Gwen Van Dam, a Character Actress for 70 Years, Dies at 96
Gwen Van Dam, whose 70-year career as a character actress for film, television and the stage included turns in True Confessions, Halloween, Coming Home, Stir Crazy and The Trip to Bountiful, has died. She was 96.
Van Dam, who compiled about 140 acting credits on IMDb, died Dec. 19 at her home in West Los Angeles after a recurrence of cancer, her son, Dirk Smillie, told The Hollywood Reporter.
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Van Dam remained a busy actress until the end, appearing on the first five episodes of Prime Video’s Homecoming in 2018, on Netflix’s Grace and Frankie in 2019 and on two installments of Hulu’s Interior Chinatown last year. She recently finished a play, too.
Her TV résumé included The Brady Bunch, Mannix, Maude, House Calls, Days of Our Lives, Moonlighting, 227, Knots Landing, Star Trek: Generations, ER, Gilmore Girls, Charmed, New Girl, Criminal Minds, Angie Tribeca and Modern Family.
Meanwhile, she spent the past decade showing up in music videos for U2, Smashing Pumpkins, Beyoncé and Jay-Z, Lil Wayne, Panic! at the Disco and Mastodon, even though she wasn’t all that familiar with those artists, her son noted.
In 2011, she had a rare starring turn in a Los Angeles Group Rep production of Horton Foote’s The Trip to Bountiful.
“In the lead role of Carrie Watts, Gwen Van Dam has big shoes to fill — Geraldine Page (the film) and Lillian Gish (the play),” a L.A. Stage Times reviewer wrote. “Ms. Van Dam chooses rightly to make her own path and use her own assets and experiences. She brings a sweetness and vulnerability to the role. You will love … traveling this important journey with her.”
She appeared in productions for 14 L.A.-based theater companies during her career.
One of three kids, Gwendolyn Greta Van Dam was born in San Francisco on Nov. 5, 1928. She discovered a love of acting at San Jose State and after graduation in 1950 wrote a letter to Gertrude Lawrence seeking help on how to land roles in New York. The English actress suggested she contact her husband, producer Richard Aldrich, and he cast her in The Guardsman, his touring stage show.
While studying with famed acting teacher Mira Rostova at the Herbert Berghof Studio in New York, she was offered a screen test for a role in From Here to Eternity (1953) and a contract with Columbia Pictures.
Van Dam, however, turned it all down after fellow Rostova student Montgomery Clift said to her, “Are you sure you want to move to Hollywood? It could destroy you.” She would admit it was the worst mistake of her career.
Yet she persevered, and in early big-screen roles, she played a nurse in Jean Seberg’s Lilith (1964) and was in Husbands (1970) from John Cassavetes and in The Kentucky Fried Movie (1977) from Jim Abrahams, David Zucker and Jerry Zucker.
Every New Year’s Day, Van Dam and her late husband, Scottish-born actor Bill Smillie, hosted a party at their home, and their frequent guests included actors Len Lesser, Marvin Kaplan and Tina Louise.
She met Smillie when he was the property manager on The Guardsman. They wed in Carmel in October 1959 and were together until his death in November 2003 at age 81.
Her sister, Jeanie, died a week after she did at age 94.
In addition to her son, survivors include her children, Claudia, and her grandchildren, Lorelei, Amanda and Crystal. A memorial service is planned for next month in Hollywood.
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