\n\tHurt appeared 15 times on Broadway<\/a> 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<\/a> and Sissy Speck in the 1986 Bruce Beresford-directed film adaptation.)<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cThe first thing, above all, is that she is a fine ensemble actress,\u201d said playwright David Hare, who directed Hurt on Broadway in 1989\u2019s The Secret Rapture and praised her in a piece that year<\/a> for The New York Times in 1989. \u201cShe has the best of the English and the best of the American traditions.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cWhat marks English actors is that they can turn on a sixpence \u2014 there isn\u2019t anything technically they can\u2019t do. They\u2019re supple, like musicians, and from the technical facility they acquire freedom. And in Mary Beth\u2019s case, there is a sort of improvisatory gift, a willingness to make the performance fresh every time.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tHer first husband was Oscar-winning actor William Hurt<\/a>; they married in 1971, separated in 1978 and divorced in 1982.<\/p>\n \n\tRaised in Iowa, where one of her babysitters was future actress Jean Seberg, Hurt made her big-screen debut in Interiors (1978), Woody Allen\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n \n\tThough it was Hurt\u2019s first feature, she more than held her own in a powerhouse cast that included E.G. Marshall, Maureen Stapleton, Sam Waterston and Richard Jordan.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cMiss Hurt is very appealing as the youngest daughter who hates her mother and, thus, goes out of her way to convince herself she doesn\u2019t,\u201d Vincent Canby wrote<\/a> in his review for The New York Times.<\/p>\n \n\tIn Chilly Scenes of Winter (1979), directed by Joan Micklin Silver<\/a>, she played the emotionally unavailable romantic obsession of John Heard\u2019s character. And in by George Roy Hill\u2019s 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\u2019s (Robin Williams<\/a>) eye, marries him, betrays his trust and ultimately becomes a passionate defender of his legacy.<\/p>\n \n\tWatch a 1982 interview about her work in Garp here<\/a>.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tMary Beth Hurt with Robin Williams in 1982\u2019s \u2018The World According to Garp.\u2019<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tWarner Brothers\/Courtesy Everett Collection<\/p>\n \n\tHurt rarely enjoyed top billing during her career, and that\u2019s the way she preferred it.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI\u2019ve never been extremely comfortable playing the lead,\u201d she explained in a 2010 interview. \u201cI don\u2019t like the responsibility; there\u2019s a feeling that I have to be good. Besides, I found secondary parts much more interesting, especially when I was younger and the ing\u00e9nue roles were pretty bland.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI 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 ing\u00e9nue character doesn\u2019t ever think they\u2019re an ing\u00e9nue. They think they\u2019re a person, and they have idiosyncrasies. Those idiosyncrasies interested me.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tMary Beth Supinger was born on Sept. 26, 1946, in Marshalltown, Iowa. Her father, Forrest, had been a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy during World War II, and her mother, Dolores, took her and her sisters to see plays in Des Moines.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cIt wasn\u2019t until I saw a play at our high school \u2014 I must have been in the eighth grade \u2014 that I realized that it was something you could do,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \n\tBefore she starred in Otto Preminger\u2019s Saint Joan (1957) and Jean-Luc Godard<\/a>\u2019s Breathless (1960), Seberg used to babysit her.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cShe was just a neighborhood kid,\u201d Hurt said. \u201cWe lived on Summit Street, which was between 6th and 7th. And the Sebergs lived on 6th Street. Her father was a pharmacist and my grandfather was a pharmacist, so the families had known each other for a while.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tAfter graduating from Marshalltown High School, she enrolled at the University of Iowa to study drama. In college, she was selected to join the Mortar Board, a national honorary service society for women.<\/p>\n \n\tWith a bachelor of arts degree, Hurt continued her graduate theater<\/a> studies at NYU\u2019s Tisch School of the Arts in 1969, and she met and married William Hurt while in New York. Her next stop was Ealing, the district in West London, where she performed with the theater troupe The Questors.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tMary Beth Hurt on Broadway in 1974\u2019s \u2018Love for Love.\u2019<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tVan Williams\/Courtesy Everett Collection<\/p>\n \n\tAt Joseph Papp\u2019s Public Theater, she played Celia in a 1973 production of As You Like It for the New York Shakespeare Festival. Her other efforts with the company included roles in Pericles, Prince of Tyre, Othello, One Shoe Off and More Than You Deserve before she made her Broadway debut in 1974 by playing Miss Prue in a revival of Love for Love, directed by Hal Prince<\/a>.<\/p>\n \n\tHurt\u2019s first Tony nom came in 1976 for her turn in a revival of the comedy Trelawny of the \u201cWells.\u201d Among those sharing the stage with her were John Lithgow, Mandy Patinkin, Jeffrey Jones, Christopher Hewett, Michael Tucker and, in her Broadway debut, Meryl Streep.<\/p>\n \n\tShe originated the role of Meg in the Manhattan Theatre Club\u2019s off-Broadway production of Crimes of the Heart and received an Obie Award, then accompanied the drama to Broadway.<\/p>\n \n\tHer third Tony nom came in 1986 for her performance in the Michael Frayn drama Benefactors, about an architect\u2019s attempts to revitalize a run-down London neighborhood. It gave Hurt the chance to work with longtime friend Glenn Close (the two first met on Love for Love andstarred opposite each other in The World According to Garp) and Waterston, who had played her love interest in Interiors.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/wp-content\/themes\/vip\/pmc-hollywoodreporter-2021\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.gif\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n