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Beatrice Whitney Straight (August 2, 1914 –
April 7, 2001) was an United States|American
theater and film actor|actress.

Born in Old Westbury, New York, she was the
daughter of investment banker Willard
Straight|Willard Dickerman Straight, and the
wealthy Dorothy Payne Whitney. She was four years
old when her father died in France of influenza
during the Spanish flu|great epidemic while
serving with the United States Army during World
War I. Following her mother's remarriage to United
Kingdom|British agronomist Leonard K. Elmhirst in
1925, the family moved to England. As such,
Beatrice Straight was educated there and it was
where she began acting in amateur theater.
Returning to the United States she made her
Broadway debut in a 1935 production of Bitter
Oleander.  She concentrated her attentions on her
theater work, winning a Tony Award for her role as
Elizabeth Proctor in the 1953 production of Arthur
Miller's The Crucible. 

She was married twice, first to France|Frenchman
Louis Dolivet, a left-wing activist who became
editor of the "United Nations World" magazine and
later an Academy Award winning film producer. They
divorced in 1949 and Beatrice Straight immediately
married  film and Broadway actor/producer Peter
Cookson with whom she had two sons. 

She worked infrequently in television and cinema,
and is remembered by film goers for two roles. As
the devastated wife, confronted by her husband
William Holden's infidelity in Network
(movie)|Network (1976), Straight was onscreen for
a little more than 5 minutes, however her
performance was widely praised, and earned her an
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. 
Further film and television performances include
the role of the mother of Lynda Carter in the
Wonder Woman series. She also played the role of
the paranormal investigator, Dr Lesh in the film
Poltergeist movie series|Poltergeist (1982), the
most widely seen role of her film career.

She died from pneumonia in Los Angeles,
California. She was cremated.

==External links==
* imdb name|id=0833152|name=Beatrice Straight
* ibdb name|id= 61293|name=Beatrice Straight