Celebrity Biographies
Elizabeth wilson
Character actress Elizabeth Wilson has played numerous roles as Dustin Hoffman’s mother, on “The Graduate,” over a nearly seven-decade career. Her friend Elizabeth Morton announced her death, at age 94, in New Haven, on May 9, 2015.
Born on April 4, 1921, in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Elizabeth Wilson moved to New York to study acting at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. She could not have started off on a better footing in the movies, as she played a woman invited to a party by the Nazis in Chained , one of Alfred Hitchcock ‘s great titles . Over time, the Master of Suspense would recruit her again, with a slightly larger role, in The Birds , where she was the owner of a Bodega Bay restaurant, that woman who offers Tippi Hedren cotton and disinfectant , attacked by surprise and without apparent explanation by a seagull.
She made her Broadway debut in Picnic , where she played Christine Schoenwalder, the newcomer teacher in the community. She reprized the role of her in the excellent film version directed by Joshua Logan . She never left the theater, which gave her the satisfaction of winning a Tony, the most important scenic award in the United States, for “Stick and Bones”, by David Rabe.
On the big screen, her most prominent role was Mrs. Braddock, Dustin Hoffman ‘s mother in The Graduate , who receives her son for vacations when he finishes his university studies. The film’s director, Mike Nichols, recruited her again for Trap 22 , The Day of the Dolphin and About Henry . She frequently played mothers, such as Ralph Fiennes on Quiz Show , and the impostor impersonating Uncle Fester ( Christopher Lloyd ) on The Addams Family . Details about her private life are unknown.