Lisa Banes

Stage

Banes found quick success on the New York stage. In 1980, she played Alison Porter in the Roundabout Theatre's production of John Osborne's Look Back in Anger and won a Theatre World Award for her performance.^[2][3] In 1981, in James M. Barrie's The Admirable Crichton, at the Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven, Connecticut, a New York Times critic, Mel Gussow, praised the "panache" with which as Lady Mary she transformed into "a kind of Jane of the jungle".^[1] She subsequently had lead roles in Wendy Kesselman's My Sister in This House, in Chekhov's Three Sisters, and was nominated for a Drama Desk Award for her role in Wendy Wasserstein's Isn't It Romantic in 1984.^[1][2]

Banes appeared on Broadway several times, beginning with the role of Cassie in the Neil Simon play Rumors in 1988.^[1][4] In 1995, she played Lady Croom in the American premiere of Tom Stoppard's Arcadia.^[1][5] Other appearances included the Broadway premieres of Tom Stoppard's Arcadia in 1995 and the musical High Society in 1998,^[1][4] Accent on Youth in 2009,^[4] and most recently the 2010 revival of Noël Coward's Present Laughter.^[1][4] She continued to appear in non-Broadway stage productions; in 2018 she shared the lead in the premiere of Eleanor Burgess's The Niceties at the Huntington Theater in Boston;^[1][2] the following year she repeated the role at the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles.^[4]

Television

On television, Banes had regular roles as Doreen Morrison in The Trials of Rosie O'Neill, as Ellen Collins on Royal Pains,^[1] and as Mayor Anita Massengil on the Fox comedy series Son of the Beach (2000–01). She also had recurring roles on The King of Queens as Carrie's boss Georgia Boone, Six Feet Under as Victoria, on One Life to Live as Eve McBain, and on Nashville Season 6 as the Ranch Director. She also guest starred as a Trill doctor in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Equilibrium". Banes played Anne Kane in the 1985 TV miniseries Kane & Abel. Her other television credits include China Beach; Murder, She Wrote; The Practice; NYPD Blue; Desperate Housewives; Law & Order: Special Victims Unit; The Good Wife; NCIS; and Once Upon a Time. Her last work was on episodes of The Orville^[1] and Them.^[2]

Death

On June 4, 2021, Banes was visiting friends in New York and was in a marked crosswalk on Amsterdam Avenue approaching the Juilliard School when she was struck by a person operating an electric scooter. The scooter rider, who had gone through a red light, fled the scene of the hit and run collision.^[1][7] Banes was admitted to Mount Sinai Morningside Hospital with a traumatic brain injury^[6][8] and died there on June 14 at the age of 65.^[1][9] The suspect immediately drove 4 miles (6.4 km) to an Upper Manhattan shop to get his vehicle fixed.^[7]

On August 5, 2021, police arrested 26-year old Brian Boyd at his apartment in the Amsterdam Houses, near where he ran down Banes. He was jailed on a bail of $30,000 cash or $100,000 bond. He was charged with leaving the scene of an accident resulting in death, and failure to yield to a pedestrian.^[7] On September 28, 2022, Boyd pleaded guilty to manslaughter;^[10] on November 30, 2022, he was sentenced to up to three years in prison.^[11]

Film

Television