Trivia

Her Oscar-winning role in Network (1976) lasted a mere five minutes and two seconds on screen, making her performance the briefest ever to win an Academy Award.

Her final film appearance was playing Goldie Hawn's mother in the thriller Deceived (1991). Her role was a mere five seconds long.

At her death, her son, Tony Cookson, said that although some reference books listed her birth year as 1918, it was actually 1914, making her age 86 when she passed away.

Cousin of fashion designer/socialite Gloria Vanderbilt.

Won Broadway's 1953 Tony Award as Best Supporting or Featured Actress (Dramatic) for "The Crucible".

Brother Whitney Willard Straight was a noted race car driver who later headed up the British Overseas Airway Corporation. Also made news for being the youngest licensed pilot ever in England (age 16).

Father Willard Straight was an investment banker who died of septic pneumonia while serving in France in 1919. Mother, heiress Dorothy Payne Whitney, subsequently married British educationist who founded Dartington Hall School in Devon. Beatrice moved with her family to England in 1925.

Following her death, she was interred at William Henry Lee Memorial Cemetery in New Marlborough, Massachusetts. She passed away on April 7, 2001, four months away from what would have been her 87th birthday on August 2.

In the 1940s, she co-founded Theatre, Inc., which instigated the United States visit of the Old Vic Company.

Succeeded Wendy Hiller as Catherine Sloper in the Broadway play "The Heiress" at the Biltmore Theatre in 1948. It was in this production that she met future husband/actor Peter Cookson, who was playing the role of Morris Townsend.

Brother Michael Straight was publisher of "The New Republic". He was married three times. His second wife was Nina Auchincloss Steers, writer and half-sister of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, and the half-sister of writer Gore Vidal.

Under the auspices of acting teacher Michael Chekhov, she played Viola in "Twelfth Night" and Goneril in "King Lear" in 1937, with the Dartington Hall Players in England.

Was the 78th actress to receive an Academy Award; she won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for Network (1976) at The 49th Annual Academy Awards (1977) on March 28, 1977.

Wife of actor Peter Cookson.

Gave birth to her first child at age 35, a son Gary Straight Cookson on July 31, 1950. Child's father is her second husband, Peter Cookson.

Her brother Michael Straight was educated at Cambridge University in England and was a contemporary of the notorious "Cambridge spies" - Guy Burgess, Donald Maclean, Kim Philby and Anthony Blunt - who, many years later, were exposed as having been agents of Soviet Russia. Some sources allege that Michael, an outspoken left-winger, may also have been involved in this spy ring.

Gave birth to her second child at age 38, a son Anthony Straight Cookson - aka Tony Cookson - on June 23, 1953. Child's father is her second husband, Peter Cookson.

Mother of director/writer Tony Cookson.

Is one of 22 Oscar-winning actresses to have been born in the state of New York. The others are Alice Brady, Teresa Wright, Anne Revere, Celeste Holm, Claire Trevor, Judy Holliday, Shirley Booth, Susan Hayward, Patty Duke, Anne Bancroft, Barbra Streisand, Jane Fonda, Lee Grant, Whoopi Goldberg, Mercedes Ruehl, Marisa Tomei, Mira Sorvino, Susan Sarandon, Jennifer Connelly, Melissa Leo and Anne Hathaway.