5 Mrs. Buchanans: Eileen Heckart - Sitcoms Online Photo Galleries

The 5 Mrs. Buchanans aired from September 1994 until April 1995 on CBS.

This ensemble comedy centered on the conflicts among 4 women with very little in common except a fearsome mother-in-law. Gravel-voiced Emma " mother" Buchanan ( Eileen Heckart), was the matriarch of the Buchanan clan in suburban Mercy, Indiana, outside of Indianapolis. A tough, opinionated widow, she loved her 4 sons but barely tolerated the women they had married. Alex ( Judith Ivey), married to Roy, was a fast-talking Jewish New Yorker who kept busy running a small thrift store. Delilah ( Beth Broderick), married to Charles, was a sexy, sugary-sweet but somewhat dim-witted Southerner who helped out at the thrift store. Vivian ( Harriet Sansom Harris), married to Ed, was an obnoxious, class-conscious Midwesterner, and Bree ( Charlotte Ross), who had just married Jesse, was an outgoing, if somewhat naive Californian whose youthful blond good looks were the envy of her sisters-in-law. What kept the younger women from having serious catfights with each other was their mutual dislike of their mother-in-law. Most of the action took place at the thrift shop, where they compared the cheap engagement rings they had all been given , complained about how Mother Bichanan had spoiled their husbands, and plotted ways to get under her thick skin. The husbands themselves were almost never seen.

Here is Eileen Heckart's Obituary from The New York Times.

Eileen Heckart, Oscar-Winning Actress, Is Dead at 82
By ROBIN POGREBIN
Published: January 2, 2002

Eileen Heckart, the actress with a smoky voice and toothsome smile who won an Oscar for ''Butterflies Are Free,'' three Emmys and a special lifetime achievement Tony, died on Monday at her home in Norwalk, Conn. She was 82.

The cause was cancer, her son Mark said.

One of those ubiquitous actresses who always seemed to be working, Ms. Heckart was perhaps most widely known for her television appearances as Mary Richards's Aunt Flo on the Mary Tyler Moore show, for example, or more recently for her recurring role of the mother of the lawyer James Wyler in the ABC drama ''Murder One.''

Her best-remembered film roles include the mother of Rocky Graziano in ''Somebody Up There Likes Me'' (1956) Marilyn Monroe's waitress friend in ''Bus Stop'' (also 1956) and the overbearing mother of the blind boy in ''Butterflies Are Free,'' for which she won the Academy Award as best supporting actress in 1972.

But the actress often said in interviews that her heart belonged to the stage and that was where she performed the bulk of her work.

She played her share of drinkers -- like the spinster teacher in ''Picnic'' in 1953 and the alcoholic mother whose son drowns in ''The Bad Seed'' in 1955, both on Broadway.

Most recently, in 2000, she played Gladys Green, the lead in ''The Waverly Gallery,'' Kenneth Lonergan's empathetic study of an elderly woman with Alzheimer's disease.

Writing in The New York Times, Ben Brantley called her performance ''uncanny'' and praised her ''beautifully coherent and intelligent portrayal of a woman sliding into incoherence.''

The actress was born Anna Eileen Heckart in Columbus, Ohio, on March 29, 1919.

Her parents separated when she was 2. Her father, Leo Herbert Heckart, took her younger brother to live with him, she said, but she remained with her mother, Esther, who was married five times.

Ms. Heckart graduated in 1942 from Ohio State University in Columbus, where she she caught whooping cough, which resulted in the deepening of her voice.

After graduation, she married her college sweetheart, John Harrison Yankee Jr., who became an insurance broker. The couple had three sons, Mark, of Norwalk; Philip, of Stratford, Conn.; and Luke, of Los Angeles, all of whom survive her, along with two half-sisters and Mark's two daughters.

Ms. Heckart began her career in summer stock, came to New York and cut her teeth in live television -- -- ''The Alcoa Hour,'' ''The Philco Television Playhouse,'' ''Goodyear Television Playhouse'' and ''Playhouse 90.''

Her first break onstage came in William Inge's ''Picnic,'' when she was 33. She played a schoolteacher with, as Brooks Atkinson put it in The New York Times, ''a hunger for life and a knack for getting it.''

She made her Broadway debut in 1943 as understudy and assistant stage manager for ''The Voice of the Turtle.''
After ''Picnic'' came ''The Bad Seed.'' Then ''Butterflies are Free'' on Broadway with Keir Dullea and Blythe Danner, in which she played Mr. Dullea's mother.

In 1965, she created the role of the disapproving mother in the Broadway production of ''Barefoot in the Park,'' while also appearing in episodes of television series like ''Gunsmoke'' and ''The FBI.''

The PBS productions ''Save Me a Place at Forest Lawn'' and ''The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds,'' both in 1966, won Ms. Heckart a host of television awards.

Among her other plays were ''The Dark at the Top of the Stairs,'' ''Our Town,'' ''They Knew What They Wanted,'' ''A View From the Bridge,'' ''Mother Courage'' and ''Time of the Cuckoo.''

During a decade of absence from the New York stage, she toured in national companies of Broadway hits, acted in movies and won roles in four separate television series that were picked up and then dropped. The last of these was ''Annie McGuire,'' in 1988, in which Ms. Heckart played Mary Tyler Moore's mother.

When she returned to the theater in the 1989 production of Lee Blessing's play, ''Eleemosynary,'' the Times theater critic Frank Rich welcomed her back.

''There are some absent friends you don't realize how much you've been missing until they suddenly pop up again,'' he wrote.

''Ms. Heckart is what one might describe as a long actress,'' Mr. Rich continued, ''long of face, of torso, of tongue. There is mischief in her big glistening eyes. And when she speaks, it is in the low, crystalline, merry rasp of a wise aunt who has seen and understood everything (perhaps with cigarette in hand), relished most of it and can't wait for the next adventure.''

Ms. Heckart smoked up until her death and blamed her friend Bette Davis for her addiction. ''I went to a hypnotist and managed to stop smoking for six months,'' Ms. Heckart recalled in a 1989 interview with The Times. ''Then I appeared in 'Burnt Offerings' with Bette. Well, she smoked all day, and then she asked me to dinner. Pretty soon, I asked her for just one cigarette. Then I had another. And then I was a smoker again.''

In 1997, Ms. Heckart's husband died suddenly on his morning walk. ''I looked out the window and he was gone,'' she told The Times in April 2000. ''It was the worst year of my life.'' The two had been married for 53 years.

She was awarded a special Tony in 2000 for her lifetime of theater work.

In another Times interview Ms. Heckart said her current role in ''The Waverly Gallery'' was her best, except perhaps for her part in ''Mother Courage.''

She also said it would be her last. ''This is my swan song, my last performance in a play,'' she said. ''It just takes too much energy.''

Speaking of her role, she added, ''You get such a good one, you may as well go out on a wave.''

Correction: January 4, 2002, Friday An obituary of the actress Eileen Heckart on Wednesday referred incorrectly to her Broadway appearance as the mother (Mrs. Banks) in ''Barefoot in the Park.'' She did not create the role; she succeeded Mildred Natwick. The article also misstated the number of Emmy Awards she received. It was two, not three.

For a Tribute to Eileen Heckart go to http://theatre.osu.edu/3_people/level_3_people/alumni/heckart.htm

For the Beth Broderick Homepage go to http://www.geocities.com/zelly_15/entry.html