Theater veteran Elizabeth Franz, who won a Tony Award for her role in ‚Death of a Salesman‘ and appeared in a memorable episode of ‚Gilmore Girls,‘ has died. She was 84.
Theater veteran Elizabeth Franz, who won a Tony Award for her bold reinvention as the wife of the everyman title character in the 1999 Broadway revival of Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman,” has died. She was 84.
The actor died Nov. 4 at her home in Woodbury, Conn., after a battle with cancer, her husband, screenwriter Christopher Pelham, told the New York Times. Pelham also said Franz’s cause of death was cancer and a severe reaction to the medication being used to treat her.
The Ohio-born actor’s take on Linda Loman, the wife of Brian Dennehy’s Willy Loman, in the 50th anniversary production of “Death of a Salesman,” was a departure from the character’s usual defeated energy that took even playwright Miller by surprise: “She has discovered in the role the basic underlying powerful protectiveness, which comes out as fury, and that in the past, in every performance I know of, was simply washed out,” Miller said in a 1999 interview with the New York Times.
