Lurene Tuttle (August 19, 1907 – May 28, 1986) was an American actress. She provided supporting voices in The Great Grape Ape Show.
Biography[]
Quite a familiar lady and notorious busybody on 1950s and '60s TV and film, Lurene Tuttle was born in Pleasant Lake, Indiana, and raised on a ranch close to the Arizona border. Her father, O.V. Tuttle, started out as a performer in minstrel shows, but found a job as a railroad station agent when times got hard. Her grandfather was a drama teacher and managed an opera house at one time in Angola, Indiana. As a child, she studied acting in Phoenix and was known for her scene-stealing comedy antics even at that early age.
Film and TV presented themselves to her strongly in the 1950s. By this time, Tuttle fit in comfortably, whether a warm and wise wife and mother or a brittle matron. After her film debut in Heaven Only Knows (1947), Tuttle lent able support alongside film's top stars including Cary Grant in Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948) and Room for One More (1952); Marilyn Monroe in Don't Bother to Knock (1952) and Niagara (1953); Joan Crawford in Goodbye, My Fancy (1951); Leslie Caron in The Glass Slipper (1955), and even Liberace when he tried to go legit in Sincerely Yours (1955). It was a rare occasion, however, when she was given a chance to truly shine in a prime supporting role. She could always be counted on to steal a bit of focus with just a sly grin or cynical look, as she did playing the brief part of the sheriff's wife in Alfred Hitchcock's horror classic Psycho (1960). One of those rare exceptions when Tuttle actually top-lined a film came with her crazed portrayal of the title character in Ma Barker's Killer Brood (1960). Here Tuttle pulled out all the stops in this admittedly fictional "B" crimer, going totally ballistic as the Ozark matriarch who, along with her boys, sets people on fire, runs over cops, and tommy-guns her way into infamy.
On the small screen, Tuttle was an amusing regular in a plethora of sitcoms, playing starchy relatives or gossipy townfolk. Most audiences remember her quite fondly as the matriarch in Life with Father (1953) opposite Leon Ames and as the crusty senior nurse in the Diahann Carroll series Julia (1968). She and Ames took the play Life with Father on the road several times after the series' demise.
Tuttle was a well-respected drama and diction coach for several decades. She began teaching radio technique in the 1940s and re-trained some prominent actors who were returning from extensive World War II duty. Following a lengthy departure in the 1950s due to TV commitments, she returned to teaching acting almost to the end. Some of her more famous students included Red Skelton, Orson Welles, Milton Berle, Steve Allen and Jayne Meadows. She lived out the rest of her life in Southern California and succumbed to cancer at age 78. In addition to her famous son-in-law, she was survived by her three grandchildren: Jennifer Gruska, a story editor; Mark Towner Williams, a drummer, and Joseph Williams, a composer and singer.
External Links[]
- Lurene Tuttle at the Internet Movie Database