Theater News

Actress and Director Heidi Helen Davis Has Died

Heidi Helen Davis
(© Michelle Gillette)
Heidi Helen Davis
(© Michelle Gillette)

Actress and director Heidi Helen Davis has died in Los Angeles at age 60, after a yearlong struggle with breast cancer.


Davis began her career as an actress at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco where she appeared in several productions including Peer Gynt, Heartbreak House and The Little Foxes.


For the past three decades, she was well known for her work in Los Angeles as a director at the Theatricum Botanicum, Mark Taper Forum, East West Players and Ensemble Studio; she also directed the play Song of Extinction at Venue 13 for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.


Davis also taught acting and directing at many institutions, including the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, the Howard Fine Studio and the Los Angeles Film School. She also worked as the acting coach on the Showtime mini-series Fidel and on the feature film Memoirs of a Geisha.

She is survived by her son, Benjamin Lyon Freidus, her parents, and three siblings.