Jun 3, 1924

Montreal, Quebec, Canada

Colleen Dewhurst (June 3, 1924 – August 22, 1991) was a Canadian-born actress best known for playing Marilla Cuthbert in the various Anne of Green Gables productions from Sullivan Entertainment.

Dewhurst was born in Montreal, Quebec, the only child of a football player turned businessman and his homemaker wife, but she was raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Her breakthrough stage role, which made her a major success, came in 1974 after 27 years of acting, when she appeared in Eugene O'Neill's A ... ... (read more...) Moon for the Misbegotten as "Josie Hogan". She interpreted many roles in O'Neill plays. She also received great acclaim for her appearance opposite her then-husband, George C. Scott, in a 1971 television adaptation of Arthur Miller's The Price, on the Hallmark Hall of Fame.

Over the course of her 45 year career, Dewhurst won the 1974 Sarah Siddons Award for her work in Chicago theatre, two Tony Awards, two Obies and two Gemini Awards. In 1989 she won the Genie Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role for her role in Hitting Home. She was nominated for an Emmy Award on twelve occasions, she won four.
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During the last years of her life, she lived on a farm in South Salem, New York with her lover, Ken Marsolais, and also in a summer home on Prince Edward Island, in her native Canada.

She was president of the Actors' Equity Association from 1985 until her 1991 death from cervical cancer at the age of 67. Dewhurst's Christian Science beliefs led to her refusal to countenance any kind of surgical treatment. It is believed that had she accepted treatment she would have been cured.

Dewhurst was married to James Vickery from 1947 to 1960, and to actor George C. Scott twice for a total of approximately 10 years, both times resulting in divorce; she was the mother of 2 sons, including actor Campbell Scott, with whom she costarred in Dying Young, one of her last performances.