Tony- and Emmy-Winning Actress Sada Thompson Dies at 83

Sada Thompson, a Tony- and Emmy Award-winning actress best known for the 1970s TV drama Family, died of lung disease on May 4 in Danbury, CT. She was 83.

Thompson won her Tony in 1972 for George Furth’s Twigs, in which she played four roles (a mother and three daughters) under the direction of Michael Bennett. Two years earlier, she had won a Drama Desk Award for the off-Broadway premiere of Paul Zindel’s The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds. Other notable Broadway credits include 1968 productions of Edward Albee’s The American Dream (as Mother) and Samuel Beckett’s Happy Days (as Winnie).

Born in Des Moines, Iowa, on September 27, 1927, Thompson was raised in Fanwood, New Jersey, and earned a drama degree from Carnegie Tech (now Carnegie Mellon). Her first professional credit was the 1953 original reading of Under Milkwood, directed by author Dylan Thomas.

Thompson was best known for playing matriarch Kate Lawrence in 1976-1980 run of Family, for which she won an Emmy. Cast opposite James Broderick (father of Matthew Broderick), she lent gravitas to what was essentially a nighttime soap opera created by Jay Presson Allen (The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie) and produced by Mike Nichols.

Thompson is survived by her husband, Donald Stewart, daughter Liza Sguaglia and brother David.