No one seemed to notice the demise of Ms. Hagen but she was certainly one of the greatest actors ever to grace the stage. The world is definately a poorer place in her absence. She was 84.

Among her many accomplishments was in 1943 when she played Desdemona in a production of Othello with Paul Robeson in the title role. She had a love affair with Robeson that got her spat upon by someone who objedted to interracial couples. According to the Washington Post

Ms. Hagen had became one of the key interpreters of 20th-century master playwrights. In 1949, she replaced Jessica Tandy as the vulnerable Blanche DuBois opposite Marlon Brando in Tennessee Williams's "A Streetcar Named Desire." She received her first Tony Award for best dramatic actress as the wife of an alcoholic in Clifford Odets's "The Country Girl" (1950).

The pinnacle of her career was "Virginia Woolf" (1962), in which she and Arthur Hill played a destructive and delusional couple at a small college. She won her second Tony as best dramatic actress for that part.

Elizabeth Taylor played Martha in the 1966 film version and won an Academy Award. Ms. Hagen, who disdained filmmaking, preferring to spend her time in road companies or teaching.

She was a recipient of a 1999 Tony for lifetime achievement and a 2002 National Medal of Arts, the government's top recognition for artists.

A victim of the McCarthy era blacklist, she turned to teaching. Among Hagen's distinguished students were Jack Lemmon, Geraldine Page, and Jason Robards.

      - Mark