Divamensch

Actor Stacy Keach died the other day at the age of 85. Did anyone else's career run the gamut from Shakespeare to Cheech and Chong...? That's what I call RANGE. He played Hamlet at Shakespeare in the Park in 1972. Take a look at this amazing cast: Hamlet: Keach Gertrude: Colleen Dewhurst Claudius: James Earl Jones Ophelia: Kitty Winn Laertes: Sam Waterston Polonius: Barnard Hughes Player Queen: Linda Hunt Orsino: Raul Julia First Gravedigger: Charles Durning Second Gravedigge

The winner for Best Actress in a Play for 1996 (thirty years ago, good grief) was Zoe Caldwell in Master Class. Playing Maria Callas, one of the most essential divas (onstage and off) in recorded history. One of the other nominees was Rosemary Harris in A Delicate Balance, playing an upper middle class lady of a certain age, supportive wife, put-upon sister, exhausted mother, gracious but fed up friend. Total mensch. Here's Caldwell as Callas: And a picture of Harris in the r