Eileen Herlie

Few who watch her on "All My Children" are aware of her illustrious stage and film career. The petite Glaswegian honed her craft on stage with the Scottish National Theatre and first garnered attention in Jean Cocteau's play "The Eagle Has Two Heads." She graced several Broadway musicals, most notably "Take Me Along" (1959), alongside Jackie Gleason and Walter Pidgeon, and "All American" (1962), opposite Ray Bolger. After a couple of films, Laurence Olivier cast Herlie as Queen Gertrude in his 1948 film version of "Hamlet"; that she was a dozen years younger than him only highlighted his Freudian interpretation of the role. Two years later, the actress had her first leading role as a Jewish woman in pre-war Germany forced by her family to marry a man they deem appropriate rather than her true love in "The Angel With the Trumpet." She garnered praise for her turn as the mother of a newlywed bride in the comedy "For Better For Worse" (1954) and as the mother the first psychoanalytic patient in "Freud" (1962). She again played Gertrude, this time to Richard Burton in John Gielgud's 1964 modern dress version of the classic. (The Broadway production was filmed for theatrical release.) Her last film (to date) was Sidney Lumet's 1968 adaptation of Chekhov's "The Sea Gull."