Actress Helen Stenborg Has Died

Stage and film actress Helen Stenborg has died. She was 86.

Stenborg received a Tony Award nomination for her performance in Waiting in the Wings in 1999. Among her many other Broadway credits are the 2002 revival of The Crucible, A Month in the Country, and A Life. In addition, she toured with her husband Barnard Hughes in the national company of Da, the play for which Hughes had won the 1978 Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play.

She was also a long time member of New York’s Circle Repertory Company, appearing in the original productions of Lanford Wilson’s The Hot L Baltimore, The Fifth of July and Talley and Son, for which she was awarded the Obie Award for distinguished performance in 1986. Among her Off-Broadway credits are Wit, and, most recently, Vigil, last September.

Stenborg’s film work includes Her Mother Dreams, On the Hook, Three Days of the Condor, Starting Over, Enchanted and Doubt. She worked extensively in television, including a long stint as an evil housekeeper on the soap opera Another World.

She is survived by her son director Doug Hughes and his partner actress Kate Jennings Grant; her daughter, actress Laura Hughes and her partner, actor/director/producer John Gould Rubin; and her grandson Sam Hughes Rubin.

Funeral services will be held on Monday, April 4th at 10:30 a.m at The Church of the Transfiguration, also known as The Little Church Around the Corner at 1 East 29th St. between Fifth and Madison. In lieu of flowers, the family asks for donations to be made to the Actor’s Fund.