Helen Hanft
Helen Hanft | |
|---|---|
| Born | April 4, 1934 |
| Died | May 29, 2013 (aged 79) |
| Occupation | Actress |
| Years active | 1976–2013 |
Helen Hanft (April 4, 1934 - May 29, 2013) was an American actress.
Life and career
Hanft was born in New York City. She started her theatrical career in the early 1960 during the Golden Age of experimental theater at such venues as La Mama ETC and Caffe Cino and in a few years she became known as "the Helen Hayes of off-off Broadway." Not a great beauty, she nevertheless commanded the stage with her strong Ethel Merman-style comedic talent and ability to satirize her sexuality; she often played eccentric, flamboyant, raunchy characters in many successful plays like the Tom Eyen hits Why Hanna's Skirt Won't Stay Down, Women Behind Bars, Italian American Reconciliation, and The Neon Woman co-starring Divine. She also had a great personal success in the David Rabe play In the Boom Boom Room at Joseph Papp's Public Theater.
In the middle 1970s Hanft began appearing in movies, some with Woody Allen (Manhattan, 1979; The Purple Rose of Cairo, 1985). She was also a favorite of Paul Mazursky, who cast her in Next Stop, Greenwich Village and Willie & Phil. She had a strong cameos in the 1981 hit Arthur with Dudley Moore, the 1988 comedy License To Drive, and in 1992 she appeared opposite Shirley MacLaine and Marcello Mastroianni in Used People. In the late 1990s she began playing memorable guest roles on such popular TV shows as Law & Order. She continued to make occasional stage appearance in New York City and played Milla Jovovich's painkiller-addicted mother in Dummy, 2002.
She appeared in many Off-Off Broadway plays by Tom Eyen and Stephen Holt. She appeared in Eyen's "The Dirty Little Girl with the Paper Flower in Her Hair Is Demented," as well as "Who Killed My Bald Sister Sophie" and Off Broadway with Divine in "Neon Woman" and "Women Behind Bars." She was featured as Lizzie Borden in St Holt's "Reety in Hell" and "The Kitty Glitter Story," "Stoop" "Bambi Levine, Please Shut Up!" and as Judy Garlan dying in her bathroom in "London Loo." She died on May 29, 2013, in New York City
External links
- Helen Hanft at IMDb
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