Tony-winning actress Frances Sternhagen was married to her late spouse actor Thomas A. Carlin and the duo had six kids together before their death. Details.
Social media has been flooded with tributes following the death of Sex and the City guest star Frances Sternhagen. She passed at the age of 93.
The two-time Tony Award-winning actress was also known for her roles in Cheers, On Golden Pond, and The Heiress.
Throughout her six-decade career in the entertainment industry, she was married to her supportive husband and they welcomed kids together. Following her death, many want to know more about the family she’s leaving behind. Keep reading for more about her personal life.
Who was Frances Sternhagen married to?
Frances Sternhagen was married once in her lifetime. At the time of her passing in November 2023, she was not known to be married or in a relationship, after she lost her husband 32 years prior.
Her late spouse was fellow movie star, Thomas A. Carlin. The pair tied the knot in 1956.
At the time of their marriage, she was 26 while he was 28. They had a 2-year age gap.
Just like other actor couples, Sternhagen and Carlin had met briefly at Catholic University, acted together in “The Skin of Our Teeth” in Maryland, and fell in love when both were in the cast of “Thieves’ Carnival” in New York.
Not much detail was documented about their marriage but they stayed as husband and wife for 35 years.
Mr. Carlin died in 1991.
Before his death, the couple were parents of six.
Who was Thomas A. Carlin?
Thomas A. Carlin was an American stage, television, and film actor, and the spouse of film and television actress Frances Sternhagen.
He was born on December 10, 1928, in Chicago, Illinois, United States.
Carlin was an American stage, television, and film actor during the mid-twentieth century.
He is the father of all Sternhagen’s six children who they welcomed in their 35 years of marriage.
Thomas Carlin made a name during the mid-twentieth century as a character actor with an extensive stage background.
Per his IMDb profile, he appeared frequently on Broadway in such plays as “A Thousand Clowns, ” “The Deputy, ” and “Time Limit.”
He was also active in early television, working on dramatic programs such as “Kraft Television Theatre” and “Studio One.” H
Carlin died at 62 from heart failure on May 6, 1991, in New Rochelle, New York, United States.
How many children did Frances Sternhagen have?
Before Frances Sternhagen died aged 93, she was a proud mother.
The beloved actress had six children, including two daughters and four sons.
The names of her kids are Paul Carlin, John Carlin, Amanda Carlin, Tony Carlin, Peter Carlin, and Sarah Carlin.
She welcomed all children, who are now adults, with her late husband, Thomas A. Carlin, in their over 30 years of marriage.
As Frances Sternhagen’s family, including nine grandchildren and two great-grandchildren, grapples with her loss, they continue the legacy of a woman whose life was passionately and generously dedicated to the world of arts and performance.
She lived in New Rochelle for more than 60 years.
When the renowned Tony-winning actress celebrated for her indelible performances on both stage and screen, passed away, her son, John Carlin was the first to announce the sad news.
He took to Instagram to confirm her peaceful passing, expressing, “Frannie, Mom. Frances Sternhagen. On Monday night, Nov 27, she died peacefully at her home, a month and a half shy of her 94th birthday. Fly on, Frannie. The curtain goes down on a life so richly, passionately, humbly, and generously lived.”
Who was Frances Sternhagen?
Frances Sternhagen was a Tony Award-winning actress who played leading roles in stage productions of “Driving Miss Daisy” and “On Golden Pond” as a formidable older woman when she was so young that she had to wear aging makeup.
Ms. Sternhagen won Tonys as a featured actress in a play for her performances in two very different productions. In a 1995 Broadway revival of “The Heiress,” based on Henry James’s novel “Washington Square,” she was Cherry Jones’s well-meaning, matchmaking Aunt Lavinia. In “The Good Doctor,” Neil Simon’s 1973 take on Chekhov, she played multiple roles in comedy sketches.
Ms. Sternhagen came into her own in mature Off-Broadway roles: as the strong-willed 70-something-and-up Southern widow in Alfred Uhry’s “Driving Miss Daisy” in 1988, when she was still in her 50s, and the concerned retirement-age wife in Ernest Thompson’s “On Golden Pond” in 1979, when she was 49.
She received Tony nominations for her roles in the original productions of “On Golden Pond,” “Equus” and the musical “Angel” and in revivals of “Morning’s at Seven” and “The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window.”
Frances Hussey Sternhagen was born on Jan. 13, 1930, in Washington, D.C. She was the only child of John Meier Sternhagen, a United States tax court judge, and Gertrude (Hussey) Sternhagen, a World War I nurse who became a homemaker.
Frances attended the Potomac School and the Madeira School, both in Virginia. At Vassar College, she originally studied history but was persuaded by an adviser to give drama a try.
People who never saw a Broadway show or even went to the movies may have known Ms. Sternhagen’s face from television. Beginning in the 1980s, when she played the controlling working-class mother of the oddball postal carrier Cliff Clavin on “Cheers,” she sailed through a period of playing maternal figures in memorable recurring roles in a number of hit series.
On “ER,” she was Dr. John Carter’s aristocratic Chicago grandmother. In “Sex and the City,” she was Trey MacDougal’s rich but peculiar mom. Most recently she played the mother of Kyra Sedgwick’s Southern character on the police procedural “The Closer.” She received three Emmy Award nominations, two for “Cheers” and one for “Sex and the City.”
Ms. Sternhagen was known to turn down movie roles because they would take her away from her family for too long, but over the years she did appear in some two dozen films. She was Burt Reynolds’s intensely caring sister-in-law in “Starting Over” (1979), a perfectionist magazine researcher in “Bright Lights, Big City” (1988), and the cookbook author Irma Rombauer in “Julie & Julia” (2009). Her other films included “The Hospital” (1971), “Independence Day” (1983), and “Misery” (1990).
In 2001, Ms. Sternhagen talked to drama students at Vassar and gave an interview to the college’s alumni publication. She revealed that as an actress she liked working from the outside in, starting with how a character speaks and walks rather than with her inner motivation. And she attributed a good deal of her personal emotional development to acting.
“It’s through working on characters in plays that I’ve learned about myself, about how people operate,” she said.
As for young aspiring actors who look down on paying their dues by appearing in commercials, Ms. Sternhagen suggested, “Think of it as children’s theater.”