Elizabeth Ann Wedgeworth was born on Jan. 21, 1934, in Abilene, Texas, the daughter of a grammar school superintendent (her mother, also Elizabeth, died when she was 2). She went to Highland Park High School with Jayne Mansfield in University Park, Texas, married Torn in 1956 and graduated from the University of Texas a year later.
“My mom was the cougar, the amazing sex goddess, but I bet she had a genius IQ. She took Latin, she got straight A’s through school,” her daughter said.
Wedgeworth and Torn moved to New York, and she studied under Sanford Meisner at the Actors Studio (he worked with Lee Strasberg there). She made her Broadway debut in Make a Million in 1958, then appeared in Tennessee Williams’ Period of Adjustment.
Wedgeworth also was on Broadway in Blues for Mister Charlie and The Last Analysis and in the original off-Broadway production of Sam Shepard’s A Lie of the Mind, which debuted in 1985. (Geraldine Page, Torn’s wife at the time, starred in the play as well.)
Three years later, Wedgeworth was back with Shepard, Lange, and Durning in Far North (1988).
Her film résumé also included Law and Disorder (1974), Dragonfly (1976), Soggy Bottom, U.S.A.(1981), No Small Affair (1984), Made in Heaven (1987), Love and a .45 (1994), The Whole Wide World(1996) and, her final film, The Hawk Is Dying (2006).
Wedgeworth appeared early in her career as Lahoma Lucas on the soap opera Another World and its spinoff, Somerset, and in 1989, she guest-starred as the mother of John Goodman’s character on Roseanne.
She and Torn divorced in 1961, and she married acting coach Ernest Martin in 1970. He taught the craft to the likes of Sean Penn, Harvey Keitel, Chazz Palminteri, Lorraine Bracco and David Zayas, among many others.
In addition to her husband, Wedgeworth is survived by her daughter with Torn, Danae; stepsons Michael and Gregg; and cousins Laura and Peggy. Diánna is an actress and acting teacher like her parents.
(Source: The Hollywood Reporter)
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