The Award-winning actress and former Juilliard faculty member Marian Seldes has enjoyed an extraordinary career in professional theater--one that spans more than 50 years and features a stunning body of work alongside legendary actors, directors, and playwrights. One of the most honored theater personalities in recent history, she is an inductee into the Theater Hall of Fame. At a time when many performers might wonder if there is anything left to accomplish, Seldes continues to push the creative envelope while delivering performances of tremendous emotional depth and intensity.

Seldes attended the Dalton School in Manhattan as a child. Though her heart was set on being a dancer, she went on to study drama at the Neighborhood Playhouse under the tutelage of legendary acting teacher Sanford Meisner. She landed her first stage role in 1947 in Robinson Jeffers's Medea, starring Judith Anderson. A brief attempt at a film career in the 1950s followed before she returned to New York and originated the role of Blackie in Tennessee Williams' The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore.

Marian Seldes

Few professional actors can claim to have had a role written for them by the eminent playwright and 2002 Juilliard honorary doctorate recipient Edward Albee. After serving as Irene Worth's understudy in Albee's Tiny Alice in 1965, Seldes earned a 1967 Tony award as Best Featured Actress for her work as Julia in A Delicate Balance, a role Albee had created specifically for her. She has since originated roles in Albee's Three Tall Women and The Play About the Baby.

John Houseman, founder of Juilliard's Drama Division, handpicked Seldes to serve as an inaugural faculty member in 1967. During her 24-year tenure at Juilliard, Seldes's students--whom she affectionately called her "little birds"--included Christine Baranski, Kevin Kline, Christopher Reeve, Kevin Spacey, and Bradley Whitford.

It was also while at Juilliard that Seldes accomplished a feat worthy of a listing in the Guinness Book of World Records. In 1978, she accepted the role of Myra in the Broadway murder mystery Deathtrap. She would go on to play the part in every Broadway performance (more than 1,500) for the better part of the next five years, the longest such stretch ever. Critics rewarded her with a Tony Award nomination. The producers rewarded her by placing her name above the marquee for the first time in her career. Such artistic fortitude was nothing new to Seldes; a few years earlier, she had appeared in more than 1,000 performances of Equus. She accomplished these acts of endurance all while teaching classes at Juilliard.

By the late 1970s, having already made an indelible mark on theater, Seldes tackled the world of publishing. Her father, Gilbert Seldes, was an author and critic who counted James Joyce, Pablo Picasso, E.E. Cummings, and F. Scott Fitzgerald as personal friends. Her uncle, George Seldes, was a noted foreign correspondent who became one of the country's most important press critics. Having grown up in such a literary household, it was only natural that Seldes would one day write her memoir. The Bright Lights: A Theatre Life, an intimate reflection on Seldes's craft and career, was published in 1978 to stellar reviews.

In one passage, Seldes explains her decision to begin teaching at Juilliard in 1968 and asks: "How is talent trained?" She answers: "By creating the proper atmosphere in which it can grow. If the technical skills of the actor are improving by being trained and tested, the natural gift for acting that led him to the theater will grow stronger." It was this belief in the importance of a "proper atmosphere" that kept her teaching at Juilliard for more than two decades.

Since leaving the Juilliard faculty in 1991, Seldes has appeared in numerous stage and film productions, including former student Gerald Gutierrez's revival of Ring Around the Moon, a performance for which she received a Tony Award nomination for Best Actress in 1999. She also appeared in several films during the 1990s, including Tom and Huck, Home Alone 3, The Haunting, and Town and Country.

Actor Gale Howard once had this to say in describing Seldes's performance in The Play About the Baby: "She made me realize what it means to be on stage. It's like she's having a love affair with what she's doing." For her passionate commitment to acting, Juilliard will award Seldes an Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree at its 98th commencement ceremony on May 23.

—Josh Jacobson