Eileen Heckart was an American actress of stage, screen, and television. Born Anna Eileen Herbert, her career spanned nearly 60 years. She first became known for her role as schoolteacher Rosemary Sydney in the original 1953 cast of William Inge's play Picnic on Broadway. She won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance as the overprotective mother of a blind adult son in Butterflies Are Free, a role she originated on Broadway before playing it in the film. She often played mothers, including Rocky Graziano's mother in Somebody Up There Likes Me; the mother of a murdered child in The Bad Seed; the elderly mother of an estranged son in the PBS production of the one-act play Save Me a Place at Forest Law; the overbearing mother of the detective portrayed by George Segal in No Way to Treat a Lady; the mother of reporter Jack Stein on the 1990s television sitcom Love & War; the mother of two separate characters on the daytime soap opera One Life to Live in the 1980s and 1990s; and the meddling mother of a jilted wife (played by Diane Keaton) in The First Wives Club, her last film role. She also had a recurring role on the 1970s sitcom, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, as Mary's Aunt Flo Meredith, a famous woman reporter, which she repeated on the subsequent spin-off series, Lou Grant. In addition to her Academy Award, she also won two Emmy Awards for Save Me a Place at Forest Lawn and Love & War, and a Golden Globe Award for The Bad Seed. She also received a special Tony Award for lifetime achievement in 2000, and has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. She made her final acting appearance in 2000 at age 80 in an off-Broadway production, The Waverly Gallery, in which she played the leading role of an elderly grandmother with Alzheimer's disease. Description above from the Wikipedia article Eileen Heckart, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Filmography

• 1996The First Wives Club — Catherine MacDuggan
• Cybill — Marge
• Murder One
• 1994Breathing Lessons — Mabel
• Ellen — Grandma
• The 5 Mrs. Buchanans — Mother Emma Buchanan
• 1994Ultimate Betrayal — Sarah McNeil
• 1993Stephen King's Golden Tales — Rose Pennywell
• 1993Triumph Over Disaster: The Hurricane Andrew Story — Shelly, Shelley
• Love & War
• Home Improvement — Elaine Jenkins
• 1989Stuck with Each Other — Fay Cass
• Annie McGuire
• 1986Heartbreak Ridge — Little Mary Jackson
• Highway to Heaven — Helen Spencer
• Partners in Crime — Jeanine
• Tales from the Darkside — Rose Pennywell
• The Cosby Show — Mrs. Hickson
• Trauma Center — Amy Decker
• 9 to 5
• 1982Games Mother Never Taught You — Martha Brewster
• 1982Table Settings
• 1981Joe Dancer: The Big Black Pill — Sister Clara
• 1980F.D.R.: The Last Year — Eleanor Roosevelt
• 1980White Mama — Three Bag Lady
• Backstairs at the White House — Eleanor Roosevelt
• Out of the Blue — The Boss Angel
• 1979The Sorrows of Gin — Rosemary
• Trapper John, M.D.
• Flying High
• 1978Suddenly, Love — Mrs. Malloy
• 1978The Honeymooners Christmas Special — Mildred
• Lou Grant
• 1977Sunshine Christmas — Bertha Hayden
• Alice
• 1976Burnt Offerings — Roz Allardyce
• Switch — Annie Warren
• 1975The Hiding Place — Katje
• Little House on the Prairie — Amanda Cooper
• Rhoda — Aunt Lillian Fiedler
• 1974The F.B.I. Story: The FBI Versus Alvin Karpis, Public Enemy Number One — Ma Barker
• 1974Wedding Band — Herman's Mother
• 1974Zandy's Bride — Ma Allan
• Barnaby Jones — Virginia Lennox / Steele
• Banyon — Mrs. Shaw
• 1972Butterflies Are Free — Mrs. Florence Baker
• The Streets of San Francisco — Stella 'Stell' Charnovski
• 1972The Victim — Mrs. Hawkes
• 1971All the Way Home — Aunt Hannah Lynch
• The Mary Tyler Moore Show — Flo Meredith
• Hawaii Five-O — Agatha Henderson
• 1969The Tree — Sally Dunning
• 1968No Way to Treat a Lady — Mrs. Brummel
• 1967Up the Down Staircase — Henrietta Pastorfield
• CBS Playhouse — Janet Ferguson
• Felony Squad
• The F.B.I. — Mrs. Creighton
• 1963My Six Loves — Ethel
• The Fugitive — Sister Veronica
• Ben Casey
• Dr. Kildare — Nurse Jenny Freesmith
• The New Breed — Harriet Dawson
• 1960Heller in Pink Tights — Lorna Hathaway
• 1959A Doll's House — Kristine
• Play of the Week — Myrtle
• 1958Hot Spell — Fan
• Naked City — Mildred Pepper, Virginia Cort
• 1956Bus Stop — Vera
• 1956Miracle in the Rain — Grace Ullman
• 1956Somebody Up There Likes Me — Ma Barbella
• 1956The Bad Seed — Hortense Daigle
• 1956The Little Foxes — Birdie
• Alfred Hitchcock Presents — Lucy Baldwin
• Gunsmoke — Hattie Silks, Athena Partridge Royce
• Kraft Television Theatre
• 1953The Trip to Bountiful — Jessie Mae Watts
• Hallmark Hall of Fame — Birdie, Mabel, Kristine Linde, Aunt Hannah Lynch
• Lux Video Theatre — Florie, Miss Green
• Suspense — Mollie, Margaret Quartermain, Mrs. Haskell
• Studio One — Evie Jackson
• The Ford Theatre Hour — Carrie
• The Philco Television Playhouse — Jessie Mae, Ruthie

Appearances as themselves (3)

• The Mike Douglas Show — Self
• Tony Awards — Self - Nominee, Self - Winner
• The Ed Sullivan Show — Self