Blythe Danner

In 2002 Danner, her husband Bruce Paltrow, and her daughter Gwyneth Paltrow worked together on a series of PSAs encouraging use of alternative energy sources and alternative fuel vehicles. Eagels' performance in The Letter inspired many actors new to the medium of talking pictures, including Bette Davis who repeated the role in a 1940 remake of the film. She was instrumental in implementing curbside recycling in Santa Monica and in retaining the New York City recycling program despite threatened budget cuts in 1991, has driven an electric car since the first General Motors EV1 was available, and has installed solar panels at her house. The Oscar went to Mary Pickford for the film Coquette. She has been active with INFORM, is on the Board of Environmental Activists and the Board of Directors of the Environmental Media Association, and won the 2002 EMA Board of Directors Ongoing Commitment Award.
Eagels was posthumously nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in the The Letter. In addition to her acting work, Blythe Danner has been involved with environmental issues such as recycling and conservation for over 30 years, having seen firsthand the contrast between her rural youth and her later residence in Los Angeles and New York. She was survived by her mother, Julia Eagles, and several brothers and sisters.

She often said the proudest night of her life was when Gwyneth won an Oscar for best actress, and her mother was the first person she thanked. In Kansas City, thousands of mourning fans were at the train station when her coffin was returned for interment in the local Calvary Cemetery. Although she has worked frequently on TV and on stage, Danner put her film career on hold for a number of years to raise her children. Three medical practitioners gave three different causes for her death, all of which pointed to alcohol and drug abuse. She is also the aunt of actresses Hillary Danner and Katherine Moennig, and sister-in-law (through brother Harry) of opera director Dorothy Danner.
Just before she was to return to the Broadway stage, Jeanne Eagels died suddenly at a hospital in New York City on October 3, 1929. Danner first co-starred with her daughter in 1992 in the TV movie Cruel Doubt, then again in the 2003 film Sylvia, playing the mother of the title character, played by her daughter. Her performance in The Letter garnered high praise from critics.

She is the mother of actress Gwyneth Paltrow and actor Jake Paltrow, and the widow of producer Bruce Paltrow.
The ban did not stop Eagels from working in film, and she made two "talkies" for Paramount Pictures, including The Letter and Jealousy (both released in 1929). For twenty-five years, she has been a regular performer at the Williamstown Summer Theater Festival, where she also serves on the Board of Directors. In 1928, after failing to appear for a performance in Milwaukee, Eagels was banned by Actors Equity from appearing on stage for 18 months. She has appeared in two films based on the novels of Pat Conroy, The Great Santini (1979) and The Prince of Tides (1991), as well as two television movies adapted from books by Anne Tyler, Saint Maybe and Back When We Were Grownups, both for the Hallmark Hall of Fame. Danner is more recently known for her role opposite Robert De Niro in the comedy hit Meet the Parents (2000) and its (2004) sequel, Meet the Fockers (with Barbra Streisand and Dustin Hoffman), and for her work in 2004 in the cable TV series Huff. She then went on tour with Her Cardboard Lover for several months. Her earliest starring film roles were opposite Alan Alda in To Kill a Clown (1972) and in the title role of Lovin' Molly (1974), directed by Sidney Lumet. She appeared opposite John Gilbert in Man, Woman and Sin, which was directed by Monta Bell and made at MGM studios in California.

Due to Danner's WASPy apearance and husky voice, she most frequently is cast as a middle class or upper class wife, or more lately, matriarch; although in 1986 in Brighton Beach Memoirs, she portrayed a middle-aged Jewish woman, and in 1982 in the TV movie Inside the Third Reich, she played the wife of Albert Speer. This play was a modest success, and after a season on Broadway, she took a break to make a movie. Danner was a close friend of actor Christopher Reeve and appeared with him in several plays. After much speculation about her next play, she chose a comedy Her Cardboard Lover (1927) in which she appeared on stage with Leslie Howard. She also received Tony nominations in 1980 for the original Broadway production of Harold Pinter's Betrayal, in 1988 for a revival of the Pulitzer Prize-winning drama A Streetcar Named Desire, and again in 2001 for a revival of Stephen Sondheim's Follies.
For her next role, Eagels was offered the part of Roxie Hart in the play Chicago, but walked out of this role during rehearsals, possibly due to conflicts with the director. Cook's Garden. They had no children together.

The same year she appeared in her first film role, in a television production of Dr. The marriage was a stormy one and they divorced in 1928. She went on to win a Tony Award in 1970 for her Broadway debut in Butterflies Are Free, playing the role later portrayed by Goldie Hawn in the film adaptation.
During this period she married 'Ted' Edward Harris Coy (1925), a former Yale University football star. Danner first appeared on stage with the Theater Company of Boston and the Trinity Square Playhouse of Boston, and first gained national attention at age 25 by winning the Theatre World Award for her performance in the Lincoln Center Rep's production of The Miser. She went on tour with Rain for two more seasons, and returned to Broadway to give a farewell performance in 1926. She holds three honorary doctorates of fine arts from Bard, Williams College, and Hobart. The house was packed nearly every night for two years.