Elizabeth Franz, Tony-Winning Actress of Stage and Screen, Dies at 84

Elizabeth Franz, the Tony-winning actress whose fierce and deeply felt portrayal of Linda Loman in the 1999 Broadway revival of Death of a Salesman became a career-defining performance, died on November 4 at her home in Woodbury, Connecticut. She was 84. The cause was cancer and a severe reaction to the drugs used to treat it.

Born Elizabeth Jean Frankovitch on June 18, 1941 in Akron, Ohio, Franz began her career at the Weathervane Playhouse before moving to New York. She made her Broadway debut in 1967 in Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. It launched a stage career that stretched over five decades.

Franz rose to prominence in 1981 in Christopher Durang’s long-running off-Broadway hit Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You. Her sharp performance caught the attention of Neil Simon who cast her as Kate Jerome in his Broadway play Brighton Beach Memoirs in 1983. She returned as Kate in Broadway Bound in 1986. Her other stage credits include regional productions of Long Day’s Journey Into Night and A View from the Bridge among many others.

She won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play in 1999 for Death of a Salesman. The production was first performed at the Goodman Theatre in 1998 before transferring to Broadway in 1999. Her Linda Loman carried a quiet fury and protectiveness that reframed the character and drew praise from critics and from Arthur Miller himself. She reprised the role in the 2000 television adaptation and received an Emmy nomination.

Besides her win for Death of a Salesman, Franz earned Tony nominations for her performances in Brighton Beach Memoirs in 1983 and Morning’s at Seven in 2002.

Her love of acting began early and never wavered. In a 2002 Broadway.com interview with Beth Stevens she said, “I saw my first movie at five and I always wanted to be an actress. I did my first show when I was 19 years old and that's all I ever wanted.” She spoke often about the bond that forms among theater actors. “You are not acting with a camera, you are acting with other marvelous actors in a fabulous play and you become a family.”

Franz also appeared steadily in television and film with credits that included Roseanne, The Equalizer, Gilmore Girls, As the World Turns, Another World, Law and Order, Sabrina and Christmas with the Kranks.

She approached her craft with discipline and spiritual openness. “You have a responsibility not only to the audience but to yourself and to the character,” she told Broadway.com.

Franz’s first marriage to actor Edward Binns ended with his death in 1990. She is survived by her husband Christopher Pelham and her brother Joe.