Jean Stapleton, who parlayed a cantankerous husband, a spacey demeanor, a nail-scraping Queens accent and a good heart into the beloved TV character Edith Bunker, died Saturday of natural causes at her New York home.
She was 90.
She was a lifelong actress and gifted singer who rocketed to stardom in 1971, at the age of 48, when she was cast as Edith opposite Carroll O’Connor’s Archie Bunker in Norman Lear’s CBS sitcom “All in the Family.”
She won three Emmys for playing Edith before finally asking that the character be written out of the sequel show, “Archie Bunker’s Place,” in 1980.
It wasn’t an easy role being married to Archie, a bigoted loudmouth constantly spouting insults and malaprops.
Stapleton did not, however, play Edith as put-upon and long-suffering. Edith let Archie’s ridiculous comments wash off her back, even when he addressed her as “dingbat” and repeatedly told her to “stifle it.”
She was nonjudgmental, the precise opposite of Archie, concentrating on keeping life upbeat and pleasant for the Bunker family.
That included daughter Gloria and her husband Mike, better known to Archie as “Meathead.” Edith, more a supporting character in the original outline for the show, soon became the central voice that kept it believable the family didn’t splinter apart.
O’Connor and Stapleton remained good friends off-camera until his death in 2001.
In his 1998 autobiography, he wrote, “The benign, compassionate presence she developed made my egregious churl bearable.”
Stapleton had a long history of comic roles, though she said she took it up a few notches for Edith, who called her husband “Awchie” and did have a ditzy side.
Edith owed to Lucille Ball’s fluttery Lucy Ricardo in the same tilted way that Archie owed to Jackie Gleason’s blustering Ralph Kramden.
As “All in the Family” went on, Edith also became more than one of Archie’s targets.
In an October 1977 episode, Edith is sexually assaulted and nearly raped at her 50th birthday party. The story, sobering for a sitcom, then progresses to her family’s response and attempts to bring the assailant to justice.
Born in New York, the daughter of a salesman and a singer, Stapleton attended Hunter College and began her acting career in summer stock at the age of 18. She got her first major role in 1949 in a touring company of “Harvey.” She played a waitress in the 1953 Broadway production “In a Summer House” and had a supporting role as Sister in “Damn Yankees,” where she sang the hit song “You’ve Gotta Have Heart.”
She was regarded as a fine singer, though most fans know her for her deliberately screechy duet with O’Connor on “Those Were the Days,” the “All in the Family” theme song.
She had guest roles in numerous early TV shows, including “Dr. Kildare” and “Route 66.” She also had supporting roles in films that included “Up the Down Staircase” and “Klute.”
After “All in the Family,” she starred in several TV movies, including “Aunt Mary” and “Eleanor: Woman of the World,” about the young Eleanor Roosevelt.
She also had roles in several TV shows and films, notably including the ABC series “Grace Under Fire,” where she played Aunt Vivian.
She played in “Caroline in the City,” a “Murphy Brown” episode titled “All in the Family,” and the Meg Ryan/Tom Hanks film “You’ve Got Mail.”
In that movie, she played the bookkeeper for Ryan’s bookstore. When Ryan has to close the store, Stapleton tells her not to feel bad for her, because “I bought Intel at 6.”
She appeared in “Arsenic and Old Lace” on Broadway and won an Obie for “The Birthday Party.”
She was married for 30 years to William Putch, producer/director of the Totem Pole Playhouse in Fayetteville, Pa. They met in 1956 while she was touring in another production of “Harvey.”
He died in 1993. They had two children, John and Pamela, both of whom survive.
