Elizabeth Ann Cole (born August 30, 1939), known professionally as Elizabeth Ashley, is an American actress of theatre, film, and television. She has been nominated for three Tony Awards, winning once in 1962 for Take Her, She's Mine. Ashley was also nominated for the BAFTA and Golden Globe awards for her supporting performance in The Carpetbaggers (1964), and was nominated for an Emmy Award in 1991 for Evening Shade. Elizabeth was a guest on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson 24 times. She appeared in several episodes of In the Heat of the Night as Maybelle Chesboro. She also appeared in an episode of Mannix, "The Dark Hours", in 1974. She is a 2024 inductee into the Theatre Hall of Fame.[1]
Ashley won a Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play for Take Her, She's Mine, then later starred as Corie in the original Broadway production of Neil Simon's Barefoot in the Park (1963) and, later, as Maggie in a Broadway revival of Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1974). She received Tony nominations for both performances.[6] She appeared on Broadway as Dr. Livingstone in Agnes of God (1982) and was a replacement in the role of Mattie Fae during the original Broadway run of August: Osage County.[7]
She first appeared with Burt Reynolds in a 1969 season episode of Love, American Style, then later in the movie Paternity in 1981, as a guest star in his television series B.L. Stryker in 1989, and finally as a cast member in his final television series, Evening Shade, from 1990 to 1994 as Aunt Frieda Evans.[8]
Ashley's autobiography Actress: Postcards from the Road was published in a hardcover edition on June 1, 1978 by M. Evans & Co (now part of the Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group). A paperback publication followed on October 12, 1979 through Fawcett Publications.[9]
Personal life
Ashley is thrice married and divorced. Her first and second husbands were actors James Farentino and George Peppard.[10] The latter was her leading man in her first movie, The Carpetbaggers (1964). The couple had a son, Christian.[11] Her divorce from Peppard is rumored to have caused the cancellation of his television series Banacek. According to an unconfirmed story, he quit the show to prevent her from receiving a larger percentage of his earnings as part of their divorce settlement.[12]Filmink called the account of Peppard in Ashley's memoirs "fascinating – paying tribute to his talent, charisma and kindness, as well as his violent, abusive, alcoholic nature."[13]
At 25, Ashley retired from acting "to make a home for my husband, see that he had his dinner on time, realize myself as a woman." She resumed her career four years later.[14] She dated writer Tom McGuane and credits their liaison with reawakening a sexuality that she put to good use when she portrayed Maggie in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in 1974.[4]
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