Half a century ago, Madeleine Sherwood was the toast of Broadway.
She succeeded Bette Davis in Night of the Iguana, originated the role of Abigail in Arthur Miller's The Crucible, and starred in Elia Kazan's productions of two Tennessee Williams classics. She played Mae/Sister Woman opposite Barbara Bel Geddes and Ben Gazzara in Cat On a Hot Tin Roof, and co-starred with Paul Newman and Geraldine Page as Miss Lucy in Sweet Bird of Youth, reprising both roles on film.
The Montreal-born actor would dine at Sardi's with Lee Strasberg, Jane Fonda and Marilyn Monroe, and honed her craft and moderated workshops at Strasberg's Actor's Studio.
Today, at 87, Sherwood finds fulfilment in another world -- Victoria, where she's an active Society of Friends Quaker, takes French lessons, visits patients in care facilities and does some private coaching.
"Wherever you are, there are always creative people who want to learn more," Sherwood says.
"Tuning the actor's instrument is what I do," says the stage and screen veteran, who will make a brief Springboard Talks appearance Sunday afternoon at the Victoria Film Festival following a screening of Miriam Laurence's film Madeleine's Method: Recipe for the Actor.
"What we came to understand was the actor is both instrument and player of the instrument," she says, recalling advice from Strasberg who, like herself, was often described as a "method actor" -- a term she doesn't use. "Stanislavsky never used the word. Lee never used the word."
Relaxing in a friend's oceanfront apartment, the actor is hard of hearing but hasn't lost her spunk or self-confidence. She laughs as she reminisces about how she was cast in the screen version of Cat with Newman and Elizabeth Taylor -- "who hates being called Liz."
"I sent [director] Richard Brooks a telegram saying I was in the Broadway show and 'I want you to know I'm the best Mae you'll ever find!' " she recalls. "He phoned me and said, 'You're a very bold young woman.' I said, 'I'm not bold. I'm truthful!' "
Brooks was so impressed he also cast her in his film version of Sweet Bird of Youth, opposite Newman, Page and Shirley Knight.
Sherwood laughs when asked if it was intimidating working with Williams. "Tennessee was Tennessee. What can you say about him, except he was wonderful. I loved him dearly."
The granddaughter of the dean of McGill University's school of dentistry, Sherwood worked with Montreal Repertory Theatre and did CBC dramas before moving to New York in 1949. She appeared in several New York stage productions, including the Richard Rodgers/Stephen Sondheim musical Do I Hear a Waltz? and Invitation to a March, on dozens of TV shows and in films including Resurrection and Otto Preminger's Hurry Sundown, which prompts fond memories of working with Michael Caine.
"Michael was a lovely man, but oh what a drinker," she recalls, laughing. "He kept falling in the damned swimming pool!"
She's best remembered, however, for her three-year stint as the stern Mother Superior in The Flying Nun TV series with Sally Field.
"I got bored with it," she says, recalling how Field was so desperate to do other projects she showed up pregnant during the show's final season. The studio was furious.
They reunited for a stage production of A Taste of Honey, and Field has since credited Sherwood for encouraging her to audition for the Actor's Studio.
"Sally was one of the few who worked privately with Lee. He knew from her audition she had that spark."
One of the darkest chapters in Sherwood's career was being blacklisted for four years during the McCarthy witch-hunt. "I didn't even know who they were talking about, coming from Canada. Who's this Senator McCarthy?" recalls Sherwood, who always remained a Canadian citizen.
She caught McCarthy's attention when she came to the defence of actress Lee Grant, who was blacklisted for 12 years.
"I said, 'She's a very good actor and I don't see why this man, whatever his name is, says she can't work,' " says Sherwood. The next day she found herself accused of being a sympathizer.
A staunch feminist and civil rights activist, Sherwood will never forget the first time she saw Martin Luther King at the urging of her house cleaner. "I was thunderstruck!" she says.
She worked with King in the late 1950s and 1960s in the Congress on Racial Equality and was arrested during the Freedom Walk, and sentenced to six months hard labour, becoming the first white woman south of the Mason Dixon Line to be represented by an African-American lawyer.
Wicked, Wicked: http://www.tcm.com/mediaroom/index.jsp?cid=202666
The Flying Nun: http://www.evtv1.com/player.aspx?itemnum=2032
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9U5_mskmLAA
Hurry Sundown: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfgBkgV3iBM=related
