Appreciation: Shirley Knight, a bridge to Actors Studio greatness and an acting model for others

A product of the Actors Studio heyday, she is linked to those Method stars who may have burned brighter but probably not as consistently. There was never a part, small or star, she didn’t illuminate from the inside out.

In his book “A Method to Their Madness: The History of the Actors Studio,” Foster Hirsch captured the vital paradox that was Knight’s presence: “Blonde, with dainty features and a translucent complexion, she might have become the conventional ingénue, playing a string of decorative roles. But anger churned beneath that pretty facade, and a sour expression — a stingy smile tinged with irony — promised thunder.

Age, in addition to adding to her trove of Emmys , opened up possibilities. Twice I saw her onstage in her later years, once in Horton Foote’s “The Young Man From Atlanta,” in which she was nominated for a Tony for a performance so suffused with detailed life that it was astonishing such a feat of naturalism could be pulled off with so little fuss. She understood the denial of the grieving mother she played down to the brand of hairspray stiffening her coiffure.

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