Background
Florence Stanley was born as Florence Schwartz in Chicago, the daughter of Hanna (née Weil) and Jack Schwartz.
Florence Stanley was born as Florence Schwartz in Chicago, the daughter of Hanna (née Weil) and Jack Schwartz.
She began a long career on stage, film and television starting in the 1940s. Her earliest theatrical performances include The Importance of Being Earnest with the Touring Players, Bury The Dead at New York"s Cherry Lane Theatre, and Machinal. During the 1950s, Stanley appeared in numerous live television shows, and gave an acclaimed performance as Clytemnestra in the New York Shakespeare Festival"s 1964 production of Electra, opposite Lee Grant, who played the title role.
Stanley began her long career on Broadway as Maureen Stapleton"s understudy in a 1965 revival of The Glass Menagerie.
In 1966, she took over the role of Yente in Broadway"s Fiddler On The Roof from Bea Arthur, leaving in 1971 (after more than 2,000 performances) to open in Neil Simon"s The Prisoner of Second Avenue, directed by Mike Nichols. In 1972 she went on to tap dance in the Broadway production of The Secret Affairs Of Mildred Wild, and in 1981 went back to work for Neil Simon in the Broadway production of Fools.
She starred as Margaret Wilbur, a family court judge who assigned custody of a twelve-year-old girl to two former boyfriends of the girl"s late mother on the television series My Two Dads, and directed three episodes of the series. She made two guest appearances on the television series Night Court: an uncredited one in the season 4 episode "Murder" in which she plays a woman who cheerfully confesses to her husband"s murder but may be hiding something, and another, credited, role in the season 6 episode "The Game Show" where she played Judge Wilbur.
She later played Doctor Amanda Riskin on Nurses, provided the voice for Grandma Ethyl Phillips on Dinosaurs and made guest appearances on such television series as Mad About You (which reunited her with her former My Two Dads co-star, Paul Reiser), Malcolm in the Middle, Mr.
Belvedere and Cybill. Later film roles include Trouble Bound (1993), The Odd Couple II and Bulworth (both in 1998) and Down With Love (2003). Stanley also played Thelma Griffin on Family Guy, but was replaced by Phyllis Diller after her death.
In 2001, she provided the voice of Wilhelmina Packard in Disney"s 41st animated feature film, Atlantis: The Lost Empire, for which she was nominated for an Annie Award for Voice Acting by a Female Performer in an Animated Feature Production, and the direct-to-video sequel, Atlantis: Milo"s Return, in 2003.
On October 3, 2003, Stanley died of complications from a stroke at age 79. Her interment was at Mount Sinai Memorial Park Cemetery.