Elizabeth Franz, Who Redefined Linda Loman in Death of a Salesman, Dies at 84

Tony Award-winner Elizabeth Franz, who redefined the role of Linda Loman in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, has died at the age of 84, following a severe reaction to medication being used to treat cancer.

Amid Franz’s scores of theatrical credits, she was perhaps best known for playing the fiercely protective wife of Brian Dennehy’s Willy Loman, in the 1999 Robert Falls Salesman revival. Hers was an interpretation that made audiences look at the play and character anew; she won a Tony for her work and earned an Emmy nomination for its television adaptation.

Off-Broadway, she won an Obie for Christopher Durang’s Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You, which was her first principal role in New York. “We ran for two years off-Broadway, but made so little money. It was $42 a week, I remember,” she told WhatsOnStage in 2004. “I was going to have to leave it because I needed money to live. Then a soap opera came through, so I was able to work all day on that and carry on with the play in the evening.”

It was in Sister Mary Ignatius that Franz caught the attention of playwright Neil Simon, which led to her casting in Simon’s play Brighton Beach Memoirs. Marking her Broadway debut, “I was in it for a very long time, and there were a lot of cast changes, so we were in rehearsal all the time, trying to put new people in. In the three months after Matthew Broderick left, they tried out 17 different Eugene’s!” She earned a Tony nomination for her performance, and she also appeared in Simon’s sequel to the play, Broadway Bound. There was no role for her in the third play of the trilogy, Biloxi Blues. “They did call me and said they might have to write a part in for me as I was the only one who could keep Matthew straight! He was cracking everyone up on stage!”

But it was Salesman that defined her. She had auditioned for the Dustin Hoffman revival in 1984, seeing the team once a week for six weeks and eventually losing the role to Kate Reid. She later toured in the play with Hal Holbrook, before Falls cast her in the Chicago run that came to Broadway. “I was so heartbroken that I didn’t get it, but who would have known that I would end up doing it on Broadway after all? I’m a great believer that there’s always a reason why things happen the way they do.”

On Broadway, Franz also had roles inThe Cherry Orchard, The Octette Bridge Club, The Cemetery Club, The Comedy of Errors, Getting Married, Uncle Vanya, and Morning’s at Seven. Regionally, her credits included Long Day’s Journey into Night, Lion in Winter, The Glass Menagerie, A View from the Bridge, The Matchmaker The Wizard of Oz, Great Expectations, The Model Apartment, and Woman in Mind. She made her National Theatre of London debut in the play Buried Child.

On screen and television, Franz was known for The Substance of Fire, Sabrina, The Pallbearer, Stephen King’s Thinner, Fish in a Bathtub, Secret of My Success, School Ties, Jacknife, A Town’s Revenge, A Girl Thing, The Rise and Rise of Daniel Rocket, Dottie, Love and Other Sorrows, House of Mirth, Law and Order, Cold Case, Judging Amy, Roseanne, and Gilmore Girls.

She is survived by husband Christopher Pelham.