FENCES Tony Award-Winner Mary Alice Passes Away at Age 80

BroadwayWorld is saddened to report the death of film, television, and stage actress Mary Alice, who has passed away at the age of 80.

Born Mary Alice Smith in Indianola, Mississippi, she made her Broadway debut in 1969's No Place to Be Somebody. Her other Broadway credits included: The Shadow Box, Having Our Say, and Fences, for which she won a Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Play in 1987.

In addition to her Tony win, Mary Alice received 1995 Tony and Drama Desk nominations for her performance in Having Our Say. In 1993, she earned a Obie Committee Gold Star at the Obie Awards,

Alice made her screen début in the 1974 film The Education of Sonny Carson, and later appeared in the television shows Police Woman and Sanford and Son. She played Ellie Grant Hubbard on the soap opera All My Children during the mid-1980s, and co-starred in A Different World as Leticia 'Lettie' Bostic from the series' start in 1987 until the end of the second season in 1989.

Mary Alice won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series in 1993 for I'll Fly Away. Her other film credits included Malcolm X (1992), The Inkwell (1994), and Down in the Delta (1998).

In 2000, she was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame. She retired from acting in 2005.

Photo Credit: Walter McBride / WM Photos