She began her career on Broadway in 1955 and later became a TV star. Now it has been announced: Frances Sternhagen is dead.
The American actress Frances Sternhagen, who achieved success on stage and in film and television appearances, is dead. Her family announced that she died “peacefully” in New Rochelle (US state of New York) at the age of 93 Wednesday (local time). She leaves behind six children, nine grandchildren and two great-grandchildren, according to the statement that was available to the German Press Agency.
Sternhagen, who won prestigious Tony awards for her stage performances in “The Good Doctor” (1974) and “The Heiress” (1995), was also a television star. In the hit series “Cheers” she played the domineering mother figure Esther Clavin, in ten episodes of “Sex and the City” she played the snobby Bunny MacDougal, who makes life difficult for her daughter-in-law Charlotte (Kristin Davis). She also appeared in “Emergency Room” and “The Closer”.
From studying history to Broadway
“The first actress I hired when I started casting Cheers was the truly amazing Frances Sternhagen. I’ll miss you, Frannie,” wrote Jeff Greenberg on the X platform (formerly Twitter). Actress had chosen for the cult series.
Sternhagen has also appeared more often in front of film cameras, for example with Sean Connery for “Outland – Planet of the Damned” (1981), in the thriller “Misery”, the comedy film “Julie & Julia” or, most recently in 2014, alongside Michael Douglas and Diane Keaton the romance “That borders on love”.
As a child, Sternhagen made her father, who had Parkinson’s disease, laugh by encouraging her classmates. She later studied history, but was convinced by a teacher to devote herself better to acting, as the “Hollywood Reporter” reports. “I guess I wasn’t that good of a historian,” she quipped in a 1979 interview with The New York Times. In 1955 she appeared on a Broadway stage for the first time.