Tammy Grimes, a two-time Tony Award winner, was a captivating performer known for her unique, raspy voice and quirky Cowardesque style. Born on January 30, 1934, in Lynn, Massachusetts, to Eola Willard and Luther Nichols Grimes, she grew up with a naturalist and spiritualist mother and an innkeeper, country-club manager, and farmer father.
Grimes attended Beaver Country Day School and later Stephens College in Missouri before relocating to New York for professional acting purposes. She studied at the Neighborhood Playhouse and made her NY debut in "Jonah and the Whale" in 1955.
Her early career included appearances in "Bus Stop," "The Littlest Revue," "The Lark," "Clerambard," and "Look After Lulu!" on Broadway. She won a Theatre World Award for the latter and a Tony Award as "Best Featured Actress in a Musical" for her role as Molly Brown in the 1960 musical comedy "The Unsinkable Molly Brown."
Grimes also appeared in TV specials, including "Four for Tonight," "Hollywood Sings," "The Datchet Diamonds," and "Archy and Mehitabel." She was originally offered the part of Samantha Stevens in the sitcom "Bewitched" but was released from her contract when Noël Coward asked her to star on Broadway as Elvira in "High Spirits."
The actress starred in her own ABC television series, "The Tammy Grimes Show," in 1966, but the show was not well-received and was dropped quickly. She later appeared in films such as "Three Bites of the Apple," "Play It As It Lays," "Somebody Killed Her Husband," "The Runner Stumbles," "America," "Mr. North," "Slaves of New York," "A Modern Affair," and "High Art."
Grimes won her second Tony Award for her role as Amanda in the 1980 revival of Noël Coward's "Private Lives." She spent several seasons at the Stratford Festival in Canada and recorded several albums of songs, recited poetry, and hosted CBS Radio Mystery Theater.
In 2003, Grimes was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame and later that year was invited by The Noel Coward Society to lay flowers on the statue of Sir Coward at The Gershwin Theatre in Manhattan to celebrate the playwright's 104th birthday. In 2007, she returned to the cabaret stage in a critically acclaimed one-woman show at the Plush Room, "An Evening with Miss Tammy Grimes."
Grimes was married three times, first to actor Christopher Plummer, then to actor Jeremy Slate, and finally to Canadian composer Richard Jameson Bell, with whom she had a successful marriage until his death in 2005.
