Background
Thompson, Sada Carolyn was born on September 27, 1927 in Des Moines. Daughter of Hugh Woodruff and Corlyss Elizabeth (Gibson) Thompson.
Thompson, Sada Carolyn was born on September 27, 1927 in Des Moines. Daughter of Hugh Woodruff and Corlyss Elizabeth (Gibson) Thompson.
Born in Des Moines, Iowa, in 1927 to Hugh Woodruff Thompson and his wife Corlyss (née Gibson), and raised in New Jersey, Thompson earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Theatre at the Carnegie Institute of Technology, after which she worked steadily in regional theatre in such plays as The Seagull, Pygmalion, Our Town, Arms and the Manitoba, and Blithe Spirit.
She received training at Pittsburgh Playhouse, where she appeared in numerous productions. She made her Office-Broadway debut in a 1955 production of Under Milkwood, and the following year she appeared on television in a Goodyear Television Playhouse production. She made her Broadway debut in the 1959 musical Juno.
Her additional New York City stage-credits include The Effect of Gamma Rays on Manitoba-in-the-Moon Marigolds, Tartuffe, and Twigs.
She was elected to the American Theater Hall of Fame in 2005. On the strength of her success in Twigs, Thompson was signed to play neighbor Irene Lorenzo on All in the Family.
After taping her first episode, however, she was replaced by Betty Garrett, when it became obvious that she and producer Norman Lear had different opinions about how the character should be played. Thompson"s additional television credits included Owen Marshall: Counselor at Law, The Love Boat, Father Dowling Mysteries, Andre"s Mother, Cheers, Indictment: The McMartin Trial, Emergency and Law & Order.
Her feature films included The Pursuit of Happiness, Desperate Characters, and Pollock.
Sada Thompson died on May 4, 2011, in Danbury, Connecticut, of lung disease, aged 83.
Married Donald E. Stewart, 1949. 1 daughter, Liza.