Uta Hagen

Awarded a National Medal of the Arts at the White House by President Bush in March 2003.

Reprised her signature role of Martha in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? at the age of 80 to wonderful reviews. A year later, she gave her last performance on stage at the Geffen Playhouse in Westwood, California on August 21, 2001, playing opposite David Hyde Pierce in Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks.

In 1999, she won a third Tony, a lifetime special achievement award.

Received the Women's International Center (WIC) Living Legacy Award in 1994.

After husband/coach Herbert Berghof died in 1990, she took over the chairmanship of HB Studios and the theatre of the HB Playwrights Foundation.

She was elected to the American Theatre Hall of Fame in 1981.

Made an auspicious film debut as the grandmother in Tom Tryon's eerie best-seller The Other (1972) at the age of 53.

Has received three Tony Awards: two as Best Actress (Dramatic), in 1951 for "The Country Girl" and in 1963 for "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?," and, in 1999, a Special Lifetime Achievement Tony Award.

She won her first Tony (and other awards) in 1950 for Clifford Odets "The Country Girl". Her second Tony was for the role of Martha in Edward Albee's "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?".

She later became a highly influential acting teacher at New York's HB Studio (founded by Herbert Berghof in 1945) and authored best-selling acting texts, Respect for Acting, with Haskel Frankel, and A Challenge for the Actor. Her most substantial contributions to theater pedagogy were a series of "object exercises" that built on the work of Konstantin Stanislavski and Yevgeni Vakhtangov.

She and then-husband José Ferrer co-starred with Paul Robeson in Othello in 1943-1944. Allegations that their association with the left-wing Robeson cast them under suspicion of having Communist ties during the McCarthy era, are completely false. Rumor was she was never able to forge a film career until the 70s due to the Robeson association, however, although opportunity presented itself, she had no film career before the McCarthy era, and Ferrer's career never suffered from the friendship with Robeson. She was quite happy with her stage appearances and teaching.

One child with José Ferrer, Leticia Thyra Ferrer, born on October 15, 1940 in New York. In Uta Hagen's autobiography "Sources: A Memoir," her daughter's first name "Leticia" stood for happiness, and her second name "Thyra" is from the name of Uta's mother.

Noted stage actress who has also done limited work in TV and film. Born in Germany and raised in Madison, Wisconsin, she studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London. Her Broadway debut was in "The Seagull" in 1938.

Played Ophelia opposite Eva Le Gallienne's Hamlet in a Massachusetts production in 1936.