Zoe Caldwell

Caldwell was born in Melbourne, and raised in the suburb of Balwyn. Her father, Edgar, was a plumber.^[2] Caldwell's mother often took some of the neighbourhood kids to the Elizabethan Theatre in Richmond where they could go backstage and watch rehearsals and performances.^[3][4]

Summarize Timeline Fact Check

Caldwell began her career in Melbourne in the 1950s and early 1960s, performing with the newly formed Union Theatre Repertory Company (later the Melbourne Theatre Company).^[5]

She emigrated to England upon being invited to join the Royal Shakespeare Company at a time when Charles Laughton was attempting to revive Lear, and Vanessa Redgrave, Eileen Atkins, Albert Finney were among the other newcomers in the company. She played Bianca in the 1959 production of Othello, starring Paul Robeson. Later she played the indomitable Helena, opposite Dame Edith Evans in a production of All's Well That Ends Well. Her career later brought her to the United States, where she was one of the original company of actors under Guthrie's direction at the Tyrone Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis. At the Guthrie, she played parts such as Ophelia in Hamlet and Natasha in Three Sisters.^{[citation needed]}

A life member of the Actors Studio,^[6] Caldwell won four Tony Awards for her performances on Broadway in Tennessee Williams' Slapstick Tragedy, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Medea and Master Class. In the last she portrayed opera diva Maria Callas. In Stratford, Ontario, she appeared often, including her role as Cleopatra in Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra opposite Christopher Plummer's Mark Antony in 1967.^[7]

Her other credits on Broadway include Arthur Miller's The Creation of the World and Other Business in which she played Eve, a one-woman play by William Luce based on the life of Lillian Hellman and a production of Macbeth with Christopher Plummer as Macbeth and Glenda Jackson as Lady Macbeth under Caldwell's direction. Caldwell directed, Off-Broadway, a two-woman play, created by Eileen Atkins, Vita and Virginia, based on the letters between Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West. Atkins played Virginia and Vanessa Redgrave played Vita. Caldwell directed the Broadway production of Othello in the late 1970s with James Earl Jones, Christopher Plummer, and Dianne Wiest. She helmed the American Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford, Connecticut, for two limited-run seasons as its artistic director in the mid-1980s.^{[citation needed]}

Caldwell also performed on film, most notably as an imperious dowager in Woody Allen's The Purple Rose of Cairo. She voiced the character of the Grand Councilwoman in Disney's Lilo & Stitch, and continued voicing the character in the franchise's later films and in Lilo & Stitch: The Series, as well as in Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep.^[8] In 2011, she acted in Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close.^[9]

Caldwell graduated from Methodist Ladies' College, Kew, and, much later, received an honorary degree from the University of Melbourne.^[10] In 1968, she married Canadian-born Broadway producer Robert Whitehead, a cousin of actor Hume Cronyn. They had two sons and were married until Whitehead's death in June 2002.^[11]

In 1970, Caldwell was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire by The Queen.^[9]

Caldwell died in Pound Ridge, New York, on 16 February 2020, aged 86, of complications from Parkinson's disease.^[1]

Film

More information Year, Title ...

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1962	Festival in Adelaide	Saint Joan
1985	The Purple Rose of Cairo	The Countess
2002	Lilo & Stitch	Grand Councilwoman	Voice
2003	Stitch! The Movie		Voice, direct-to-video
2004	Birth	Mrs. Hill
	Stitch's Great Escape!	Grand Councilwoman	Voice, short
2006	Leroy & Stitch		Voice, direct-to-video
2011	Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close	Oskar's Grandmother	(final film role)

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Television

More information Year, Title ...

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1959	A Midsummer Night's Dream	Fairy	TV movie
1960	BBC Sunday Night Play	Ruth Honeywill	Episode: "Twentieth Century Theatre: Justice"
	ITV Playhouse	Louise	Episode: "The Song of Louise in the Morning"
	Suspense	Kathy Harrison	Episode: "Flight 404"
	Theatre 70		Episode: "The Neighbour"
1961	Macbeth	Lady Macbeth	TV movie
1963	Festival		Episode: "The Doctor's Dilemma"
1964	Playdate	Streetwalker	Episode: "A Night Out"
	Dear Liar	Mrs. Patrick Campbell	TV movie
1968	The Secret of Michelangelo	Narrator
1971	Great Performances	Sarah Bernhardt	Episode: "Sarah ... Sarah Bernhardt"
1978	Play of the Month	Mme. Arkadina	Episode: "The Seagull"
1983	Medea	Medea	TV movie
1986	American Masters	Carlotta Monterey O'Neill	Episode: "Eugene O'Neill: A Glory of Ghosts"
1989	Lantern Hill	Mrs. Kennedy	TV movie
1990	Road to Avonlea	Old Lady Lloyd	Episode: "Old Lady Lloyd"
2003	Lilo & Stitch: The Series	Grand Councilwoman	Voice, Episode: "Finder"

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Theatre credits

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Year	Title	Role	Notes
1958	Romeo and Juliet	unnamed parts[12]	Shakespeare Memorial Theatre
1958	Twelfth Night	unnamed parts[13]	Shakespeare Memorial Theatre
1958	Hamlet	unnamed parts[14]	Shakespeare Memorial Theatre
1958	Pericles	Antiochus' Daughter, unnamed parts[15]	Shakespeare Memorial Theatre
1958	Much Ado About Nothing	Margaret[16]	Shakespeare Memorial Theatre
1958	Hamlet	unnamed parts[17]	USSR tour
1958	Romeo and Juliet	unnamed parts[18]	USSR tour
1958	Twelfth Night	unnamed parts[19]	USSR tour
1959	Othello	Bianca[20]	Shakespeare Memorial Theatre
1959	All's Well That Ends Well	Helena[21]	Shakespeare Memorial Theatre
1959	A Midsummer Night's Dream	Fairy[22]	Shakespeare Memorial Theatre
1959	King Lear	Cordelia[23]	Shakespeare Memorial Theatre
1961	The Changeling	Isabella[24]	Royal Court Theatre
1961	Love's Labour's Lost	Rosaline[25]	Festival Theatre
1965	The Devils	Sister Jean of the Angels – replacement	Broadway Theatre
1966	Slapstick Tragedy	Polly	Longacre Theater – Tony Award
1967	Richard III	Lady Anne[26]	Festival Theatre
1967	The Merry Wives of Windsor	Mistress Page[27]	Festival Theatre
1967	Antony and Cleopatra	Cleopatra[28]	Festival Theatre; Expo Theatre
1968	The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie	Jean Brodie	Helen Hayes Theater – Tony Award
1972	The Creation of the World and Other Business	Eve	Shubert Theater
1974	Dance of Death	Alice	Vivian Beaumont Theater
1977	An Almost Perfect Person	Director	Belasco Theater
1979	Richard II	Director[29]	Avon Theatre
1982	Medea	Medea	Cort Theater – Tony Award
1986	Lillian	Lillian	Ethel Barrymore Theater
1988	Macbeth	Director	Mark Hellinger Theatre
1991	Park Your Car In Harvard Yard		Music Box Theater
1995–1997	Master Class	Maria Callas	John Golden Theater – Tony Award
2003	The Play What I Wrote	Mystery Guest Star – replacement	Lyceum Theater
	The Visit	Claire Zachanassian	Melbourne Theatre Company

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Video games

More information Year, Title ...

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2002	Disney's Stitch: Experiment 626	Grand Councilwoman	Deleted role; credit only
2010	Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep

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• Caldwell, Zoe (2002). I Will be Cleopatra: An Actress's Journey. New York: W. W. Norton. ISBN 978-0393323603.