Uta Hagen, 84

Hagen played Broadway stages for 50 years, and “wrote what many consider the actor’s bible on performing.” She was “particularly known for playing the brutal, braying Martha in the original production of Edward Albee’s “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”, was as at ease with such modern playwrights as Albee, Clifford Odets and Tennessee Williams as with the works of Shakespeare, Shaw or Chekhov.”