Four-Time Tony Award Winner Zoe Caldwell Dies At 86

By: Feb. 18, 2020
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Four-Time Tony Award Winner Zoe Caldwell Dies At 86

Zoe Caldwell, the four-time Tony Award-winning Broadway actress, died peacefully at the age of 86 at her home in Pound Ridge, New York, on Sunday, February 16, 2020. The cause of death was complications due to Parkinson's disease, according to her son, Charlie Whitehead.

Miss Caldwell was born September 14, 1933 in Melbourne, Australia, to plumber and ballroom bouncer Edgar Caldwell and Zoe Hivon, a taxi-dancer.

She began her professional career at age nine in a production of Peter Pan and went on to appear in productions at Melbourne's Union Theatre Repertory Company and the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre Company. She moved to London to join the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1959.

She began her American career as an original member of the company at the Tyrone Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis. She made her Broadway debut in 1965 in The Devils followed in 1966 by her Tony Award-winning performance in Slapstick Tragedy. She also won Tony Awards for her performances in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1968), Medea (1982), and Master Class (1995).

Miss Caldwell married the noted theatre producer and director Robert Whitehead in 1968. They were together until his death in 2002. She is survived by two sons, Sam and Charlie Whitehead; and 2 young grandchildren Ross and Ward Whitehead.



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