Film Career
Her film debut was in Out of the Night (1947). Her role in Hondo, opposite John Wayne, garnered her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. In all, despite her relatively small filmography, Page received eight Academy Award nominations. She finally won the Oscar in 1986 for a performance in The Trip to Bountiful, which was based on a play by Horton Foote. When she won (F. Murray Abraham, upon opening the envelope, exclaimed, "I consider this woman the greatest actress in the English language"), she received a standing ovation from the audience. She was surprised by her win (she openly talked about being a seven-time Oscar loser), and took a while to get to the stage to accept the award because she had taken off her shoes while sitting in the audience. She had not expected to win, and her feet were sore.
Her other notable screen roles included Academy Award-nominated performances in Tennessee Williams' Summer and Smoke, Sweet Bird of Youth, You're a Big Boy Now, Pete 'n' Tillie, Woody Allen's Interiors and The Pope of Greenwich Village.
She also appeared in such roles as a psychotic serial killer in What Ever Happened to Aunt Alice?; a repressed schoolmistress in the Clint Eastwood film, The Beguiled; a charismatic evangelist (modeled after Aimee Semple McPherson) in The Day of the Locust; a nun, Sister Walburga, in Nasty Habits; and as 'Aunt' Beverly in Harry's War.
Her final film was the 1987 Mary Stuart Masterson film My Little Girl, which featured the film debut of Jennifer Lopez.
She performed in various television shows in the 1950s through the 1980s, including movies and series, such as Hawaii Five-O, Kojak, and several episodes of Rod Serling's Night Gallery, including "The Sins of the Fathers" and "Something in the Woodwork". She also was a voice actress and voiced the villainous Madame Medusa in the Disney animated film The Rescuers.
In 1959, Page was a Best Single Performance by an Actress Emmy nominee for her role on an episode of Playhouse 90. Page later received two Emmy Awards for her work in adaptations of Truman Capote stories. In 1967, she won an Emmy for Outstanding Single Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Drama for her performance in A Christmas Memory on ABC Stage 67. In 1969, she received an Emmy for Outstanding Single Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role for her performance in The Thanksgiving Visitor.
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