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Known for:	Poltergeist, The Nun's Story, Network
Birth name:	Beatrice Whitney Straight
Birthday:	2 August 1914, Old Westbury, New York, USA

Sister of Michael Straight (writer and editor of The New Republic). Cousin of fashion designer/socialite Gloria Vanderbilt. Mother of Tony Cookson. Wife of actor Peter Cookson. Mother of director/writer Tony Cookson. At her death, her son, Tony Cookson, said that although reference books listed her birth year as 1918, which would have made her 82 when she died, she was actually 86. Her Oscar-winning role in Network lasted a mere 5 minutes and 40 seconds on screen, making her performance the briefest ever to win an acting Oscar Won Broadway's 1953 Tony Award as Best Supporting or Featured Actress (Dramatic) for "The Crucible." Under the auspices of acting teacher Michael Chekhov, she played Viola in "Twelfth Night" and Goneril in "King Lear" in 1937, with the Dartington Hall Players in England. In the 1940s she co-founded Theatre, Inc., which instigated the US visit of The Old Vic Company. Succeeded Wendy Hiller as Catherine Sloper in the Broadway play "The Heiress" at the Biltmore Theatre in 1948. It was in this production that she met future husband/actor Peter Cookson, who was playing the role of Morris Townsend. Brother Michael Straight, who was a magazine publisher for "The New Republic," was married three times. His second wife was Nina Auchincloss Steers, a writer and stepsister of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, and the half-sister of writer Gore Vidal. Brother Whitney Willard Straight was a noted race car driver who later headed up the British Overseas Airway Corporation. Also made news for being the youngest licensed pilot ever in England (age 16). Father Willard Straight was an investment banker who died of septic pneumonia while serving in France in 1919. Mother, heiress Dorothy Payne Whitney, subsequently married British educationist who founded Dartington Hall School in Devon. Beatrice moved with her family to England in 1925. Her final film appearance was playing Goldie Hawn's mother in the 1991 thriller "Deceived", and her role in the entire film was a mere five seconds long.

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