Lange, Hope Elise Ross

(b. 28 November 1933 in West Redding, Connecticut; d. 19 December 2003 in Santa Monica, California), Emmy Award–winning actress, Academy Award nominee, and humanitarian.

Lange was the second of four children and the cousin of the photographer Dorothea Lange. Lange’s father, John George Lange, worked as a cellist, composer, and music arranger for the theater impresario Florenz Ziegfeld, and her mother, Minette (von Buddecke) Lange, was an actress and, later, a restaurateur. John Lange worked in New York City, so the family moved to the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City to live. When John died in 1942, Minette opened a restaurant on MacDougal Street, which she called “Minette of Washington Square.” The restaurant became a center for the artistic community because Minette fed struggling performers in return for their performing in the restaurant.

Lange made her acting debut at the age of nine in the production of The Patriots (1943) at the National Theatre in New York City. At age fourteen Lange studied dance with Martha Graham. While attending Lodge High School, Lange modeled. Her lithe, naturally athletic figure and blonde hair made her an excellent subject. Lange went to college for two years, first at Reed College in Portland, Oregon, and then at Barmore Junior College in New York City. It was at Barmore that Lange met her first husband, the actor Don Murray. Lange never took her acting career seriously until then. Murray got Lange an understudy job in the play The Hot Corner (1956), in which he starred. Her break came in the Kraft Television Theatre episode “Snap-finger Creek” (1956). The director Josh Logan saw her and cast her in the film version of Bus Stop (1956) with Murray and Marilyn Monroe.

Murray and Lange were married on 16 April 1956 in a municipal court ceremony. Although she had been raised a Christian Scientist, Lange never accepted all of that religion’s tenets but remained a spiritual person throughout her life. Murray, a conscientious objector, became involved with homeless refugees in Italy when he was sent there during the Korean War. The refugees, from the Iron Curtain countries and Spain, were kept in prison camp–like conditions. They could not easily assimilate because of illiteracy, infirmities, and disabilities. Determined to help, Lange and Murray joined with Belden Paulson in founding the Homeless European Land Program (HELP). HELP set up a free community for the refugees on the island of Sardinia. The organization served as a model for the United Nations for resettlement of refugees and also influenced the creation of the Peace Corps.

Lange and Murray performed two benefits for HELP: a Playhouse 90 episode, “For I Have Loved Strangers” (1957), and an episode of This Is Your Life honoring Paulson. The Playhouse 90 benefit was sabotaged by Columbia Broadcasting System executives who refused to air the telephone number for donations, so Lange and Murray donated their salaries from the performance.

Lange achieved critical acclaim in Peyton Place (1957). She played Selena Cross, a teenager from the wrong side of the tracks who is raped by her stepfather and accused of his murder. She received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress for this role.

Lange and Murray’s first child, Christopher Paton, was born in 1957. Adaughter, Patricia Elda, born in 1958. Lange did not give up acting, however, starring in The Young Lions (1958) and The Best of Everything (1959). During this time, Lange and Murray lived in Beverly Hills, California, in a sparsely furnished home. From 1956 to 1958 Lange donated most of her salary to HELP. Lange and Murray divorced in 1961, and Lange moved to Westwood, California, with the children. On 19 October 1963 she married the producer-director Alan J. Pakula and moved to Brentwood, California. She decided to retire from acting.

Then, at a cocktail party, Lange heard about a new television series. The National Broadcasting Company needed someone to play the part of a widow raising two children and working as a writer, who moves into a house haunted by a sea captain’s ghost. Lange agreed to read the script—and fell in love with the part. For her portrayal of Carolyn Muir in the television sitcom The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1968–1970), Lange won two Emmy Awards. She also became close friends with one of her costars, Charles Nelson Reilly.

Pakula and Lange divorced in 1971. That same year Lange became a regular on The New Dick Van Dyke Show (1971–1974), playing Jenny Preston, and then starred in Death Wish (1974). She performed on Broadway in Same Time, Next Year (1977) with Murray and in The Supporting Cast (1981). Lange starred with Murray and her son in I Am the Cheese (1983).

Lange married her third husband, the Broadway producer Charles Hollerith, Jr., on 29 January 1986. They split their time among homes in California, New York City, and Michigan, where Hollerith had a summerhouse. Lange had maintained permanent residences in Manhattan for several years, the last being an apartment on the Upper East Side. She continued to act, making guest appearances on television and playing small movie parts. In December 1988 Hollerith produced A Christmas Carol to benefit the Actor’s Fund of America; it was directed by Brother Rick Curry and starred Lange. Lange became friends with Curry and discovered his National Theatre Workshop of the Handicapped. She made regular appearances at benefits for the workshop. She was also known to send money to people she had heard about who had fallen on hard times.

In December 2003 Lange was admitted to Saint John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, California, suffering from diverticulitis. After surgery Lange came down with an infection in the hospital and died of ischemic colitis. Her body was cremated according to her wishes. Lange had made no provision for the disposal of her ashes, so they were given to her son. Lange liked Camden, Maine, where Peyton Place had been filmed, but plans to bury her there fell through. The chapel on the campus of the National Theatre Workshop of the Handicapped, located in Belfast, Maine, up the coast from Camden, is in the building that had served as the high school in Peyton Place. There were plans to bury Lange’s ashes under the altar and rename it the “Hope Chapel” in Lange’s honor.

Lange’s acting career spanned decades. Her striking good looks and seemingly reserved nature belied a great sense of humor and a quick wit that endeared her to those who knew her. Lange valued friendship and always had visitors in her home. Her portrayal of Carolyn Muir as a strong, independent woman who worked and raised her children without a man came at a time when there were few such role models for women. Perhaps Lange’s legacy lies not in the films, television series, and plays in which she starred but rather in the effect her actions had on the world around her. HELP allowed refugees to become self-sufficient and better their lives, while the National Theatre Workshop of the Handicapped continues to prepare handicapped people for the performing arts.

There is no full-length biography of Lange, but some information is in Robert de Roos, “Sometimes She’ll Have a Cigar,” TV Guide (24 Oct. 1968): 24–28; Judy Stone, “Nothing Haunted about Hope,” New York Times (16 Feb. 1969):D19; and Christopher Murray, “Final Curtain: Hope Lange,” letter to Equity News (June 2004): 2. An obituary is in the New York Times (22 Dec. 2003).

Michael W. Handis