Collin Wilcox (actress)
Collin Wilcox | |
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File:Collin Wilcox 1958.JPG
Wilcox in 1958
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Born | Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S. |
February 4, 1935
Died | Script error: The function "death_date_and_age" does not exist. Highlands, North Carolina, U.S. |
Cause of death | brain cancer |
Occupation | Film, stage, and television actress |
Years active | 1953–2003 |
Spouse(s) | Walter Beakel (divorced) Geoffrey Horne (divorced) Scott Paxton (1979–2009; her death) |
Children | Kimberly Horne Michael G. Paxton William Horne |
Collin Wilcox (February 4, 1935 – October 14, 2009) was an American actress in film, on stage and television. She was also credited as Collin Wilcox-Horne or Collin Wilcox-Paxton.
Contents
Life and career
She was born in Cincinnati and moved with her family to Highlands, North Carolina, as a baby. She made her professional debut in Chicago as part of the improvisational group, The Compass Players, which included Mike Nichols, Elaine May, and Shelley Berman. Playing opposite Richard Basehart, Kevin McCarthy and William Hansen, Wilcox won the Clarence Derwent Award for her performance in The Day The Money Stopped by Maxwell Anderson and Brendan Gill, which lasted only three nights on Broadway in 1958. She starred in the 1961 play Look, We've Come Through with Burt Reynolds on Broadway. She replaced another actress in the 1963 revival of Eugene O'Neill's Strange Interlude and then went on to do the 1965 play The Family Way, both on Broadway.
A life member of The Actors Studio,[1] Wilcox is perhaps best known for her role in the 1962 film To Kill a Mockingbird, in which she played Mayella Violet Ewell, who falsely accuses Tom Robinson (Brock Peters) of raping her. Following that cinematic acting success, she performed two very memorable roles for television in 1964: The Twilight Zone episode "Number 12 Looks Just Like You" and the The Alfred Hitchcock Hour episode "The Jar" based on the Ray Bradbury short story. In 1974, she co-starred with Peter Falk and Robert Conrad in the Columbo episode An Exercise in Fatality. Wilcox remained active performing both on television and in films. Her final role was that of Mrs. Kline in the movie A Touch of Fate, which was released in 2003, six years before her death.
Civil rights activism
She recalled receiving "unfriendly looks" when she showed up at a NAACP conference in Monterey, California, where an official had to remind participants that, "Collin is here at this conference because she believes in the cause. She is not the character in the film." This was due to the fact that she played a racist white woman, who falsely accused Tom Robinson, a colored man, of raping her. [2]
Death
On October 14, 2009, Wilcox died from brain cancer, aged 74, at her home in Highlands, North Carolina.[3]
Family
She is survived by her third husband, Scott Paxton, whom she married in 1979; three children, Kimberly Horne, Michael G. Paxton, and William Horne; and three grandchildren. She is also survived by her sister, Jeremy Wilcox, who still resides in Highlands, North Carolina.
Filmography
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- To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
- The Sound of Anger (1968) (TV)
- The Name of the Game Is Kill (1968)
- The Baby Maker (1970)
- The Revolutionary (1970)
- Catch-22 (1970)
- Jump (1971)
- The Man Who Could Talk to Kids (1973) (TV)
- A Cry in the Wilderness (1974) (TV)
- The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman (1974) (TV)
- The Lives of Jenny Dolan (1975) (TV)
- September 30, 1955 (1977)
- Jaws 2 (1978)
- Under This Sky (1979) (TV)
- Marie (1985)
- Foxfire (1987) (TV)
- Wildflower (1991) (TV)
- The Portrait (1993) (TV)
- Fluke (1995)
- The Journey of August King (1996)
- Twisted Desire (1996) (TV)
- Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997)
Television
Chronological order:
- The Untouchables: Season 3, Episode 77 - Takeover (Mar. 3, 1962)
- Route 66 (Jan. 1964) (Season 4 episode 15 "Is it True There Are Poxies At The Bottom Of Landfair Lake?")
- The Twilight Zone (TV) (1964) (episode "Number 12 Looks Just Like You")
- The Alfred Hitchcock Hour: "The Monkey's Paw: A Retelling" (episode aired originally on April 19, 1965) (TV)
- The Fugitive (TV series): episodes – "The Good Guys and the Bad Guys" (1965) & "Approach with Care" (1966) (TV)
- The F.B.I. (TV series): Season 2, Episode 16 - Passage Into Fear (1966-1967)
- Columbo: An Exercise in Fatality (1974) (TV episode)
- Gunsmoke: Jubilee (1972) (TV episode)
- The Streets of San Francisco: ("Betrayed") (TV episode)
References
External links
- Collin Wilcox at the Internet Movie Database
- Collin Wilcox at the Internet Broadway DatabaseLua error in Module:WikidataCheck at line 28: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value).
- Collin Wilcox at Find a Grave
- Pages with broken file links
- Articles with hCards
- Pages using div col with unknown parameters
- 1935 births
- 2009 deaths
- Actors Studio members
- Actresses from North Carolina
- American film actresses
- American stage actresses
- American television actresses
- Cancer deaths in North Carolina
- Deaths from brain tumor
- Westtown School alumni