Maureen Stapleton Filmography

Dead Silence

Actors: Danny Aiello, Sally Kirkland, Maureen Stapleton

Synopsis: During her valedictorian address at her high school graduation, Renata Devereaux (Shanee Edwards) makes a startling confession: She's killed a fellow student. In flashbacks, she tells the story of how she came to accidentally drown a student (Charles Newmark) who taunted her. After that drowning Read More

Addicted to Love

Actors: Meg Ryan, Matthew Broderick, Kelly Preston, Tchéky Karyo, Maureen Stapleton

Synopsis: In this slightly dark comedy about romantic obsession, Sam (Matthew Broderick) is an astronomer who likes his life in the small New England town he calls home and loves his fiancée, Linda (Kelly Preston). But one day, Linda tells Sam that she's moving to New York because she has found a new job Read More

The Hollywood Collection: Jack Lemmon - America's Everyman

Actors: Jack Lemmon, Chris Lemmon, Billy Wilder, Garson Kanin, Delbert Mann

Synopsis: Jack Lemmon has mastered both stage and screen in his career with such hits as "The Odd Couple," "The Days of Wine and Roses," "The China Syndrome," "Save the Tiger" (for which he received an Oscar) and "Grumpy Old Men." He and Walter Matthau starred in numerous films together that were nearly Read More

Trading Mom

Actors: Sissy Spacek, Anna Chlumsky, Aaron Michael Metchik, Asher Metchik, Maureen Stapleton

Synopsis: The Mommy Market originated as a fey satirical novel by Nancy Brelis. In the film version, Anna Chlumsky plays the oldest of three siblings who are fed up with their impossible mother (Sissy Spacek). Through methods too complicated to go into here, the kids are able to make Mom completely Read More

The Last Good Time

Actors: Armin Mueller-Stahl, Maureen Stapleton, Lionel Stander, Olivia D'Abo, Adrian Pasdar

Synopsis: An elderly retired violinist befriends a troubled young woman in this touching, sensitively performed drama. Armin Mueller-Stahl stars as Joseph Kopple, a former professional musician who has withdrawn into a quiet life after the death of his wife. Remaining mostly isolated, Kopple stays at home Read More

Passed Away

Actors: Bob Hoskins, Jack Warden, William L. Petersen, Maureen Stapleton, Helen Lloyd Breed, Patricia Reed

Synopsis: In this black comedy, elderly Jack Scanlan (Jack Warden) passes away just as he's about to tell his oldest son Johnny (Bob Hoskins) what he's decided is truly important in life, which does little to ease Johnny's mid-life anxieties. Jack's funeral and the subsequent wake brings together the Read More

Lincoln: Now He Belongs to the Ages, 1865

Synopsis: This video is the fourth installment of the Lincoln series, originally aired on PBS. This volume focuses on the last days and hours of Abraham Lincoln's life. Viewers watch as Lincoln's enemies plot their final revenge on the man they believed had dishonored their heritage. The video also reveals Read More

Lincoln: I Want to Finish This Job, 1864

Synopsis: By the third year of the Civil War, personal and national tragedy had worn down President Lincoln. However, he focused on his job tenaciously, having a strong sense of history. This is the third of four programs in the Lincoln series, which originally aired on PBS. Produced and directed by Peter Read More

Miss Rose White

Actors: Maureen Stapleton, Kyra Sedgwick, Maximilian Schell, Amanda Plummer, Penny Fuller

Synopsis: In this Hallmark Hall of Fame TV film set in the post-war era, Kyra Sedgwick is the title character, a New Yorker who has long kept her Jewish heritage under wraps. Born in Poland but sent to the U.S. before the Holocaust, the young career woman receives word that the older sister she presumed was Read More

Lincoln: The Making of a President, 1860-1862

Synopsis: A shrewd politician, Abraham Lincoln had the intelligence, ambition, and principles to grow into his job as president. This is the first of four videos in the Lincoln series, which originally aired on PBS. Produced and directed by Peter W. Kunhardt, this program is narrated by renowned actor James Read More

Last Wish

Synopsis: Based on an autobiography by Betty Rollin, this is a heart-tugger which finds a woman with cancer seeking the assistance of her daughter in fulfilling her last wish--a wish to die with dignity. ~ Tana Hobart, All Movie Guide Read More

Lincoln: The Pivotal Year, 1863

Synopsis: President Abraham Lincoln leads the Union in the fight to end the awful bloodshed of the Civil War. The year is 1863. The president had a continuous struggle with the commanders of his army, and the bloodshed from the fighting at Antietam and Fredericksburg distressed him greatly. 1863 was the Read More

B.L. Stryker: Auntie Sue

Doin' Time on Planet Earth

Actors: Nicholas Strouse, Hugh Gillin, Gloria Hendry, Hugh O'Brian, Martha Scott

Synopsis: Ryan Richmond (Nicholas Strouse) is a lonely teen from Sunnydale, Arizona who believes he is a space alien in this offbeat comedy. Charles (Adam West) and his wife Edna (Candice Azzara) are the new neighbors who reinforce Ryan's vivid imagination. Hugh O'Brien plays a former U.S. vice-president Read More

Liberace: Behind the Music

Actors: Victor Garber, Maureen Stapleton, Saul Rubinek, Michael Dolan, Michael Wikes

Synopsis: This was the "unofficial" Liberace biopic, as opposed to the error-ridden "official" Liberace (telecast one week earlier in October of 1988). The star of Liberace: Behind the Music is Broadway actor Victor Garber, who later scored a personal triumph as the devilish Mr. Applegate in the revival of Read More

Cocoon: The Return

Actors: Don Ameche, Wilford Brimley, Hume Cronyn, Jack Gilford, Steve Guttenberg, Maureen Stapleton

Synopsis: Cocoon 2: The Return, like most sequels, relies a bit too heavily on one's familiarity with the first film. Without dwelling too long on Cocoon #1, we can observe that it ended with a group of senior citizens heading for the distant planet of Antarea, hoping to find a new, rewarding and elongated Read More

Nuts

Actors: Barbra Streisand, Richard Dreyfuss, Maureen Stapleton, Karl Malden, Eli Wallach

Synopsis: High-priced hooker Barbra Streisand has been arrested for the murder of one of her clients. The attorney engaged by Streisand's parents hope to cop an insanity plea so that she can avoid a trial and manslaughter conviction. But she refuses this, citing a proviso in New York law which may result in Read More

Made in Heaven

Actors: Timothy Hutton, Kelly McGillis, Maureen Stapleton, Don Murray, Ellen Barkin, Marj Dusay

Synopsis: Alan Rudolph directed this offbeat, boy-meets-girl romance in which boy dies, dead boy meets dead girl, dead boy loses dead girl, and dead boy tries to find dead girl again. The tale begins is a small Pennsylvania town, where Mike Shea (Timothy Hutton) dreams of escaping small town life and moving Read More

Sweet Lorraine

Actors: Maureen Stapleton, Trini Alvarado, Lee Richardson, John Bedford Lloyd, Freddie Roman

Synopsis: The elderly owner of an aging but still beloved Catskill's landmark inn must decide whether to make necessary repairs to the hotel or to sell the land to developers. Meanwhile the owner's granddaughter toils in the hotel kitchen for the summer and the other staff members do their jobs. Essentially Read More

Heartburn

Actors: Meryl Streep, Jack Nicholson, Jeff Daniels, Maureen Stapleton, Stockard Channing

Synopsis: Though she always played coy about the fact in interviews, Nora Ephron's novel Heartburn is a thinly disguised "a clef" rehash of her marriage to Washington Post reporter Carl Bernstein. Meryl Streep plays Rachel, an influential food critic who marries charismatic columnist Mark (Jack Nicholson) Read More

The Money Pit

Actors: Shelley Long, Tom Hanks, Alexander Godunov, Maureen Stapleton, Joe Mantegna

Synopsis: Adapting the themes of the 1948 film Mr. Blandings Builds his Dream House, this comedy stars Tom Hanks as Walter Fielding, who with his love Anna (Shelley Long) decides to buy a suburban New York home for next-to-nothing. Both Anna and Walter are willing to fix what ails the house and since they Read More

The Cosmic Eye

Synopsis: Animation veteran Faith Hubley worked solo for the first time since her husband's death in 1977 to oversee the feature-length cartoon The Cosmic Eye. The film concentrates on nothing less than the evolution of the earth, as seen through the eyes of three ultracool jazz musicians. Newly filmed Read More

Private Sessions

Synopsis: In this drama, the failed pilot for a TV series, a psychologist endeavors to balance his turbulent personal life, with those of his troubled patients. Unfortunately, he tends to get equally personally involved in both and trouble ensues. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Cocoon

Actors: Don Ameche, Wilford Brimley, Hume Cronyn, Brian Dennehy, Jack Gilford, Steve Guttenberg, Maureen Stapleton, Jessica Tandy, Gwen Verdon

Synopsis: Cocoon is a warm-hearted science-fiction fable that avoids becoming overly corny thanks to the performances of its mostly senior cast. Wilford Brimley, Don Ameche, and Hume Cronyn are three old-timers who sneak out of their retirement home a few days a week to swim in the large pool on an Read More

Johnny Dangerously

Actors: Michael Keaton, Joe Piscopo, Marilu Henner, Maureen Stapleton, Peter Boyle

Synopsis: This spoof of the 1930s and '40s crime stories ranges from the ridiculous to the sublime as it tells the story of Johnny Dangerously (Byron Thames as the young Johnny, Michael Keaton as the older), a devoted son to his ailing mother (Maureen Stapleton), so ill that she needs money for several Read More

America & Lewis Hine

Actors: Jason Robards, Jr.

Synopsis: Forgotten photography pioneer Lewis Hine, 1874-1940) is the subject of this fascinating documentary on a man who ironically died in poverty after spending his life chronicling its American manifestation. In 1905, Hine began photographing immigrants as they came off Ellis Island, a high-point in Read More

Family Secrets

Actors: Melissa Gilbert, Stefanie Powers, Maureen Stapleton

Synopsis: Maureen Stapleton, Stefanie Powers and Melissa Gilbert represent three generations of women in one family in this made-for-TV movie. Recently widowed, Stapleton invites her divorced daughter Powers, and Powers' illegitimate daughter Gilbert, for a weekend get-together. The catalyst for the film's Read More

Sentimental Journey

Actors: Jaclyn Smith, David Dukes, Jessica Rene Carroll

Synopsis: In this sad melodrama, a dying Broadway producer decides to adopt a sweet young girl to keep her husband company after she passes on. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Little Gloria... Happy at Last

Actors: Lucy Gutteridge, Angela Lansbury, Christopher Plummer

Synopsis: Little Gloria...Happy at Last is the two-part TV adaptation of Barbara Goldsmith's 1980 best-seller. The film concerns the true-life custody battle over the daughter of millionaire Reggie Vanderbilt (Christopher Plummer) and his "child bride," Gloria Morgan (Lucy Gutteridge). When the Read More

Alice in Wonderland

Actors: Kate Burton, Richard Burton, Zeljko Ivanek, Colleen Dewhurst, Geoffrey Holder

Synopsis: Part of the Broadway Theater Archives, this stage production of Lewis Carroll's children's fantasy Alice in Wonderland was directed by Kirk Browning. Kate Burton plays young Alice, the little girl who wanders into a bizarre wonderland that just gets more and more curious. Her real-life father, Richard Burton Read More

Montgomery Clift

Actors: Kevin McCarthy, Augusta Dabney, Jane Fonda

Synopsis: Documentary filmmaker Claudio Masenza, cinematic chronicler of the lives of Marlon Brando and James Dean, turns his attentions to the tragic film idol Montgomery Clift. Masenza offers a cursory synopsis of Clift's stage work (including The Skin of Our Teeth), then launches into a paean of the Read More

Reds

Actors: Warren Beatty, Diane Keaton, Edward Herrmann, Jerzy Kosinski, Jack Nicholson

Synopsis: Few filmmakers other than Warren Beatty would have had the courage and vision to fashion an epic film from the life of famed American Communist John Reed (who is the only US citizen buried in the Kremlin). The film is an effort to humanize a political movement that has previously been depicted on Read More

The Fan

Actors: Lauren Bacall, James Garner, Maureen Stapleton, Michael Biehn, Hector Elizondo

Synopsis: Lauren Bacall more or less plays herself in The Fan. Cast as famous Broadway musical comedy star Sally Ross (with an astonishing lack of temperament!), Bacall finds herself the unwilling love object of psychotic fan Douglas Breen (Michael Biehn). As security around Ross tightens, Breen vows that Read More

On the Right Track

Actors: Gary Coleman, Michael Lembeck, Lisa Eilbacher, Maureen Stapleton, Norman Fell

Synopsis: In this drama, a homeless shoeshine boy who lives in a locker at the train station finds himself quite popular after he reveals a talent for picking winners at the racetrack. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

The Electric Grandmother

Synopsis: The Electric Grandmother was the second TV adaptation of Ray Bradbury's I Sing the Body Electric (the first was presented on The Twilight Zone in 1962). Maureen Stapleton plays the title character, a custom-made android purchased by widowed Edward Hermann. "Grandma", a magical creation who can Read More

The Gathering, Part 2

Actors: Rebecca Balding, Bruce Davison, Maureen Stapleton, Gail Strickland

Synopsis: Ed Asner dominated the proceedings of the 1977 TV movie The Gathering; inasmuch as Asner's character died at the end of that film, he is absent from the 1979 sequel The Gathering, Part 2. Said sequel could certainly have benefitted from Asner's presence, no matter how illogical that presence might Read More

Letters from Frank

Synopsis: Frank is Frank Miller (Art Carney), a 65 year old newspaper man. His letters are to his oldest son Richard (Mike Farrell), and they're decidedly on the vitriolic side. Frank, you see, was involuntarily retired from his job and replaced by a computer. But with the help and support of his wife Betty Read More

Lost and Found

Actors: George Segal, Glenda Jackson, Maureen Stapleton, Hollis McLaren, John Cunningham

Synopsis: Adam (George Segal) is an English instructor at a U.S. college who hopes to win a professorship and tenure. Tricia (Glenda Jackson) is an English divorcee. They both wind up on a French ski slope at exactly the wrong time, and in the resulting collision, break one another's legs. While they are Read More

Arthur Miller on Home Ground

Actors: Arthur Miller, Inge Monath

Synopsis: This 1979 documentary chronicles the first 64 years in the life of Arthur Miller (b. 1915), an important 20th-century American playwright, novelist and all-around man of letters. Miller also wrote several screenplays, notably for The Misfits and The Crucible. The last was based on his Read More

The Runner Stumbles

Actors: Dick Van Dyke, Kathleen Quinlan, Maureen Stapleton, Ray Bolger, Tammy Grimes

Synopsis: Director Stanley Kramer ended his career with this absorbing drama, adapted from the play by Milan Stitt and based on a real-life event from 1927. Dick Van Dyke stars as Father Rivard, an intellectual priest in a small, impoverished mining town in the state of Washington. A lonely man with low Read More

Saturday Night Live: Maureen Stapleton

Actors: Maureen Stapleton, Linda Ronstadt, Phoebe Snow

Synopsis: This 1979 episode of Saturday Night Live is hosted by Maureen Stapleton and features musical guests Linda Ronstadt and Phoebe Snow. ~ Skyler Miller, All Movie Guide Read More

Interiors

Actors: Maureen Stapleton, Kristin Griffith, Mary Beth Hurt, Richard Jordan, Diane Keaton, E.G. Marshall, Geraldine Page

Synopsis: Diane Keaton, Kristin Griffith, and Mary Beth Hurt play Renata, Flyn, and Joey, the grown daughters of wealthy Arthur (E.G. Marshall) and his emotionally disturbed wife, Eve (Geraldine Page). When Arthur leaves Eve, her three daughters rally around her. As it turns out, none of the daughters are Read More

The Gathering

Actors: Rebecca Balding, Gregory Harrison, Maureen Stapleton, Gail Strickland

Synopsis: The Gathering stars Ed Asner as an ill-tempered executive who long ago walked out on his family. Just before Christmas, Asner is told that he has only a few weeks to live. He confides this information to his estranged wife Maureen Stapleton, who suggests that he call his four adult children (Gail Strickland Read More

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

Actors: Natalie Wood, Robert Wagner, Laurence Olivier, Maureen Stapleton

Synopsis: This TV adaptation of Tennessee Williams' prize-winning play stars Robert Wagner as Brick, a college sports champion who hasn't made it in the real world, and Natalie Wood as Brick's wife Maggie, the sexually frustrated "cat" of the title. Brick and Maggie are staying at the home of Brick's Read More

Queen of the Stardust Ballroom

Actors: Maureen Stapleton, Charles Durning, Michael Brandon

Synopsis: Queen of the Stardust Ballroom stars Maureen Stapleton as Bea Asher, a woman faced with many new challenges since becoming a widow. She has been afraid for herself and her future since her husband's death, and friends concerned for her well-being take her to the Stardust Ballroom in the hopes Read More

Tell Me Where It Hurts

Actors: Maureen Stapleton, Paul Sorvino, Ayn Ruymen

Synopsis: Maureen Stapleton stars as a housewife who, after 26 years of marriage, is searching for new meaning in life. She inaugurates a weekly round robin at her home, encouraging six of her best friends to seriously discuss their difficulties. While the friends draw closer during these sessions Read More

Summer of '42

Actors: Jennifer O'Neill, Gary Grimes, Jerry Houser, Oliver Conant, Katherine Allentuck

Synopsis: A surprise success in 1971 ($20 million worth of "surprise"), The Summer of '42 is a coming-of-age piece, drenched in nostalgia. Director Robert Mulligan narrates the film as the grown-up counterpart of Hermie (Gary Grimes), a teenager of the War Years who has a crush on twentyish Jennifer Read More

Plaza Suite

Actors: Walter Matthau, Maureen Stapleton, Barbara Harris, Lee Grant, Louise Sorel

Synopsis: It is not uncommon for actors to double and triple in roles while appearing in the "omnibus" plays of Neil Simon. Plaza Suite was the first film version of a Simon play to carry over the multiple-role device to the screen. Walter Matthau appears in all three one-act playlets comprising Plaza Read More

Airport

Actors: Burt Lancaster, Dean Martin, Jean Seberg, Jacqueline Bisset, George Kennedy

Synopsis: Airport had enough plot and enough star power in its cast for three feature films, and it only encompassed about half of the complexity or characters found in Arthur Hailey's best-selling potboiler. Essentially built around 12 harrowing hours at a major Midwestern airport, the film had everything Read More

Truman Capote's Trilogy

Actors: Mildred Natwick, Susan Dunfee, Carol Gustafson, Robin Ponterio

Synopsis: This trilogy begins with "Miriam" in which the title character (Susan Dunfee) watches as her longtime nanny Miss Miller (Mildred Natwick) slowly sinks into insanity. In "Among The Paths to Eden," Mary (Maureen Stapleton) is a lonely woman searching for a husband among the widowers paying respects Read More

Trilogy

Bye Bye Birdie

Actors: Janet Leigh, Dick Van Dyke, Ann-Margret, Maureen Stapleton, Bobby Rydell, Paul Lynde

Synopsis: George Sidney's adaptation of the satiric Broadway musical smash by Michael Stewart, Charles Strouse, and Lee Adams -- about an Elvis Presley-inspired rock star, who is drafted into the army and who creates a near-riot in a small Midwestern town when he stops there for one last publicity junket Read More

A View from the Bridge

Actors: Raf Vallone, Jean Sorel, Maureen Stapleton, Raymond Pellegrin, Carol Lawrence

Synopsis: A View from the Bridge is set in New York, but the alleged political undesirability of playwright Arthur Miller dictated that this film be lensed in France. Director Sidney Lumet shot the film in both English and French, with the English version sounding more recited than acted at times. Raf Vallone Read More

The Fugitive Kind

Actors: Marlon Brando, Anna Magnani, Joanne Woodward, Maureen Stapleton, Victor Jory

Synopsis: Fugitive Kind began life as Battle of Angels, a never-produced 1939 play by a young Tennessee Williams. Nearly 20 years later, Williams refined this rough-hewn theatrical effort into Orpheus Descending, which enjoyed a respectable Broadway run. The renamed film version stars Marlon Brando as Read More

Lonelyhearts

Actors: Montgomery Clift, Robert Ryan, Myrna Loy, Dolores Hart, Maureen Stapleton

Synopsis: For his film directorial debut, producer Dore Schary selected a longtime pet property: Miss Lonelyhearts, Nathaniel West's trenchant 1933 novel. Montgomery Clift delivers a haunting performance as journalist Adam White, assigned by his cynical editor Adam Shrike (Robert Ryan) to take over a Read More