Mary Alice Who Starred in Fences, A Different World, and The Matrix Revolutions Passes Away
Mary Alice Who Starred in Fences, A Different World, and The Matrix Revolutions Passes Away
The actress who played The Oracle in The Matrix Revolutions as well as other prominent roles throughout her career has passed away earlier this week.
According to Deadline, Emmy Award and Tony Award-winning actress, Mary Alice, died on Wednesday. Her death was confirmed by the New York Police Department but details on how she died weren’t reported.
Born in Indianola, Mississippi, Alice worked as a Chicago school teacher in the mid-1960s before changing careers and going into acting. In the early 1970s, she was acting in off-Broadway theaters and started making a name for herself through her appearances at La MaMa in New York City.
Alice made her acting stage debut as a standby in the 1969 play, No Place To Be Somebody, before accepting a starring role in a 1971 production. Playing Rose in the still-talked-about stage play by August Wilson, Fences earned the actress the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play. She also took home an Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series in 1993 for her role in I’ll Fly Away.
She was known for her stage appearances as well as her television and film work. She became very recognizable in her role as Leticia “Lettie” Bostic, who was the dorm director at the fictional Hillman College on the spinoff of The Cosby Show, A Different World. Audiences also acknowledge the role she played in The Matrix Revolutions as The Oracle.
Her television appearances were on a number of shows including Sanford & Son, Good Times, Police Woman, All My Children, The Women of Brewster Place, L.A. Law, Cosby, Touched By An Angel, Providence, Soul Food, and Oz, among many others.
After making her movie debut in The Education of Sonny Carson in 1974, she appeared in Sparkles, The Bonfire of the Vanities, Awakenings, Malcolm X, and several others.
Alice’s other Broadway credits include The Shadow Box and a Tony-nominated performance in 1995’s Having Our Say, where she obtained a nomination for a Tony Award.
The actress, who was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame in 2000, retired from acting five years later.
Mary Alice Who Starred in Fences, A Different World, and The Matrix Revolutions Passes Away
