Rochelle Oliver, ‘Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?' Star and Admired Acting Teacher, Dies at 86
Rochelle Oliver, who starred on Broadway in Lillian Hellman’s Toys in the Attic and Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and taught acting at New York’s respected HB Studio since the 1970s, has died. She was 86.
Oliver died April 13, the HB Studio announced. “Those who knew Rochelle will know what a luminous artist, sensitive and passionate teacher she was,” it said in an Instagram post. She died two days shy of her birthday.
For the big screen, Oliver starred in the Horton Foote-written 1918 (1985) and Courtship (1987) and appeared in such other films as The Happy Hooker (1975), Paul Mazursky‘s Next Stop, Greenwich Village (1976), John Sayles’ Lianna (1983), An Unremarkable Life (1989), Martin Brest’s Scent of a Woman (1992) and Woody Allen’s Hollywood Ending (2002).
She also recurred as Judge Grace Larkin on Law & Order from 1993-03.
A protégé of Uta Hagen – who also taught for decades at HB and was married to founder Herbert Berghof – Oliver made her Broadway debut in 1960 in Toys in the Attic as Lily Berniers, the young, selfish bride of Jason Robards’ character.
She received the Clarence Derwent Award for her performance in the Arthur Penn-directed production, which also featured Maureen Stapleton and Anna Revere and was nominated for the Tony Award for best play (it lost to The Miracle Worker).
From left: Jason Robards, Anne Revere, Maureen Stapleton and Rochelle Oliver in the 1960-61 Broadway drama ‘Toys in the Attic.’
After Tony nominee Melinda Dillon quit the intense Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? after nine months – she would spend time in a psychiatric hospital – Oliver stepped into the role of Honey in the original Broadway production in 1963 that starred Hagen, Arthur Hill and George Grizzard.
Born in New York City on April 15, 1937, Oliver began studying with Hagen at age 17 and in 1957 appeared in an off-Broadway production of The Brothers Karamazov. Two years later, she landed on episodes of the TV dramas Naked City and Deadline.
Later, she would work on such other shows as The Defenders, The Doctors and the Nurses, The Best of Everything and Ryan’s Hope.
Oliver also appeared on Broadway in Harold (with Anthony Perkins and Don Adams) in 1962 and in Bernard Slade’s Happily Never After in 1966 and stood by for Ellen Burstyn in Same Time, Next Year, which premiered in 1975, and for Polly Holliday as Big Mama in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in 1990.
She worked with Foote on his three one-act plays that became The Orphans’ Home Cycle and were filmed for public television.
Oliver taught in HB’s Hagen Core Program and acted and directed on the HB Playwrights stage. Her goal as an acting teacher, she said in her teaching statement on the HB website, was to “guide students to find their own voice as theater artists. I insist students take the time to ask the questions, do the needed exploration, understand the importance of process in our work and to please not leave their imaginations behind in this culture of instant answers. The joy for me is our working together as we discover and learn.”
She was a key member of the transition board assembled by Richard Mawe to guide the school after Hagen’s death in 2004 and continued as an active member of the HB board and on HB’s artistic council until 2022, HB noted.
Oliver was married to actors James Patterson (In the Heat of the Night) from 1959 until his death in 1972 and to Fritz Weaver (Fail-Safe, The Day of the Dolphin) from 1997 until his death in 2016.
Survivors include her son, John.
“Teaching acting meant everything to Rochelle; and HB gave her the outlet and the freedom she needed to teach her way. Thank you to the HB Studio community from the Oliver/Patterson family,” he said.
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