Helen Hanft Dies at 79; Public Memorial Set for Ellington Room, July 14

Born in the Bronx on April 3, 1934, she attended the High School of Performing Arts and began her theatrical career as a pioneer of experimental theatre at such venues as La Mama ETC and Caffe Cino, where she was soon known as "the Helen Hayes of Off-Off Broadway." Though not a great beauty, she nevertheless commanded the stage with an Ethel Merman-like bravura and a comedic ability to satirize her sexuality. She often played eccentric, flamboyant, raunchy characters in a string of Tom Eyen comedies including such early works as "Sarah B. Divine," "Areatha in the Ice Palace" and "My Next Husband Will Be a Beauty" and his more commercial hits like "Why Hanna's Skirt Won't Stay Down," "Women Behind Bars," "The Neon Woman" (in which she co-starred with Divine), and "The White Whore and the Bit Player," which was also the first movie to be produced by the Cannon Film Group" featuring the original stage cast. She also had a great personal success in Dave Rabe's "In the Boom Boom Room" at Joseph Papp's Public Theater.

In the mid-1970's, she also began appearing in movies and had strong character roles in Woody Allen's "Manhattan," "Stardust Memories," "The Purple Rose of Cairo" and "New York Stories," Paul Mazursky's "Next Stop Greenwich Village" and "Willie and Phil," "Arthur" with Dudley Moore and Liza Minnelli, John Schlesinger's "Honky Tonk Freeway," "Moonstruck" with Cher, the 1988 comedy "License to Drive," "Used People" with Shirley MacLaine and Marcello Mastroianni, "Dummy" with Adrien Brody, and more recently "Noise" with Tim Robbins, "Puccini For Beginners" with Gretchen Mol, and "When Evening Comes" with Philip Bosco and Anne Meara in 2009.

She also had numerous TV roles and and played a wide assortment of characters on "Law and Order," appearing frequently throughout the show's long run.

She is survived by her sister, Sarah Louise Comma, a niece Anne Lopez and two nephews Benito Comma and Moses Danzer.