‘Virginia Woolf’ Star, Acting Teacher Was 86

Rochelle Oliver, who starred on Broadway in Lillian Hellman’s Toys within the Attic and Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and taught appearing at New York’s revered HB Studio for the reason that Seventies, has died. She was 86.

Oliver died April 13, the HB Studio introduced. “Those that knew Rochelle will know what a luminous artist, delicate and passionate trainer she was,” it stated in an Instagram publish. She died two days shy of her birthday.

For the large display, Oliver starred within the Horton Foote-written 1918 (1985) and Courtship (1987) and appeared in such different movies as The Blissful Hooker (1975), Paul Mazursky‘s Subsequent Cease, Greenwich Village (1976), John Sayles’ Lianna (1983), An Unremarkable Life (1989), Martin Brest’s Scent of a Girl (1992) and Woody Allen’s Hollywood Ending (2002).

She additionally recurred as Decide Grace Larkin on Legislation & Order from 1993-03.

A protégé of Uta Hagen — who additionally taught for many years at HB and was married to founder Herbert Berghof — Oliver made her Broadway debut in 1960 in Toys within the Attic as Lily Berniers, the younger, egocentric bride of Jason Robards’ character.

She acquired the Clarence Derwent Award for her efficiency within the Arthur Penn-directed manufacturing, which additionally featured Maureen Stapleton and Anna Revere and was nominated for the Tony Award for finest play (it misplaced to The Miracle Employee).

After Tony nominee Melinda Dillon give up the extreme Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? after 9 months — she would spend time in a psychiatric hospital — Oliver stepped into the function of Honey within the unique Broadway manufacturing in 1963 that starred Hagen, Arthur Hill and George Grizzard.

Born in New York Metropolis on April 15, 1937, Oliver started learning with Hagen at age 17 and in 1957 appeared in an off-Broadway manufacturing of The Brothers Karamazov. Two years later, she landed on episodes of the TV dramas Bare Metropolis and Deadline.

Later, she would work on such different exhibits as The Defenders, The Medical doctors and the Nurses, The Better of The whole lot and Ryan’s Hope.

Oliver additionally appeared on Broadway in Harold (with Anthony Perkins and Don Adams) in 1962 and in Bernard Slade’s Fortunately By no means After in 1966 and stood by for Ellen Burstyn in Similar Time, Subsequent Yr, which premiered in 1975, and for Polly Holliday as Massive Mama in Cat on a Scorching Tin Roof in 1990.

She labored with Foote on his three one-act performs that grew to become The Orphans’ House Cycle and have been filmed for public tv.

Oliver taught in HB’s Hagen Core Program and acted and directed on the HB Playwrights stage. Her objective as an appearing trainer, she stated in her instructing assertion on the HB web site, was to “information college students to search out their very own voice as theater artists. I insist college students take the time to ask the questions, do the wanted exploration, perceive the significance of course of in our work and to please not go away their imaginations behind on this tradition of instantaneous solutions. The enjoyment for me is our working collectively as we uncover and study.”

She was a key member of the transition board assembled by Richard Mawe to information the college after Hagen’s demise in 2004 and continued as an energetic member of the HB board and on HB’s creative council till 2022, HB famous.

Oliver was married to actors James Patterson (Within the Warmth of the Night time) from 1959 till his demise in 1972 and to Fritz Weaver (Fail-Secure, The Day of the Dolphin) from 1997 till his demise in 2016.

Survivors embody her son, John.

“Educating appearing meant all the things to Rochelle; and HB gave her the outlet and the liberty she wanted to show her approach. Thanks to the HB Studio neighborhood from the Oliver/Patterson household,” he stated.