Early life

She was born Ada Caldwell in Melbourne, Victoria and raised in the suburb of Balwyn. Her father, Edgar, was a plumber. Caldwell's mother often took some of the neighbourhood kids to the Elizabethan Theatre in Richmond where they could go backstage and watch rehearsals and performances.

Career

A life member of the Actors Studio, Caldwell has won four Tony Awards for her performances on Broadway in Tennessee Williams' Slapstick Tragedy, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Medea and Master Class. In the last she portrayed opera diva Maria Callas. In Stratford, Ontario she has worked often, including her role as Cleopatra in Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra opposite Christopher Plummer's Mark Antony in 1967.

She emigrated to England upon being invited to join the RSC at a time when Charles Laughton was attempting Lear, and Vanessa Redgrave, Eileen Atkins, Albert Finney were among the other newcomers in the company. She played Bianca in the 1959 production of Othello, starring Paul Robeson. Later she played the indomitable Helena, opposite Dame Edith Evans in a production of All's Well That Ends Well. Her career later brought her to America, where she was one of the original company of actors under Guthrie's direction at the Tyrone Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis. At the Guthrie, she played parts such as Ophelia in Hamlet and Natasha in Three Sisters.

Other credits on Broadway include Arthur Miller's The Creation of the World and Other Business in which she played Eve, a one-woman play by William Luce based on the life of Lillian Hellman and a production of Macbeth with Christopher Plummer as Macbeth and Glenda Jackson as Lady Macbeth under Caldwell's direction. Caldwell directed, Off-Broadway, a two-woman play, created by Eileen Atkins, Vita and Virginia, based on the letters between Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West. Atkins played Virginia and Vanessa Redgrave played Vita. Caldwell directed the Broadway production of Othello in the late 1970s with James Earl Jones, Christopher Plummer, and Dianne Wiest. She helmed the American Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford, Connecticut for two limited-run seasons as its Artistic Director in the mid-1980s.

She has also appeared on film, most notably as an imperious dowager in Woody Allen's The Purple Rose of Cairo. In 2002, she starred in the film Just a Kiss. She voiced the character of the Grand Councilwoman in Disney's Lilo & Stitch, and continued voicing the character in the franchise's later films and in Lilo & Stitch: The Series, as well as in Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep. She appeared in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close in 2011.

Personal life

Caldwell graduated from the Methodist Ladies College and, much later, received an honorary degree from the University of Melbourne. She was married in 1968 to Canadian-born Broadway producer Robert Whitehead, a cousin of actor Hume Cronyn. They had two sons and were married until Whitehead's death in June 2002.

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1959	A Midsummer Night's Dream	Fairy	Television film
1961	Macbeth	Lady Macbeth	Television film
1964	Dear Liar	Mrs. Patrick Campbell	Television film
1968	The Secret of Michelangelo	Narrator	Television film
1983	Medea	Medea	Television film
1985	The Purple Rose of Cairo	The Countess
1989	Lantern Hill	Mrs. Kennedy	Television film
2002	Lilo & Stitch	Grand Councilwoman (voice)
2003	Stitch! The Movie	Grand Councilwoman (voice)	Direct-to-video
2004	Birth	Mrs. Hill
2004	Stitch's Great Escape!	Grand Councilwoman (voice)	Short film
2006	Leroy & Stitch	Grand Councilwoman (voice)	Direct-to-video
2011	Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close	Oskar's Grandmother

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1960	BBC Sunday Night Play	Ruth Honeywill	Episode: "Twentieth Century Theatre: Justice"
1960	ITV Playhouse	Louise	Episode: "The Song of Louise in the Morning"
1960	Suspense	Kathy Harrigton	Episode: "Flight 404"
1960	Theatre 70		Episode: "The Neighbour"
1963	Festival		Episode: "The Doctor's Dilemma"
1964	Playdate	Streetwalker	Episode: "A Night Out"
1971	Great Performances	Sarah Benhardt	Episode: "Sarah ... Sarah Benhardt"
1978	Play of the Month	Mme. Arkadina	Episode: "The Seagull"
1986	American Masters	Carlotta Monterey O'Neill	Episode: "Eugene O'Neill: A Glory of Ghosts"
1990	Road to Avonlea	Old Lady Lloyd	Episode: "Old Lady Lloyd"
2003	Lilo & Stitch: The Series	Grand Councilwoman (voice)	Episode: "Finder: Experiment #428"

Video Games

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2002	Disney's Stitch: Experiment 626	Grand Councilwoman
2010	Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep	Grand Councilwoman

Bibliography

• Caldwell, Zoe (2001). I will be Cleopatra: An Actress's Journey. Melbourne: Text Publishing. ISBN 1-877008-03-6.

[ Source: Wikipedia ]