Actress Eileen Brennan dies at 80
LOS ANGELES — Eileen Brennan, who went from musical comedy on Broadway to wringing laughs out of characters in such films as “Private Benjamin” and “Clue,” has died. She was 80.
Brennan’s managers said she died Sunday at home in Burbank after a battle with bladder cancer.
“Our family is so grateful for the outpouring of love and respect for Eileen,” her family said in a statement. “She was funny and caring and truly one of a kind. Her strength and love will never be forgotten.”
Brennan got her first big role on the New York stage in “Little Mary Sunshine,” a musical comedy that won her the 1960 Obie award for best actress. With her “excellent singing voice,” her performance was “radiant and comic,” a New York Times review said.
But it was a series of sharp-tongued roles that won her fans on television and in movies, including gruff Army Capt. Doreen Lewis in 1980’s “Private Benjamin,” aloof Mrs. Peacock in 1985’s “Clue” and mean orphanage superintendent Miss Bannister in 1988’s “The New Adventures of Pippi Longstocking.”
“I love meanies, and this goes back to Capt. Lewis in ‘Private Benjamin,’ ” Brennan said in 1988. “You know why? Because they have no sense of humor. People who are mean or unkind or rigid — think about it — cannot laugh at themselves. If we can’t laugh at ourselves and the human condition, we’re going to be mean.”
“Private Benjamin” brought her a supporting actress nomination for an Oscar. She also won an Emmy for repeating her “Private Benjamin” role in the television version and was nominated six other times for guest roles on such shows as “Newhart,” “thirtysomething,” “Taxi” and “Will & Grace.”
“Our world has lost a rare human,” “Private Benjamin” star Goldie Hawn said in a statement. “Eileen was a brilliant comedian, a powerful dramatic actress and had the voice of an angel. I will miss my old friend.”
Brennan’s “Private Benjamin” role led to an enduring friendship with Hawn. A couple of years after they filmed the movie, Brennan and Hawn had dinner in 1982 in Venice, Calif. As they left the restaurant, Brennan was struck by a car. Her legs were smashed, bones on the left side of her face were broken, and her left eye socket was shattered. Brennan said she fought her injuries with rage.
“I was no saint,” she said in a Ladies Home Journal interview. “I was angry, and anger is a powerful emotion. It increased my determination not to go under, to get well.”
Brennan became dependent on painkillers and two years after the accident entered the Betty Ford Center to cure her addiction.
“We get addicted to dull the pain of life,” she said. “But once we accept that life is tough and painful, we can move on and grow and evolve.”
In 1992, Brennan said of the car accident, “You learn from powerful things. Initially, there’s enormous anger, but your priorities get shifted around.”
Born Verla Eileen Regina Brennan in Los Angeles, she was educated in convent schools and studied at Georgetown University and the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York.
She was a member of the original company of “Hello, Dolly” on Broadway. From the New York stage, she moved to the screen in “Divorce American Style” and “The Last Picture Show,” two appearances on “Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In,” and TV guest shots on everything from “All in the Family” and “McMillan & Wife” to “Kojak,” “The Love Boat,” “Murder She Wrote” and “Mad About You.”