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Actress Madeleine Sherwood Dead at 93
Sherwood had a distinguished career on stage and screen
Madeleine Sherwood, best known to TV viewers as Reverend Mother Superior Lydia Placido on the '60s sitcom The Flying Nun, died at her childhood home in Lac Cornu, Quebec, Canada on Saturday according to The Hollywood Reporter. She was 93.
Sherwood studied under legendary acting coach Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio in New York. She made her Broadway debut in 1952 in The Chase,originating the role of the accuser Abigail Williams in Arthur Miller's canonical play The Crucible. Sherwood herself was blacklisted during this time, which made the play - The Crucible uses the Salem witch trials as an allegory for the McCarthy hearings - particularly personal. In the '60s, she was active in the civil rights movement and was arrested while protesting in Alabama.
She was also in the original Elia Kazan-directed Broadway production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, playing Mae, and reprised the role in the 1958 film adaptation. Her other Broadway credits included Camelot,The Night of the Iguana and All Over.
However, she's probably best known for playing Mother Superior on the kitschy Sally Field-starring sitcom The Flying Nun from 1967-1970. Other TV credits included One Life to Live, Guiding Light and As the World Turns.
Sherwood retired from acting in 1989 and returned to Canada. She was twice nominated for the Order of Canada, the nation's second-highest honor.