Mary Beth Hurt Dead: ‘Interiors,’ ‘According to Garp’ Actor Was 79
Mary Beth Hurt
NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal/Getty Images
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Mary Beth Hurt, the Tony-nominated actress whose demure demeanor drew moviegoers to her array of emotionally impactful performances in such films as Interiors, Chilly Scenes of Winter and The World According to Garp, has died. She was 79.
Hurt died Saturday at an assisted living facility in Jersey City, New Jersey, her husband, Oscar-nominated writer and director Paul Schrader, told The Hollywood Reporter. Diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 2015, she had until recently been living in another facility in Manhattan, with her husband in another apartment in the building.
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Hurt also brought a sophisticated flair to James Ivory’s Slaves of New York with her turn as a gallery owner, and she portrayed a 1950s mom whose quirky behavior convinces her son (Bryan Madorsky) that she and her husband (Randy Quaid) are cannibals in another 1989 film, the Bob Balaban-directed black comedy Parents.
And in Six Degrees of Separation (1993), Hurt played one of the New York socialites who falls into the web of deceit created by a charismatic young man (Will Smith) pretending to be the son of Sidney Poitier.
Hurt appeared 15 times on Broadway from 1974-2011 and in 1982 received one her three career Tony nominations for her turn as Meg Magrath, one of three Mississippi sisters facing trauma in their lives, in the Beth Henley-written Crimes of the Heart. (Jessica Lange starred in the role opposite Diane Keaton and Sissy Speck in the 1986 Bruce Beresford-directed film adaptation.)
“The first thing, above all, is that she is a fine ensemble actress,” said playwright David Hare, who directed Hurt on Broadway in 1989’s The Secret Rapture and praised her in a piece that year for The New York Times in 1989. “She has the best of the English and the best of the American traditions.
“What marks English actors is that they can turn on a sixpence — there isn’t anything technically they can’t do. They’re supple, like musicians, and from the technical facility they acquire freedom. And in Mary Beth’s case, there is a sort of improvisatory gift, a willingness to make the performance fresh every time.”
Her first husband was Oscar-winning actor William Hurt; they married in 1971, separated in 1978 and divorced in 1982.
Raised in Iowa, where one of her babysitters was future actress Jean Seberg, Hurt made her big-screen debut in Interiors (1978), Woody Allen’s first full foray into drama. She made a lasting impression as Joey, a would-be artist outshined by her sisters, successful poet Renata (Keaton) and well-known TV actress Flyn (Kristin Griffith). The daughters come together after their mother (Geraldine Page) suffers a mental breakdown.
Though it was Hurt’s first feature, she more than held her own in a powerhouse cast that included E.G. Marshall, Maureen Stapleton, Sam Waterston and Richard Jordan.
“Miss Hurt is very appealing as the youngest daughter who hates her mother and, thus, goes out of her way to convince herself she doesn’t,” Vincent Canby wrote in his review for The New York Times.
In Chilly Scenes of Winter (1979), directed by Joan Micklin Silver, she played the emotionally unavailable romantic obsession of John Heard’s character. And in by George Roy Hill’s The World According to Garp (1982), she took on the pivotal role of Helen Holm, a smart, fiercely independent woman who catches T.S. Garp’s (Robin Williams) eye, marries him, betrays his trust and ultimately becomes a passionate defender of his legacy.
Watch a 1982 interview about her work in Garp here.
Mary Beth Hurt with Robin Williams in 1982’s ‘The World According to Garp.’
Warner Brothers/Courtesy Everett Collection
Hurt rarely enjoyed top billing during her career, and that’s the way she preferred it.
“I’ve never been extremely comfortable playing the lead,” she explained in a 2010 interview. “I don’t like the responsibility; there’s a feeling that I have to be good. Besides, I found secondary parts much more interesting, especially when I was younger and the ingénue roles were pretty bland.
“I never felt very beautiful, or incredibly smart or witty, so I was always looking for something about [roles] that intrigued me. And I would sort of twist that character in a way because I remember thinking that an ingénue character doesn