Frances Lee McCain

{{Infobox person

| name = Frances Lee McCain

| image = Frances Lee McCain 1977.JPG

| caption = McCain in 1977

| birth_date =

| birth_place = York, Pennsylvania U.S.

| death_date =

| death_place =

| occupation = Actress

| years_active = 1969–present

| other_names = Lee McCain

| spouse = Mark Wheeler

}}

Frances Lee McCain is an American actress.

Early life and education

McCain was born in York, Pennsylvania and grew up in New York, Illinois and Colorado in addition to California.{{cite web |title=Frances Lee McCain Pics |url=https://allstarpics.famousfix.com/pictures/frances-lee-mccain |website=Frances Lee McCain Photo Gallery – 2019 – Magazine Pictorials. Movie Stills. Event Photos. Red Carpet Pictures |publisher=AllStarPics.Net |access-date=August 19, 2019}} She graduated from Ripon College with a BA in Philosophy and then studied acting at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London, England.{{cite web|url=https://www.ripon.edu/2013/01/01/frances-lee-mccain-66/|title=Frances Lee McCain '66 dishes about theatrical success|website=Ripon College|date=January 1, 2013|access-date=February 8, 2019}} She completed a master's degree in psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies in 2000.

Acting career

She returned to New York City where she appeared on Broadway in Woody Allen's Play it Again Sam, and off-Broadway in Lanford Wilson's Lemon Sky, creating the role of Carol.{{cite news|title=LMTC Brings Back '70s Flop Play No "Lemon' After All: Frances Lee McCain returns to lead revived Wilson work|work=San Francisco Chronicle|first=Misha|last=Berson|date=September 16, 1990|page=22}} She joined the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco under William Ball and played a variety of roles in repertory.

= ''Apple's Way'' TV show (1974–1975) and other 1970s work =

She began her career in film and television after appearing opposite Jon Voight and Faye Dunaway in A Streetcar Named Desire, eventually co-starring with Ronny Cox as the female lead in the television series, CBS-TV's Apple's Way in 1974. She appeared in a variety of television series and miniseries throughout the 1970s, including Washington: Behind Closed Doors and the Quincy ME episode Eye Of The Needle playing a Holistic practitioner, and in "The Rockford Files" 1978 episode "The Prisoner of Rosemont Hall." In 1979, she appeared in Real Life. In 1979, she appeared on ABC in the television series 13 Queens Boulevard.

= 1980s acting work =

In the 1980s, she was cast in several major films, usually playing the mother of a main character. In 1984, she co-starred in the film Gremlins as Lynn Peltzer, the mother of main character, Billy Peltzer. Also that year, she played Ethel McCormack, mother to Kevin Bacon's character, in Footloose. In 1985 she appeared in the film Back to the Future as Stella Baines, the mother of Lorraine Baines (Lea Thompson). In 1986, she played Mrs. Lachance, the mother of Gordie Lachance (Wil Wheaton), in the drama film Stand by Me.

= Later work =

McCain continued to work in television after relocating to the San Francisco Bay Area in the late 1980s and also appeared in Scream (1996), as the mother of Rose McGowan and David Arquette's characters, and Patch Adams (1998).

She earned a master's degree in psychology from the California Institute of Integral Studies in 2000, and continued to work in Theater extensively in the San Francisco Area until her relocation to Albuquerque, NM, in 2010. {{citation needed|date=January 2010}}

In 2004, McCain initiated a theater project based on oral histories of the blue-collar workers responsible for the building and maintaining of the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico which received workshop readings at the Lensic Center for Performing Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and at the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C.

She is an Associate Artist of the ZSpace Studio in San Francisco, and is an ensemble member of the AlterTheater Ensemble in San Rafael, California.{{citation needed|date=August 2017}}

Filmography

Year ! Title ! Role ! Notes
class="wikitable"
1973	The Laughing Policeman	Prostitute
1979	Real Life	Jeanette Yeager
1981	Honky Tonk Freeway	Claire Calo
1982	Tex	Mrs. Johnson
1984	Footloose	Ethel McCormack
1984	Gremlins	Lynn Peltzer	{{cite book\|title=The Encyclopedia of Fantastic Film: Ali Baba to Zombies\|first=R. G.\|last=Young\|publisher=Hal Leonard\|date=2000\|isbn=978-1-55783-269-6}}
1985	Back to the Future	Stella Baines
1986	Murder in Three Acts	Miss Milray
1986	Stand by Me	Mrs. Lachance
1988	It Takes Two	Joyce Rogers
1996	Scream	Mrs. Riley
1998	Patch Adams	Judy
1999	True Crime	Mrs. Lowenstein
2018	Ideal Home	Doris
2019	Dreamland	Teller
2020	The Comeback Trail	Marge (Old Actress)
2022	End of the Road	Val