Helen Hanft Dies at 79; Public Memorial Set for Ellington Room, July 14
By: BWW News Desk Jun. 24, 2013
A public memorial for actress Helen Hanft will be held on Sunday, July 14 at 7 PM in the Ellington Room at Manhattan Plaza, 400 W. 43 St. (Ninth Ave. building).
Hanft, one of the pivotal figures in the history of New York's experimental theater movement of the 1960's and 70's, created numerous roles at Caffe Cino and La Mama ETC and was a particular favorite of playwright Tom Eyen, who starred her in such hits as "Women Behind Bars," "The Neon Woman" and her signature role, "Why Hanna's Skirt Won't Stay Down."Hanft also worked frequently for screen directors Paul Mazursky ("Next Stop Greenwich Village," "Willie and Phil") and Woody Allen ("Manhattan," "Stardust Memories," "The Purple Rose of Cairo," "New York Stories") and was also seen in such other films as "Arthur" with Dudley Moore, "Moonstruck" with Cher, "Used People" with Shirley MacLaine and Marcello Mastroianni, and such comedies as "Dummy" and "License to Drive. She also played a variety of eccentric New York characters over the years on various editions of "Law and Order."
Hanft, the loudmouthed comedic actress who was one of the leading stars of the off-off Broadway movement of the 1960's and 70's and became a particular favorite of such writer-directors as Woody Allen, Paul Mazursky and Tom Eyen, died of intestinal complications on Thursday, May 30 at Roosevelt Hospital in New York. She was 79.
Born in the Bronx on April 3, 1934, she attended the High School of Performing Arts and began her theatrical career as a pioneer of experimental theatre at such venues as La Mama ETC and Caffe Cino, where she was soon known as "the Helen Hayes of Off-Off Broadway." Though not a great beauty, she nevertheless commanded the stage with an Ethel Merman-like bravura and a comedic ability to satirize her sexuality. She often played eccentric, flamboyant, raunchy characters in a string of Tom Eyen comedies including such early works as "Sarah B. Divine," "Areatha in the Ice Palace" and "My Next Husband Will Be a Beauty" and his more commercial hits like "Why Hanna's Skirt Won't Stay Down," "Women Behind Bars," "The Neon Woman" (in which she co-starred with Divine), and "The White Whore and the Bit Player," which was also the first movie to be produced by the Cannon Film Group" featuring the original stage cast. She also had a great personal success in Dave Rabe's "In the Boom Boom Room" at Joseph Papp's Public Theater.
In the mid-1970's, she also began appearing in movies and had strong character roles in Woody Allen's "Manhattan," "Stardust Memories," "The Purple Rose of Cairo" and "New York Stories," Paul Mazursky's "Next Stop Greenwich Village" and "Willie and Phil," "Arthur" with Dudley Moore and Liza Minnelli, John Schlesinger's "Honky Tonk Freeway," "Moonstruck" with Cher, the 1988 comedy "License to Drive," "Used People" with Shirley MacLaine and Marcello Mastroianni, "Dummy" with Adrien Brody, and more recently "Noise" with Tim Robbins, "Puccini For Beginners" with Gretchen Mol, and "When Evening Comes" with Philip Bosco and Anne Meara in 2009.
She also had numerous TV roles and and played a wide assortment of characters on "Law and Order," appearing frequently throughout the show's long run.
She is survived by her sister, Sarah Louise Comma, a niece Anne Lopez and two nephews Benito Comma and Moses Danzer.
Pictured: Stuart and Helen Hanft at "Broadway Musicals of 1931" at the Town Hall in 2009. Photo Credit: Genevieve Rafter-Keddy.
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