Verna Bloom, who appeared in “High Plains Drifter”, “Animal
House” and worked with the likes of Martin Scorsese, died Jan. 9 in Bar Harbor,
Maine, her rep confirmed to Variety.
She was 80 years old. The cause was complications of dementia, her family stated.
Although Bloom appeared extensively in theater and
television, she is most noted for her film work. One of her memorable roles
came in John Landis’ 1978 comedy “Animal House,” in which she appeared as the
drunken, debauched wife of the beleaguered Dean Wormer. She also appeared in
three films by Martin Scorsese — “Street Scenes 1970,” “The Last Temptation of
Christ” (1988), and “After Hours” (1985) — and two by Clint Eastwood: “High Plains
Drifter” (1973) and “Honkytonk Man” (1982).
Bloom was born in Lynn, Mass., in 1938. After graduating
from Boston University, she moved to Denver and started a local theater. Moving
to New York in the mid-1960s, she starred as Charlotte Corday in the Broadway
revival of “Marat/Sade” and, shortly after, on the recommendation of the
writer-historian Studs Terkel, made her film debut in Haskell Wexler’s “Medium
Cool” (1969), in which she played a young Appalachian mother caught up in the
street violence of the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago. For her
performance, she was nominated for both lead and supporting actress by the
National Society of Film Critics.
Bloom fulfilled a lifelong dream by starring with Frank
Sinatra in the two-part television film “Contract on Cherry Street” (1977), and
then appearing in Peter Fonda’s elegiac Western “The Hired Hand” (1981).
She is survived by her husband of 49 years, screenwriter Jay
Cocks (“Gangs of New York”), and her son Sam.
Donations may be made to Bonaparte’s Retreat Dog Rescue.
Rip
No comments:
Post a Comment