Tammy Grimes

Grimes was born on January 30, 1934, in Lynn, Massachusetts, the daughter of Eola Willard (née Niles), a naturalist and spiritualist, and Luther Nichols Grimes, an innkeeper, country-club manager, and farmer.{{cite web| title=Tammy Grimes profile|url=http://www.filmreference.com/film/57/Tammy-Grimes.html| website=filmreference| year=2008|access-date=July 6, 2008}}{{cite book| url=https://archive.org/details/currentbiogr196200mori| url-access=registration| quote=Tammy Lee Grimes was born in Lynn, Massachusetts.| title=Current Biography Yearbook| year=1963| publisher=H W Wilson| isbn=978-0-8242-0128-9}}

She attended high school at a then all-girls school, Beaver Country Day School, and then Stephens College. She studied acting at New York City's Neighborhood Playhouse.[{{AllMusic|class=artist|id=p27502/biography|pure_url=yes}} "Tammy Grimes biography"], AllMusic, accessed January 9, 2009. She studied singing with Beverley Peck Johnson.{{cite news| url=https://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/22/arts/beverley-peck-johnson-96-voice-teacher.html| title=Beverley Peck Johnson, 96, Voice Teacher| newspaper=The New York Times| date=January 22, 2001| author-link=Anthony Tommasini| last=Tommasini| first=Anthony}}

Known for a speaking voice compared to a buzz saw,[http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095908578 "Profile"]. Oxford Reference. Retrieved November 6, 2016. she made her debut on the New York stage at the Neighborhood Playhouse in May 1955 in Jonah and the Whale. That same year, she portrayed the title role in the musical The Amazing Adele, a work which she performed in tryout performances and on tour, but which ultimately never made it to Broadway.{{cite book| chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/encyclopediaofmu00ganz_1/page/824/mode/2up?q=Grimes| title=The Encyclopedia of the Musical Theatre| edition=Second| volume=II| first=Kurt| last=Gänzl| author-link=Kurt Gänzl| chapter=GRIMES, Tammy| publisher=Schirmer Books| year=2001| isbn=978-0-02-865573-4}}

She made her Broadway stage debut as an understudy for Kim Stanley in the starring role in Bus Stop in June 1955.Calta, Louis (June 25, 1955). "Kim Stanley Misses Show". The New York Times. pg. 8. In 1956, she appeared in the off-Broadway production, The Littlest Revue, and had the lead role in 1959 in the Broadway production of Noël Coward's play, Look After Lulu!, after she was discovered in a nightclub by the playwright."Tammy Grimes in British-Flavored Solo". The New York Times. May 30, 1988.

She starred in the 1960 musical comedy The Unsinkable Molly Brown, for which she won a Tony Award (Best Featured Actress in a Musical, though it was the lead role) for what The New York Times called her "buoyant" performance as a rough-hewn Colorado social climber. She portrayed the title character, a Western mining millionairess who survived the sinking of the Titanic. In 1964, she appeared in the episode "The He-She Chemistry" of Craig Stevens's CBS drama Mr. Broadway. She made two appearances on the early '60s TV series Route 66.{{cite news| last1=Ventura| first1=Michael| title=Letters at 3AM: 'Ever Ride the Waves in Oklahoma?'| url=http://www.austinchronicle.com/columns/2012-06-01/letters-at-3am-ever-ride-the-waves-in-oklahoma/| newspaper=The Austin Chronicle| access-date=December 18, 2016| date=June 1, 2012}}

On May 16, 1960, Grimes acted and sang as Mehitabel in an abridged version of the musical Archy and Mehitabel as part of the syndicated TV anthology series The Play of the Week presented by David Susskind, and co-written by Mel Brooks and Joe Darion. The cast included Eddie Bracken (who reprised the role in the 1970 animated feature version Shinbone Alley with Carol Channing in the Mehitabel role) and Jules Munshin. Grimes was originally chosen to play the part given to Elizabeth Montgomery in the hit television situation comedy Bewitched, but she turned down the offer, preferring to star in The Tammy Grimes Show.{{cite book| first=John| last=Javna| title=The Best of TV Sitcoms: The Critics' Choice: Burns and Allen to the Cosby Show, the Munsters to Mary Tyler Moore| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PaFkAAAAMAAJ&q=tammy+grimes+bewitched| year=1988| publisher=Harmony Books| isbn=978-0-517-56922-1| page=80| quote=Lucky break The original star of "Bewitched" was to be Tammy Grimes, an English stage actress who'd just signed a deal with ScreenGems TV. But she didn't like the script. She turned it down in favor of a concept that became The Tammy Grimes Show}}{{cite book| first=Herbie J.| last=Pilato| title=Dashing, Daring, and Debonair: TV's Top Male Icons from the 50s, 60s, and 70s| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vaI9DAAAQBAJ&pg=PA82| date=July 20, 2016| publisher=Taylor Trade Publishing| isbn=978-1-63076-053-3| page=82}} She appeared in the television drama Route 66 on December 13, 1963, in an episode titled "Come Home Greta Inger Gruenschaffen".

In 1964, she appeared on Broadway as Elvira Condomine in High Spirits, a musical version of Noël Coward's Blithe Spirit.

In 1966, Grimes starred in her own ABC television series, The Tammy Grimes Show, in which she played a modern-day heiress who loved to spend money. The series ran for only a month, although an additional six episodes had already been made.{{cite news| title=A.B.C.-TV Ax Falls On 'Tammy Grimes'| url=https://www.nytimes.com/1966/09/28/archives/abctv-ax-falls-on-tammy-grimes.html?searchResultPosition=1| newspaper=The New York Times| date=September 28, 1966| access-date=April 12, 2025| url-access=subscription}} Critics described Grimes as a talented performer misused in the series.{{cite news |last1=Gould |first1=Jack |title=TV: N.B.C. Tarzan, He Urbane and Sophisticated |newspaper=The New York Times |date=9 September 1966 |page=91}}{{cite news |last1=Shain |first1=Percy |title=TV Introduces 6 More Programs–One Shines, Two Fall Flat |newspaper=The Boston Globe |date=September 9, 1966 |page=23}} She played "Mrs. Fred Beery" opposite Roddy McDowall in a 1979 episode of The Love Boat.

Returning to the Broadway stage in 1969 after almost a decade of performing in what The New York Times called "dubious delights", Grimes appeared in a revival of Noël Coward's Private Lives as Amanda, winning the Tony Award for Best Actress. Clive Barnes in a New York Times review called her performance "outrageously appealing. She plays every cheap trick in the histrionic book with supreme aplomb and adorable confidence. Her voice moans, purrs, splutters; she gesticulates with her eyes, almost shouts with her hair. She is all campy, impossible woman, a lovable phony with the hint of tigress about her, so ridiculously artificial that she just has to be for real."Barnes, Clive (December 5, 1969). "Theater: Tammy Grimes Cavorts in 'Private Lives'". The New York Times. p. 52.

Grimes' intermittent film appearances included Play It as It Lays (1972), Mr. North (1988) and High Art (1998).

She was a member of the Stratford Festival of Canada acting company in 1956, and returned again in 1982 to appear as Madame Arcati in Blithe Spirit.{{cite web| url =https://archives.stratfordfestival.ca/AIS/Details/people/6949| title=Tammy Grimes acting credits| website=Stratford Festival Archives| access-date=June 26, 2019}} In addition to appearing in a number of television series and motion pictures, Grimes also entertained at various New York City night clubs and recorded several albums of songs. She recited poetry as part of a 1968 solo act in the Persian Room of the Plaza Hotel. Her voice can be heard in romantic duets on some of Ben Bagley's anthology albums of Broadway songs under his Painted Smiles record label. In 1982, Grimes hosted the final season of the CBS Radio Mystery Theater replacing E.G. Marshall who had hosted the show since it premiered in 1974. In 1983, Grimes was dismissed from her co-starring role in the Neil Simon play Actors and Actresses, reportedly due to an inability to learn her lines.{{cite news| title=Tammy Grimes Dismissed From Play| url=https://www.nytimes.com/1983/02/12/theater/tammy-grimes-dismissed-from-play.html?searchResultPosition=1| newspaper=The New York Times| date=February 12, 1983| page=10, Section 1| url-access=subscription}}

In 1974, Grimes provided the voice for Albert, the cerebral-minded mouse that does not believe in Santa Claus, in the animated Rankin-Bass annual television Christmas special, Twas the Night Before Christmas; she later worked with Rankin/Bass again for 1982's The Last Unicorn. In 1980, she starred in the original Broadway production of the musical 42nd Street. In 2003, Grimes was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame.{{cite journal| date=October 22, 2002| last=Gans| first=Andrew| url=http://www.playbill.com/news/article/72902-32nd-Annual-Theatre-Hall-of-Fame-Inductees-Announced-Mamet-Channing-Grimes-Among-Names/32nd-Annual-Theatre-Hall-of-Fame-Inductees-Announced-Mamet-Channing-Grimes-Among-Names| journal=Playbill| title=32nd Annual Theatre Hall of Fame Inductees Announced| url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140226210627/http://www.playbill.com/news/article/72902-32nd-Annual-Theatre-Hall-of-Fame-Inductees-Announced-Mamet-Channing-Grimes-Among-Names/32nd-Annual-Theatre-Hall-of-Fame-Inductees-Announced-Mamet-Channing-Grimes-Among-Names| archive-date=February 26, 2014}} She also appeared in the rotating cast of the off-Broadway staged reading of Wit & Wisdom.[http://www.theatermania.com/off-broadway/shows/wit-and-wisdom_20415 Profile], Theatermania.com; accessed November 6, 2016.{{dead link|date=April 2025}}

In December 2003, Grimes was invited by the Noël Coward Society to be the first celebrity to lay flowers on the statue of Sir Noël Coward at the Gershwin Theatre in Manhattan to celebrate the 104th birthday of "The Master". In 2004, she joined the company of Tasting Memories, a "compilation of delicious reveries in poetry, song, and prose", with a starry rotating cast including Kitty Carlisle Hart, Rosemary Harris, Philip Bosco, Joy Franz, and Kathleen Noone.Simonson, Robert and Jones, Kenneth (May 19, 2004). [http://www.playbill.com/news/article/86229.html "Tasting Memories Brings Hart, Harris, Bosco and Grimes to Off-Broadway, May 19"]. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050506200845/http://www.playbill.com/news/article/86229.html |date=May 6, 2005}}. Playbill.

In 2005, Grimes worked with director Brandon Jameson to voice UNICEF's multiple award-winning tribute to Sesame Workshop. Two years later, she returned to the cabaret stage in a critically acclaimed one-woman show.Dale, Michael (April 8, 2007). [http://www.broadwayworld.com/article/Tammy_Grimes_The_Metropolitan_Room_Love_Her_While_You_May_20070408 "Tammy Grimes @ The Metropolitan Room: Love Her While You May"]. BroadwayWorld. Around this time, she was voted as vice president of the Noël Coward Society.{{cite news| title=Tony-Winner Tammy Grimes, Mother Of Amanda Plummer Dead At 82| url=http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2016/10/31/tony-winner-tammy-grimes-mother-of-amanda-plummer-dead-at-82/| work=KCAL News| access-date=December 18, 2016| date=October 31, 2016}}

Grimes married Christopher Plummer on August 16, 1956,{{cite journal| last1=Rainho| first1=Manny| title=This Month in Movie History| journal=Classic Images| date=August 2015| issue=482| pages=24–26}}{{cite news| title=Christopher Plummer Weds| url=https://www.nytimes.com/1956/08/24/archives/christopher-plummer-weds.html?searchResultPosition=1| newspaper=The New York Times| date=August 24, 1956| page=15| url-access=subscription}} with whom she had a daughter, actress Amanda Plummer. They divorced in 1960.

Her second husband was actor Jeremy Slate, whom she married in 1966 and divorced a year later. Her third husband was composer Richard Bell; they remained together until Bell's death in 2005.Hertz, Leba. [http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/10/26/PKESS9FIH.DTL&type=music "Tammy Grimes stars in one-woman show at the Plush Room"], San Francisco Chronicle, October 28, 2007McPhee, Ryan (October 31, 2016). [https://www.broadway.com/buzz/186565/tony-winner-tammy-grimes-original-star-of-the-unsinkable-molly-brown-dies-at-82 "Tony Winner Tammy Grimes, Original Star of The Unsinkable Molly Brown, Dies at 82"]. Broadway.com.

In 1965, Grimes made headlines after she had been beaten and injured twice in four days in New York City, by what were described as "white racists". According to a report, she believed the attacks were related to her association with several black entertainers and recent appearances in public with Sammy Davis Jr., who was said to be staging a nightclub act for her.{{cite news| last=Egelhof| first=Joseph| url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/chicago-tribune-tammy-grimes-links-two-a/170194815/| title=Actress Links Two Attacks to Negro Foes| newspaper=Chicago Tribune| date=March 12, 1965| page=22, Sec. 1| access-date=April 12, 2025}}

Grimes died on October 30, 2016, in Englewood, New Jersey, aged 82 from natural causes. Her survivors include her brother Nick and her daughter Amanda and her ex-husband Christopher who died in 2021.Gates, Anita (October 31, 2016). [https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/01/theater/tammy-grimes-died.html?_r=0 "Tammy Grimes, the Original 'Unsinkable Molly Brown', Dies at 82"]. The New York Times.

• Obie Award for Best Actress – Clerambard (1958)
• Theatre World Award – Look After Lulu (1959)
• Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical – The Unsinkable Molly Brown (1961)
• Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play – Private Lives (1970)

Grimes released three known one-off singles during the 1960s, none of which charted:

• "Home Sweet Heaven"/"You'd Better Love Me" (ABC-Paramount 10551) 1964, from High Spirits, 1964
• "The Big Hurt"/"Nobody Needs Your Love More Than I Do" (Reprise 0487), 1966
• "I Really Loved Harold"/"Father O'Conner" (Buddah 99), 1969

Her debut solo album, Julius Monk presents Tammy Grimes (1959), featured the music from her one-woman show at the NYC nightclub Downstairs at the Upstairs. The album was re-released on the AEI label in 1982. She recorded two albums for Columbia Records, Tammy Grimes (CS-8589 stereo/CL 1789 mono) in 1962, and The Unmistakable Tammy Grimes (CS 8784 stereo/CL 1984 mono) in 1963. In 2004, the Collectables CD label licensed both LPs from Sony Music and released the combination as The Unmistakable Tammy Grimes (Collectables CD 7649).

She is featured on the following original cast recordings: The Littlest Revue, The Unsinkable Molly Brown, High Spirits, 42nd Street, and Sunset, as well as a TV cast album of the televised version of George M. Cohan's 45 Minutes from Broadway. All have been released on CD, although High Spirits in now out of print.{{citation needed|date=February 2015}}

Grimes did the introductory narration for the American rebroadcast of the BBC's 1981 radio production of The Lord of the Rings. She recorded an album of children's stories, read out loud, called Hurray for Captain Jane! in 1975.{{cite journal| last=Bingham| first=Jane M.| journal=The Reading Teacher| volume=29| issue=3| pages=305–306| year=1975| title=Meet the Newbery Author: Madeleine L'Engle, Hurray for Captain Jane! And Other Liberated Stories for Children, The Tailor of Gloucester and Other Stories, and The Tale of Little Pig Robinson| department=[Review]| jstor=20194015}}

{{Div col}}

• The Littlest Revue (1956)[https://www.ibdb.com/broadway-show/the-littlest-revue-482066 The Littlest Revue Broadway"] IBDB, accessed November 3, 2016
• Look After Lulu! (1959)
• The Unsinkable Molly Brown (1960)
• Rattle of a Simple Man (1963)
• High Spirits (1964)
• The Only Game in Town (1968)
• Private Lives (revival) (1969)
• A Musical Jubilee (1975)
• California Suite (1976)
• Tartuffe (revival) (1977)
• Trick (1979)
• 42nd Street (1980)
• Sunset (1983)
• Orpheus Descending (revival) (1989)
• Wit & Wisdom (2003)

{{div col end}}

{{Div col}}

• Three Bites of the Apple (1967) – Angela Sparrow
• Arthur? Arthur! (1969) – Lady Joan Mellon
• Play It as It Lays (1972) – Helene
• Somebody Killed Her Husband (1978) – Audrey Van Santen
• The Runner Stumbles (1979) – Erna Webber
• Can't Stop the Music (1980) – Sydney Channing
• The Last Unicorn (1982) – Molly Grue (voice)
• The Stuff (1985) – Special Guest Star in Stuff Commercial
• America (1986) – Joy Hackley
• Mr. North (1988) – Sarah Baily-Lewis
• Slaves of New York (1989) – Georgette
• Backstreet Justice (1994) – Mrs. Finnegan
• A Modern Affair (1995) – Dr. Gresham
• Trouble on the Corner (1997) – Mrs. K
• High Art (1998) – Vera

{{div col end}}

{{incomplete list|date=April 2025}}

{{reflist}}

• {{IMDb name|342245}}
• {{TCMDb name|id=77022{{!}}144433|name=Tammy Grimes}}
• {{IBDB name|43182}}
• {{IOBDB name|12261}}
• {{Playbill person|tammy-grimes-vault-0000051365}}

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