Jean Stapleton, hit show's Edith
Playing a character she hoped was not like "most housewives," she won Emmys three times.
NEW YORK - Jean Stapleton, 90, the stage-trained character actress who played Archie Bunker's far better half, the sweetly naive Edith, in the groundbreaking 1970s TV comedy All in the Family, has died.
Ms. Stapleton died Friday of natural causes at her home surrounded by friends and family, her children said Saturday.
Little known to the public before All In the Family, she costarred with Carroll O'Connor in the top-rated CBS sitcom about an unrepentant bigot, the wife he churlishly but fondly called "Dingbat," their daughter, Gloria (Sally Struthers), and liberal son-in-law Mike "Meathead" (Rob Reiner).
Ms. Stapleton received eight Emmy nominations and won three times during her eight years with the show. Produced by Norman Lear, the series broke through the timidity of U.S. television with social and political jabs, and ranked as the No. 1 program for an unprecedented five years in a row. Lear would go on to create a run of socially conscious sitcoms.
Ms. Stapleton also earned Emmy nominations for playing Eleanor Roosevelt in the 1982 film Eleanor, First Lady of the World and for a guest appearance in 1995 on Grace Under Fire.
Her films included a pair directed by Nora Ephron: the 1998 Tom Hanks-Meg Ryan romance You've Got Mail and 1996's Michael, starring John Travolta. She turned down the chance to star in Murder, She Wrote, which became a showcase for Angela Lansbury.
The theater was Ms. Stapleton's first love and she compiled a rich resumé, starting in 1941 as a New England stock player and moving to Broadway in the 1950s and '60s. In 1964, she originated the role of Mrs. Strakosh in Funny Girl with Barbra Streisand. Other musicals and plays included Bells Are Ringing, Rhinoceros, and Damn Yankees, in which her performance attracted Lear's attention.
"I wasn't a leading lady type," she once told the Associated Press. "I knew where I belonged. And actually, I found character work much more interesting than leading ladies." Edith, with her dithery manner, cheerfully high-pitched voice, and family loyalty, charmed viewers but was viewed by Ms. Stapleton as "submissive" and, she hoped, removed from reality. In a 1972 New York Times interview, she said she didn't think Edith was a typical American housewife.
"What Edith represents is the housewife who is still in bondage to the male figure, very submissive and restricted to the home. She is very naive, and she kind of thinks through a mist, and she lacks the education to expand her world. I would hope that most housewives are not like that," said Ms. Stapleton.
But Edith was honest and compassionate, and "in most situations she says the truth and pricks Archie's inflated ego," she added.
She confounded Archie with her malapropisms - "You know what they say, misery is the best company" - and openhearted acceptance of others, including her beleaguered son-in-law and African Americans and other minorities Archie disdained.
Ms. Stapleton worried about typecasting, rejecting any roles, commercials, or sketches on variety shows that called for a character similar to Edith. Despite pleas from Lear not to let Edith die, Ms. Stapleton left the show, re-titled Archie's Place, in 1980, leaving Archie to carry on as a widower.
Ms. Stapleton was married for 26 years to William Putch, who suffered a fatal heart attack in 1983 at age 60 while the two were touring with a play directed by Putch.
They had two children, John and Pamela, who followed their parents into the entertainment industry.