Julie Harris on the Mend Following a Stroke

Julie Harris is recuperating in Massachusetts General Hospital after suffering a stroke in Chicago. According to Don Gregory, who produced the recent, 25th-anniversary tour of The Belle of Amherst with Harris recreating her original role of Emily Dickinson, “She’s progressing. Her speech is getting better and she’s not paralyzed at all. She’s still in the hospital, at Massachusetts General, but they’ve removed her from intensive care. The prognosis is good.”

The actress had been appearing in the world premiere production of the play Fossils by Claudia Allen at the Victory Gardens Theater in Chicago. She was admitted to Chicago’s Grant Hospital on Saturday, May 26, then transferred to St. Francis Hospital in Evanston, Illinois and then to Massachusetts General.

Harris has won more Tony Awards than any other performer in history, having been honored for her work in I Am a Camera in 1952, The Lark in 1956, Forty Carats in 1969, The Last of Mrs. Lincoln in 1973, and The Belle of Amherst in 1977. She is also known for such films as East of Eden, Requiem for a Heavyweight, and Gorillas in the Mist, and for her recurring role of Lilimae Clements on television’s Knots Landing.