
1958
The life of populist Southerner Willie Stark, a political creature loosely based on Governor Huey Long of Louisiana, based upon the Robert Penn Warren...

Main Street to Broadway
1953
as Self (uncredited)
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 inspira...