Sandy Dennis

Dennis was born in Hastings, Nebraska, the daughter of Yvonne (née Hudson), a secretary, and Jack Dennis, a postal clerk. Her parents divorced in 1966 after 38 years of marriage. She had one brother, Frank, who was eight years older. Dennis grew up in Kenesaw, Nebraska, and Lincoln, Nebraska, graduating from Lincoln High School in 1955; one of her classmates was writer and comedian Dick Cavett. She attended Nebraska Wesleyan University and the University of Nebraska, appearing in the Lincoln Community Theater Group before moving to New York City at age 19. She studied acting at HB Studio in New York City. ==Career==

Early career Dennis made her television debut in 1956 in the soap opera Guiding Light. She had an early break when cast as an understudy in the Broadway production of William Inge's The Dark at the Top of the Stairs (1957) directed by Elia Kazan. Kazan cast Dennis in her first feature film, a small part in Splendor in the Grass (1961), which starred Natalie Wood and Warren Beatty. Dennis was cast in Face of a Hero (1960) on Broadway alongside Jack Lemmon. The play had only a short run, but Dennis received good notices. The Complaisant Lover (1961–62) by Graham Greene was more successful, running for 101 performances; Michael Redgrave and Googie Withers were also in the cast. Broadway stardom Dennis achieved Broadway fame with her leading role in Herb Gardner's A Thousand Clowns (1962–63), for which she won a Tony award for her performance. She was replaced in the 1965 film version by Barbara Harris. The show ran for 428 performances. Around this time, Dennis guest-starred on episodes of the TV series Naked City ("Idylls of a Running Back", 1962, "Carrier", 1963), The Fugitive ("The Other Side of the Mountain", 1963), Arrest and Trial ("Somewhat Lower Than the Angels" 1964), and Mr. Broadway ("Don't Mention My Name in Sheboygan", 1964). She was the lead of the Broadway comedy Any Wednesday (1964–66), which ran for 983 performances and won her a second Tony. (1967)Dennis returned to the stage in a production of The Three Sisters'' (1966) with Geraldine Page and Kim Stanley that went to London and was filmed. Dennis' first lead role in a movie was in Up the Down Staircase (1967), directed by Robert Mulligan. In his review for The New York Times, Bosley Crowther cited her for "a vivid performance of emotional range and depth … engagingly natural, sensitive, literate and thoroughly moving." The film was a box-office success, as was The Fox (1967), directed by Mark Rydell, despite its controversial subject matter. In 1967 Dennis was voted the 18th biggest star in the US. Dennis briefly returned to Broadway to star in Daphne in Cottage D (1967), which had a short run. She starred in Sweet November (1968) as a woman who takes multiple lovers, and made a TV version of the play A Hatful of Rain (1968). Dennis went to London to star in A Touch of Love (1969), alternately titled Thank You All Very Much in the USA, which flopped at the box office. That Cold Day in the Park (1969), by Robert Altman, did not fare much better. The Out-of-Towners (1970), a Neil Simon comedy with Jack Lemmon, was a hit. Dennis guest starred in Police Story ("Day of Terror... Night of Fear", 1978), and starred in the TV movies Perfect Gentlemen (1979) (written by Nora Ephron), and ''Wilson's Reward (1981). On Broadway she briefly joined the cast of the long-running Same Time, Next Year''. She had a well-received part in Alan Alda's The Four Seasons (1981) and was in The Supporting Cast (1981) on Broadway for Gene Saks. She was in the stage production and film version of Robert Altman's Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (1982). Later career In the mid- and late 1980s, Dennis acted less, owing to growing health problems. She appeared on TV in ''Young People's Specials ("The Trouble with Mother", 1985), The Love Boat ("Roommates/Heartbreaker/Out of the Blue", 1985), Alfred Hitchcock Presents ("Arthur, or the Gigolo", 1985) and The Equalizer ("Out of the Past", 1986). In motion pictures, she had supporting roles in a 1986 remake of Laughter in the Dark'', which was never completed, Woody Allen's Another Woman (1988), and the horror films 976-EVIL (1989) and Parents (1989). Her final role was in the crime drama The Indian Runner, filmed in 1990 and released in 1991. The movie marked Sean Penn's debut as a film director. Actor Viggo Mortensen, who played one of her two sons, wrote of the preparations for the movie and filming in the vicinity of Omaha, Nebraska: ==Personal life==

Dennis lived with prominent jazz musician Gerry Mulligan from 1965 to 1974. In October 1965, her hometown newspaper, The Lincoln Star, published an Associated Press article stating she and Mulligan had married in Connecticut in June of that year. In a 1989 interview with People, however, Dennis admitted that they only pretended to be married after she unintentionally became pregnant. Dennis' dog survived the accident. In his 2024 autobiography Runaway Train, Roberts wrote that he too had impregnated Dennis, but she got an abortion. Dennis' sexual orientation was a matter of public discussion as early as 1968, when the scandal magazine Uncensored ran a story that labeled her a lesbian. In an article published less than four years after Dennis' death, Eric Roberts identified her as bisexual. According to Roberts, Dennis told him she had many lesbian relationships and that she "appreciated the beauty of women. But she also liked and appreciated what a very, very young man could do to a woman, I suppose." During Dennis' lifetime, in-depth published interviews with her, such as one with The Christian Science Monitor during her stint performing in an ensemble cast at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in 1981, made no mention of close relationships with women. That interview included the following exchange between journalist Louise Sweeney and Dennis about her marital status: Dennis also dated actor Gerald S. O'Loughlin. ==Death==

Dennis died from ovarian cancer on March 2, 1992, at her home in Westport, Connecticut, at age 54. She was cremated and inurned at Lincoln Memorial Park in Lincoln, Nebraska. ==Filmography==