In her long career, Beatrice Straight actually did very little work in the movies, plying her trade mostly on stage. But, when she did grace the silver screen, she did it with great skill. Her first love was theatre, having debuted on Broadway in the 1935 "Bitter Oleander". Her work garnered her much acclaim, including laurels in her Tony-winning performance (an award for best supporting actress) as Elizabeth Proctor in the 1953 production of Arthur Miller's "The Crucible". In addition to theatre and movies, she also gave us notable work on television. In 1978, she won an Emmy nomination for her part as the matriarch Alice Dain Leggett in the miniseries The Dain Curse. No less stately, she played the part of Lynda Carter's Queen Mother in the 1970s The New Adventures of Wonder Woman series. Her life was touched by that same kind of elegance and stateliness that she often portrayed on stage and screen. She was born Beatrice Whitney Straight in Old Westbury on Long Island. Her father, the banker and diplomat Willard Dickerman Straight, associated with the likes of J.P. Morgan. Her mother, Dorothy Payne Whitney Straight, was an heiress of the Whitneys, a dynastic (in the sense of T.V.'s own "Dynasty") moneyed family on the eastern seaboard. Beatrice went to the best schools, and caught the acting bug while a student in Devonshire, England, rendering a critically acclaimed performance in a school production of Ibsen's "A Doll's House." Her studies subsequently turned to acting, studying under the tutelage of Michael Chekhov, who was the nephew of Russian playwright Anton Chekhov and a member of the Moscow Art Theatre. Their relationship was somewhat symbiotic in that she persuaded him to start an acting school, later teaching there herself. It was through her work in the theatre that she met her husband, Peter Cookson, appearing opposite him as leading lady in "The Heiress" in 1948. She is perhaps best known for her achievement in the 1976 movie Network; after only three days of work in that movie and just a few scenes that actually made it into the final cut, Beatrice Straight contributed such a stellar performance that she earned the Academy Award for the best performance by a supporting actress.
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.