Mary Beth Hurt, Tony-Nominated Broadway Actress and Film Star, Dies at 79

Mary Beth Hurt, the award-winning actress whose work was displayed on stage and screen, died at age 79 on March 28, 2026. After a decades-long battle with Alzheimer’s disease, Hurt passed in an assisted living facility in Jersey City, New Jersey.

Hurt had 14 Broadway credits, spread out over almost four decades. She made her New York stage debut in More Than You Deserve at The Public Theater, and went on to receive her first Tony nomination a year later for The Trelawny of the “Wells.” Her other Tony-nominated performances were for Crimes of the Heart and Benefactors.

Born Mary Beth Supinger in Marshalltown, Iowa in 1946, she went on to study drama at the University of Iowa. Her next step was admittance into the New York University Graduate Acting Program at the Tisch School of the Arts. After her graduation in 1971, she married actor William Hurt just one year later. The couple would divorce in 1982.

1974 was a busy year for Hurt, appearing in the television film Ann in Blue, as well on Broadway in Love for Love, directed by Hal Prince, and as an understudy in The Rules of the Game. These two shows were performed on the stage of the Hayes Theater, where she would return in 1975 for The Member of the Wedding.

Her work in film began with Woody Allen’s Interiors, playing a leading role. Other notable credits include The World According to Garp in 1982 and both The Age of Innocence and Six Degrees of Separation in 1993. One year after Garp, Hurt married writer-director Paul Schrader, with whom she worked with in Light Sleeper, Affliction, The Walker and Adam Resurrected.

Hurt’s other on-screen credits include television roles in Working it Out, Law & Order and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. Hurt also appeared briefly on Saturday Night Live in “Glenn Close/The Black Crowes” in 1992. A longtime friend of Close's, the two met on Broadway in Love for Love and continued their work together in Benefactors.

Finding the balance between working and raising two children, Molly and Sam, Hurt told The New York Times in 1994, “I do have it all. Only maybe I don't have as much of it as I'd like.” The “balance” amounted to her shifting more focus into motherhood, to which she happily confirmed that “the compromises are worth it.”

Hurt is survived by her husband and children.