The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • Page 164

2004:01:15:22:12:27 B12 OBITUARIES LOSANGELESTIMES famousU.S.authorandnaturalist,Gene StrattonPorter.JohngrewupintheBeverly HillsareaandgraduatedfromLoyolaHigh School.Likehisgrandmother,helovedthe wasfascinatedwithanimalsofalltypes.He graduatedfromLoyolaMarymountUniversity. Johnlaterwentontoalongandexceptionallysuccessfulcareerintheprofessionalbeauty whileworkingwithhiswifePaulaKentMeehanindirectingtheexplosiveworldwidegrowth andsuccessofCanogaParkbasedRedkenLaboratories. bonsaiandorchidcollections.Afteraseparationfromhiswife,hemovedtoLasVegasinlate 2002tobenearertohistwosons. GoodShepherdat505N.BedfordDrive,BeverlyHillsonSaturday,Jan.24,2004at12:00 JohnE.Meehanwillbedearlymissedandalwaysrememberedbynotonlyhisfamilybutbyan entireindustryinwhichheaccomplishedsomuchandenrichedthelivesofsomany. OHN E.M EEHAN From Associated Press SALISBURY, N.C.

Mary CatheyHanford, a civic leader and mother of RepublicanU.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole, has died. She was 102. Hanford, who lived to see her daughter elected in November 2002 as North first female senator, died Wednesday at Rowan Regional Medical Center.

She had not been in ill health, but began to feel some discomfort Wednesday night, the Salisbury Post reported. The cause of death apparently was heart failure. her life, Mother provided us with an example of what it means to live every day of your life with grace, dignity, generosity and spiritual strength, and what it means to love a community and to work tirelessly to make it a better Dole said in a prepared statement Thursday on behalf of herself and her older brother, John Hanford. consider ourselves profoundly blessed to have had her for our Alifetime resident of Salisbury, Hanford was active in volunteer causes, including historic preservation, the Red Cross and the local PTA. She served for 45 years on an antique show committee that raised money to found a museum for Rowan County, and started the Cathey- HanfordHouse, a center for senior citizens and patients.

Born May 22, 1901, she married John Van Hanford on May 1, 1917. Her husband ran a florist business. He died in 1978. On her 100th birthday, family threw her a party and invited the public. Some 500 people came, including television weatherman Willard Scott, who asked her what, after a century of looking after her hometown and her family, she planned to do with her next 100 years.

going to let them look after she said. Dole, who married Kansas Sen. Bob Dole in the 1970s, served as a Cabinet secretary in the Reagan and first Bush ad- ministrations and headed the Red Cross, has repeatedly referred to her mother as best When she returned to North Carolina in 2001 to run for the seat being vacated by retiring U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms, she listed the Hanford family home where her mother still lived as her residence.

In addition to her son and daughter, Hanford is survived by two grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. Mary Cathey Hanford, 102; Mother of Elizabeth Dole, Community Volunteer Associated Press MARY CATHEY HANFORD The centenarian, with her dog, Leader, in 2002, was active in historic preservation, the Red Cross and PTA, and started a center for patients. By Mike Boehm Times Staff Writer Uta Hagen, known for her signature Broadway turn as Martha, the raging wife in Edward classic play Afraid of Virginia and also as a legendary teacher who nurtured dozens of future stars, has died. She was 84. daughter, Leticia Ferrer, said her mother died Wednesday in her apartment overlooking Greenwich Washington Square Park.

She had been in poor health since suffering a stroke in October 2001, Ferrer said. Hagen won three Tony Awards in a stage career that began in the 1930s with classic roles opposite legends of the early 20th century theater; it extended into a new century as, at the age of 80, she reprised her Martha in to ecstatic reviews. The husky-voiced partisan of the theater devoted relatively scant time and concern to film and television, but was one of most impassioned and influential teachers of acting. She taught for more than 50 years at HB Studio, founded by her second husband, Herbert Berghof. The alumni roster reads like a thespian hall of fame, including Jack Lemmon, Jason Robards, Hal Holbrook, Candice Bergen, Lily Tomlin, Geraldine Page, Stockard Channing, Robert DeNiro, Al Pacino and Matthew Broderick.

Hagen published two widely read books on acting, for (1973) and for the (1991). She also wrote a cookbook called for Hagen gave her last per- formance, at age 82, on Aug. 21, 2001, at the Geffen Playhouse in Westwood, playing opposite David Hyde Pierce in Richard Dance Lessons in Six Pierce remained close to Hagen after that production. Ferrer said her mother died Wednesday a moment after Pierce called to bid her goodbye, his voice coming over a receiver that another friend held to ear. On Thursday, Pierce issued aone-sentence statement: American theater has lost its patron Albee, in London for rehearsals of the British premiere of his Goat, Or Who Is also issued a statement: Hagen was a great teacher, a great actress and a great cook.

Also, she was fool and I admired and cared for her William Carden, a former student of Hagen, worked closely with the actress and directed her in all the shows she did in the home stretch of her career, starting in 1995. single person has had the impact on the quality of acting in this country that she has had, as an actor, as a teacher and as an he told The Times on Thursday. understood and codified the process of acting as no one else Born in Gottingen, Germany, Hagen came to America as a small girl when her father, amusicologist and art history professor, took a post at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. In 1936, the famed actress- director Eva Le Gallienne was preparing to play the prince in in a production in Massachusetts. Hagen won the part of Ophelia.

In 1938 she made her Broadway debut, playing Nina, the aspiring actress in Sea in a production that starred Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne. She married Jose Ferrer the same year, and they often performed together during their 10-year marriage which ended in divorce, including a fabled Broadway production of in 1943-44 in which Hagen played Desdemona opposite Iago and Paul Moor. In a 1996 interview with the Washington Post, she said that her and ties with Robeson, a firebrand for left-wing causes, brought them under suspicion of Communist-hunters such as Sen. Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin. Hagen told the Post that being tarred as politically suspect might have cut off possible opportunities in films.

often said that McCarthy kept me pure. Commercially, I was hot in the early 1950s. I might have been tempted by Hollywood. I might have gotten lost in all that Instead, teaching became a passion, starting in 1947 when she joined Berghof, who had launched his acting school in 1945. They were married from 1951 until his death in 1990.

Afraid of Virginia came along in 1962, and with it, Hagen won her second best-actress Tony, having her first in 1951 for Clifford drama Country In 1999, she won her third Tony, a lifetime special achievementaward. Hagen did not make her film debut until 1972, in Supporting roles followed in Boys from (1978) and as Maria, the suspicious maid of Sunny Von Bulow, in of (1990). Hard work and painstaking preparation were the hallmarks of acting, said Carden, who directed her in and two acclaimed one- night staged readings in New York City and Los Angeles of Afraid of Virginia Nearing 81 in April 2000, she played Martha one last time on the stage of the Ahmanson Theatre a performance that Michael Phillips, then the theater critic for the Los Angeles Times, described as brave, unerringly specific and altogether would work for months before Carden said. never came to a rehearsal without having done work specifically for that rehearsal. She loved acting more than anyone Iever worked Hagen thought there was no mystery to good acting technique.

She laid out the essentials in six steps, urging actors to ask themselves a series of basic questions about their characters, such as am are my do I and are my At the same time, she saw acting as an endless challenge. ever learns she told The Times in 2001 during the run of Dance Lessons in Six search for human behavior is infinite. never understand it all. I think insistence on hard work was reflected in a story she told the Washington Post about a conversation with Albee while he was working on his play in the 1960s. told me with great hilarity that they were going to go into rehearsals the next day and he completed the last act.

I said, think funny? I think Actor-director Charles Nelson Reilly studied with Hagen for nine years, starting in 1950, then taught at HB Studio for years after that. Hagen would criticize and criticize, and you would want to drop he recalled Thursday. one day she would say, and you have to touch the ground when you went out into the street. was her biggest praise. She cared about people and she labored to make us better craftsmen.

What we got with that woman we took all along the One night during Dance Lessons in Six Hagen fell off the Geffen Play- house stage, a drop of about 3 feet, producing director Gilbert Cates recalled. wanted to go back on, but Stephen Eich insisted that the show stop so she could be checked at the UCLA hospital across the street. She had a lot of bruises, but she went on the next day. She was an indomitable final moment in the public eye came last March, when President Bush awarded her a National Medal of the Arts at the White House. was a wonderful, gala event, the last big event she went to, and she had a said her daughter, Ferrer.

Her decline began several months ago, leaving her bedridden. times she would fantasize she was on Ferrer added. think that was a saving grace, keeping her in a happy place. I think that was her way of coping with her situation and trying to make it as bearable as Hagen is survived by her daughter, of New York City, a granddaughter and an infant great-granddaughter. Ferrer said body was cremated Thursday without a funeral, in keeping with her wishes.

will be a memorial at some the daughter said. better be a big Times staff writer Don Shirley contributed to this report. Associated Press UTA HAGEN The longtime acting teacher nurtured dozens of stars and wrote two books on the craft. Here she appears in 1963 as Martha in Afraid of Virginia In her last performance, at age 82, Uta Hagen joins David Hyde Pierce in Dance Lessons in Six in August 2001 at the Geffen Playhouse in Westwood. Uta Hagen, 84; Tony Winner, Teacher at Famed Acting School American theater has lost its patron David Hyde Pierce, friend and actor.