27 Facts About Geraldine Fitzgerald

1.

Geraldine Mary Fitzgerald was an Academy Award-nominated, Tony Award-nominated, and Emmy-winning Irish stage, film, and television actress.

2.

Geraldine Fitzgerald was a member of the American Theater Hall of Fame and, in 2020, was listed at number 30 on The Irish Times list of Ireland's greatest film actors.

3.

Geraldine Fitzgerald's father was Roman Catholic and her mother was Protestant, but converted to Catholicism.

4.

Geraldine Fitzgerald studied painting at the Dublin School of Art.

5.

Geraldine Fitzgerald's success led her to New York and the Broadway stage in 1938.

6.

Geraldine Fitzgerald made her American debut opposite Orson Welles in the Mercury Theatre production of Heartbreak House.

7.

Geraldine Fitzgerald had two significant successes in 1939: a role in the Bette Davis film Dark Victory, and an Academy Award nomination for her supporting performance as Isabella Linton in William Wyler's Wuthering Heights.

8.

Geraldine Fitzgerald then appeared in Shining Victory, The Gay Sisters, and Watch on the Rhine for Warner Bros.

9.

Geraldine Fitzgerald lost the role of Brigid O'Shaughnessy, villainess in The Maltese Falcon, after clashes with executive Jack L Warner.

10.

Geraldine Fitzgerald returned to Britain to film So Evil My Love, receiving strong reviews for her performance as an alcoholic adultress, and The Late Edwina Black, before returning to the United States.

11.

Geraldine Fitzgerald became a naturalized United States citizen on April 18,1955.

12.

Geraldine Fitzgerald appeared in the 1983 Rodney Dangerfield comedy Easy Money, the horror film Poltergeist II: The Other Side, and the comedy Arthur 2: On the Rocks.

13.

Geraldine Fitzgerald returned to stage acting, and won acclaim for her performance in the 1971 revival of Long Day's Journey Into Night.

14.

Geraldine Fitzgerald recorded an album of the show for Harbinger Records, produced by Bill Rudman and Ken Bloom and distributed by Ben Bagley's Painted Smiles label.

15.

Geraldine Fitzgerald achieved success as a theatre director; in 1982, she became one of the first women to receive a Tony Award nomination for Best Direction of a Play for a production of Mass Appeal.

16.

Geraldine Fitzgerald performed throughout the city, including at Ethical Culture and La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club, both in Manhattan.

17.

Geraldine Fitzgerald first performed at La MaMa in September 1972, with a production called Everyman at La MaMa.

18.

Geraldine Fitzgerald appeared on television, in such series as Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Robert Montgomery Presents, Naked City, St Elsewhere, The Golden Girls, and Cagney and Lacey.

19.

Geraldine Fitzgerald had a regular role in the short-lived 1965 CBS serial Our Private World.

20.

Geraldine Fitzgerald received an Emmy Award nomination for a guest role playing Anna in The Golden Girls Mother's Day episode in 1988, and played a different character in the episode "Not Another Monday".

21.

Geraldine Fitzgerald won a Daytime Emmy Award as best actress for her appearance in the NBC Special Treat episode "Rodeo Red and the Runaways".

22.

On February 8,1960, Geraldine Fitzgerald was recognized with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, at 6353 Hollywood Boulevard, for her contributions to motion pictures.

23.

Geraldine Fitzgerald was granted a divorce in Reno on August 30,1946, after three years of separation.

24.

Geraldine Fitzgerald had one son, director Michael Lindsay-Hogg, by her first marriage, and a daughter, Susan Scheftel, by her second marriage to American businessman Stuart Straus Scheftel, grandson of Ida and Isidor Straus.

25.

Geraldine Fitzgerald never confirmed this to her son, but in his 2011 autobiography Lindsay-Hogg wrote that this question was resolved by his mother's close friend Gloria Vanderbilt, who had written that Geraldine Fitzgerald told her that Welles was the father.

26.

Geraldine Fitzgerald died at age 91 in New York City, following a long battle with Alzheimer's disease.

27.

Geraldine Fitzgerald is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx.