Jessica Tandy

Jessica Tandy, who in "Driving Miss Daisy" won an Oscar and movie stardom after a lifetime on the stage, has died of ovarian cancer. She was 85. Tandy, a Broadway favorite since she played Blanche DuBois in "A Streetcar Named Desire" in 1947, conquered Hollywood 42 years later with "Daisy." The film was named best picture of the year and Tandy was chosen best actress at the age of 80. Her husband, actor Hume Cronyn, was by her side at their home in Easton, Conn., when Tandy died at about 6 a.m. Sunday after a four-year battle with ovarian cancer. The couple worked together for most of their careers, and were honored last June at the Tony awards with the first-ever Special Lifetime Achievement award. She and Cronyn also were Emmy Award nominees Sunday night for performances in "Hallmark Hall of Fame: To Dance With the White Dog." Cronyn won the award for best actor in a miniseries or special for the CBS movie about an elderly man who is comforted when his dead wife's spirit returns in the form of a dog. Leslee Dart, their press agent, said it was "hard to imagine one without the other." Tandy won her first Tony - Broadway's highest honor - for "Streetcar," and earned two more opposite Cronyn, in "The Gin Game" in 1978 and "Foxfire" in 1983. But Tandy earned her widest fame as Daisy Werthan, the crotchety widow in "Driving Miss Daisy" who forms a deep friendship with her black chauffeur. The film, adapted from Alfred Uhry's Pulitzer Prize-winning play, was an artistic hit and grossed more than $100 million. "I'm not a big movie name, and I knew they needed someone who was bankable," Tandy said at the time. "Certainly, in films, I've played small supporting roles for the most part. What has been happening to the film is remarkable, but there is something about the story that has allowed the play to run for years." Karl Malden, who starred with Tandy and Marlon Brando in "Streetcar" and was a lifelong friend of Tandy and Cronyn, said she was "like a mother hen" to the other actors. "She really kept it together. She did it with class. There was no screaming and shouting. She said, 'It's time to go to work, let's go to work and get it over with,' and we did," Malden said. Born in London on June 7, 1909, Tandy was the daughter of a rope manufacturer who died of cancer when she was 12. Her mother worked several jobs to put her through private school. Tandy made her professional debut in 1927, married actor Jack Hawkins in 1932 and had one child, Susan, before they divorced. "Apart from having my appendix out and having a baby, I don't think I stopped for the first 10 years," she told Vanity Fair. "I kept going up the ladder, and that's heady stuff." In 1940, Tandy and her daughter immigrated to the United States in search of work and to escape the war. She landed minor parts in several Broadway plays, and met Cronyn. "I was in love with her right away," Cronyn said. " But it took two years for her to marry me." The couple wed in 1942 in California. In between film roles, the actress had two children, Chris, born in 1943, and Tandy, born in 1945. In 1946, Cronyn directed his wife in a one-act play by Tennessee Williams called "Portrait of a Madonna." Williams was looking for an actress to play the heart-breaking, fading beauty Blanche DuBois, and found her in Tandy, who, along with Brando, electrified Broadway in "A Streetcar Named Desire." Tandy was passed over for the movie version of "Streetcar." "I was disappointed and hurt," she said. "But I wasn't a film star, and Vivien Leigh was." The Cronyns returned to the East Coast in the early 1950s and worked steadily in scores of plays and television dramas. Their last Broadway appearance was in "The Petition" in 1986. Dart said plans for a private funeral and memorial service were not yet complete. She said the family asked that, in lieu of flowers, contributions be made to: Habitat, Equity Fights AIDS, and Save the Children.