Eileen Brennan - #56

Eileen Brennan, Stalwart of Film and Stage, Dies at 80

She was number 56 on the list

Eileen Brennan, a smoky-voiced actress who had worked in show business for more than 20 years before gaining her widest attention as a gleefully tough Army captain in both the film and television versions of “Private Benjamin,” died on Sunday at her home in Burbank, Calif. She was 80.

Her manager, Kim Vasilakis, confirmed the death on Tuesday, saying the cause was bladder cancer.

Ms. Brennan had had a solid career on the New York stage and in films like “The Last Picture Show” and “The Sting” when she was cast for the film “Private Benjamin,” a 1980 box-office hit starring Goldie Hawn in the title role.

Ms. Brennan played Capt. Doreen Lewis, the slow-burning commanding officer of a pampered, privileged young woman who joins the Army and finds that she isn’t anybody’s little princess anymore. The performance brought Ms. Brennan an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actress. She reprised the role in 1981 in a CBS sitcom based on the film, with Lorna Patterson in the Goldie Hawn role. The TV performance brought Ms. Brennan the Emmy Award for best supporting actress in a comedy, variety or music series.

But she was forced to leave “Private Benjamin” when she was hit by a car and critically injured in Venice, Calif. Without her, the series died in 1983.

While recovering Ms. Brennan became addicted to pain medication and underwent treatment. She later developed breast cancer.

She returned to television in 1985 in a new sitcom, “Off the Rack,” with Edward Asner, but the show lasted only six episodes. Afterward she made guest appearances on other shows, but she never recaptured the attention she had known in the past — as the toast of Off Broadway in “Little Mary Sunshine,”as a film actress in the 1970s, and as an honored comedy star just before her accident.

Verla Eileen Regina Brennen was born on Sept. 3, 1932, and grew up in Los Angeles, the daughter of a newspaper reporter who also worked in sales and a former actress. Later in life, dealing with her own alcohol dependency, she talked about the alcoholism in her family when she was a child.

After attending Georgetown University, she studied acting at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York, performed in summer stock and worked as a singing waitress.

Her first big role was as the title character in Rick Besoyan’s “Little Mary Sunshine,” a 1959 parody of operettas that played at the Orpheum Theater. She won an Obie Award for her portrayal of the show’s spunky, fluttery-eyed heroine. A year later she complained to The New York Times that she had been “hopelessly typecast as that kookie girl.”

Perhaps to prove otherwise, she promptly starred in the national tour of “The Miracle Worker,” as Helen Keller’s gravely serious teacher, Annie Sullivan.

In 1963, Ms. Brennan earned positive reviews as Anna in a City Center revival of “The King and I.” In 1964, she was cast as Irene Molloy, the young widow, in the original Broadway production of “Hello, Dolly!,” with Carol Channing.

Among later stage performances, she appeared in John Ford Noonan’s “A Coupla White Chicks Sitting Around Talking,” a critically praised 1980 two-woman show with Susan Sarandon, and Martin McDonagh’s dark comedy “The Cripple of Inishmaan” (1998), in which she played an alcoholic Irishwoman.

Ms. Brennan made her television debut in “The Star Wagon,” a 1966 PBS special, based on Maxwell Anderson’s play about a man who invented a time machine. Her film debut came a year later, in “Divorce American Style,” a comedy starring Debbie Reynolds and Dick Van Dyke.

After a brief stint as an original cast member (along with Ms. Hawn) of “Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In,” the 1960s sketch-comedy series, she did her first picture, playing a world-weary Texas waitress in “The Last Picture Show” (1971), directed by Peter Bogdanovich.

Mr. Bogdanovich cast her again in “Daisy Miller” (1974), as a society hostess, and in “At Long Last Love” (1975), as a singing maid.

Ms. Brennan played a madam with a heart of gold in the Oscar-winning 1973 film “The Sting” and appeared in two comedy-noir films written by Neil Simon, “Murder by Death” (1976) and “The Cheap Detective” (1978) with Peter Falk.

In later years, she appeared in “Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous” (2005), as William Shatner’s mother (despite being a year younger than he was). But she was most visible making guest appearances on television.

In addition to the Emmy she won, Ms. Brennan received six other Emmy nominations. Two were for “Private Benjamin.” The others were for her work in “Taxi,” “Newhart,” “Thirtysomething” and Will & Grace in which she played Sean Hayes’s formidable acting teacher.

Throughout her career she talked openly about addiction. “It’s so horrible and it can be so disastrous, yet there’s something about the sensitivity of the human being that has to face it,” she said in a 1996 interview. “We’re very sensitive people with a lot of introspection, and you get saved or you don’t get saved.”


Ms. Brennan was married from 1968 to 1974 to David John Lampson, an aspiring actor. Their two sons, Patrick and Sam, survive her, along with a sister, Kathleen Howard, and two grandchildren.

Filmography

Film

Year       Title       Role       Notes

1967      Divorce American Style Eunice Tase        

1971      The Last Picture Show    Genevieve          Nominated—BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role

1973      Scarecrow           Darlene               

1973      The Blue Knight                 Glenda Television film

1973      The Sting             Billie     

1974      Nourish the Beast            Baba Goya           Television Film

1974      Daisy Miller        Mrs. Walker       

1975      At Long Last Love             Elizabeth             

1975      Hustle   Paula Hollinger

1976      Murder by Death              Tess Skeffington              

1977      The Death of Richie         Carol Werner     Television film

1977      The Great Smokey Roadblock     Penelope Pearson          

1978      FM         Mother                

1978      The Cheap Detective      Betty DeBoop   

1979      When She Was Bad...     Mary Jensen      Television film

1979      My Old Man       Marie    Television film

1980      Private Benjamin              Captain Doreen Lewis     Nominated—Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress

1981      When the Circus Came to Town Jessy      Television film

1982      Pandemonium Candy's mom    

1983      The Funny Farm                Gail Corbin         

1985      Clue       Mrs. Peacock    

1986      Babes in Toyland              Ms. Piper / Widow Hubbard       

1988      The New Adventures of Pippi Longstocking           Miss Bannister   Nominated—Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actress

1988      Sticky Fingers     Stella    

1988      Rented Lips         Hotel Desk Clerk              

1988      Going to the Chapel        Maude

1989      It Had to Be You                Judith   

1990      Stella     Mrs. Wilkerson

1990      Texasville             Genevieve Morgan         

1990      White Palace      Judy      

1991      Joey Takes a Cab                              

1992      I Don't Buy Kisses Anymore         Frieda  

1994      In Search of Dr. Seuss     Who-Villain         Television film

1995      Reckless               Sister Margaret

1996      If These Walls Could Talk               Tessie    Segment "1996"

1997      Boys Life 2           Mrs. Randozza   (segment "Nunzio's Second Cousin")

1997      Changing Habits                Mother Superior 

1997      Toothless   Joe #1          

1998      Pants on Fire      Mom    

1999      The Last Great Ride         Pamela Mimi Mackensie              

2000      Moonglow                         

2001      Jeepers Creepers             The Cat Lady     

2002      Comic Book Villains         Miss Cresswell  

2003      Dumb Luck          Minnie Hitchcock            

2003      Cheaper by the Dozen    Mrs. Drucker      Scenes deleted

2004      The Hollow         Ms. Etta              

2005      Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous              Carol Fields        

2009      The Kings of Appletown                Coach's blind mother     

2010      Naked Run          Gram Malone   

Television

Year       Title       Role       Notes

1967      NET Playhouse Unknown            Episode: "Infancy and Childhood"

1968      Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In      Performer           12 episodes

1970      The Ghost and Mrs. Muir              Paula Tardy         Episode: "Ladies' Man"

1970      The Most Deadly Game Alice      Episode: "Photo Finish"

1972      All in the Family                Angelique McCarthy       Episode: "The Elevator Story"

1972      McMillan & Wife              Dora      Episode: "Night of the Wizard"

1973      Jigsaw   Unknown            Episode: "In Case of an Emergency, Notify Clint Eastwood"

1975      Barnaby Jones   Anita Willson     Episode: "Blood Relations"

1975      Kojak     Julie Loring          Episode: "A House of Prayer, a Den of Thieves"

1975      Insight   Carol Harris         Episode: "The Prodigal Father"

1979      13 Queens Boulevard     Felicia Winters   9 episodes

1979–1980          A New Kind of Family      Kit Flanagan        11 episodes

1981      Taxi        Mrs. McKenzie Episode: "Thy Boss's Wife"

Nominated—Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series

1981–1983          Private Benjamin              Captain Doreen Lewis     37 episodes

Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Series Musical or Comedy

Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series

Nominated—Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Series Musical or Comedy

Nominated—Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series (1982-1983)

1982      American Playhouse       Millworker          Episode: "Working"

1984      The Love Boat    Helen Foster       2 episodes

1984–1985          Off the Rack        Kate Hollaran     7 episodes

1987      Magnum P.I.       Brenda Babcock                Episode: "The Love That Lies"

1987      Murder, She Wrote         Mariam Simpson              Episode: "Old Habits Die Hard"

1988      CBS Summer Playhouse Sioban Owens   Episode: "Off Duty"

1988–1989          Newhart              Corinne Denby 2 episodes

Nominated—Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series

1990      The Ray Bradbury Theater            Mrs. Annabelle Shrike    Episode: "Touched with Fire"

1991      Blossom               Agnes    3 episodes

1991      thirtysomething                Margaret Weston             Episode: "Sifting the Ashes"

Nominated—Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series

1992      Home Improvement       Wanda Episode: "Heavy Meddle"

1993      Tribeca Claudia Episode: "Stepping Back"

1993      Jack's Place         Dina       Episode: "The Hands of Time"

1993      Bonkers                Lilith DuPrave - Voice -     4 episodes

1993      Tales from the Crypt       Ruth Sanderson                Episode: "Til Death Do We Part"

1993      All-New Dennis the Menace        Voice     13 episodes

1994      Murder, She Wrote         Loretta Lee         Episode: "Dear Deadly"

1995      Walker, Texas Ranger     Joelle     Episode: "Mean Streets"

1995      Thunder Alley    Irma       Episode: "Are We There Yet?"

1995      Freak Friday - Principal Handel

1996      ER           Betty     2 episodes

1996–2006          7th Heaven         Gladys Bink         9 episodes

1997      Veronica's Closet              Grammy Anderson          Episode: "Veronica's First Thanksgiving"

1998      Nash Bridges      Loretta Bettina Episode: "Downtime"

1998      Mad About You                 Inspector #10     Episode: "Cheating on Sheila"

1999      Touched by an Angel      Dolores                 Episode: "The Last Day of the Rest of Your Life"

2000      The Fearing Mind             Irene's mother Episode: "Gentleman Caller"

2001–2006          Will & Grace       Zandra 6 episodes

Nominated—Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series

2003      Lizzie McGuire   Marge   Episode: "My Fair Larry"

2003      Strong Medicine               Evelyn Knightly Episode: "Coming Clean"