Frances Lee McCain

Frances Lee McCain
220px McCain with Tony Bill, 1977.
Born	(1944-07-28) July 28, 1944 San Diego, California, U.S.
Nationality	American
Other names	Lee McCain
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1969-present

Frances Lee McCain (born July 28, 1944), also known as Lee McCain, is an American actress.

Early life and education

McCain was born in San Diego, California and grew up in New York, Illinois, Colorado in addition to California. She graduated from Ripon College with a BA in Philosophy and then studied acting for 3 years at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London, England. She completed a Master's degree in Psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies in 2000.

Acting career

She returned to New York where she appeared on Broadway in Woody Allen's Play it Again Sam, and off-Broadway in Lanford Wilson's Lemon Sky, creating the role of Carol. She joined the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco under William Ball and played a variety of roles in repertory.

Apple's Way TV show (1974-75) and other 1970s work

She began her career in film and television after appearing opposite Jon Voight and Faye Dunaway in A Streetcar Named Desire, eventually co-starring with Ronny Cox as the female lead in her own television series, CBS-TV's Apple's Way in 1974. She appeared in a variety of television series and miniseries throughout the 1970s, including Washington: Behind Closed Doors and the Quincy ME episode Eye Of The Needle playing a Holistic practitioner. In 1978 she played Charles Grodin's wife in Albert Brooks' debut feature film, Real Life.

1980s acting work

In the 1980s, she was cast in several major films, usually playing the mother of a main character. In 1984, she co-starred in the blockbuster film Gremlins as Lynn Peltzer, the mother of main character, Billy Peltzer. Also that year, she played Ethel McCormack, mother to Kevin Bacon's character, in Footloose. In 1985 she appeared in the hit film Back to the Future as Stella Baines, the mother to the character played by Lea Thompson. In 1986, she played Mrs. Lachance, the mother of Gordie Lachance (Wil Wheaton), in the hit drama film Stand by Me.

Later work

McCain continued to work in television after relocating to the San Francisco Bay Area in the late 1980s and also appeared in Scream (1996) as the mother of Rose McGowan's character, and Patch Adams (1998).

She received a Master's Degree in Psychology from the California Institute of Integral Studies in 2000, and continues to work in Theater extensively in the San Francisco Area.

In 2004 McCain initiated a theater project based on oral histories of the blue collar workers responsible for the building and maintaining of the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico which received workshop readings at the Lensic Center for Performing Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico, most recently at the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C. McCain is an Associate Artist of the ZSpace Studio in San Francisco, and is an ensemble member of the AlterTheater Ensemble in San Rafael, California. She currently resides in Albuquerque, NM (2015)

Filmography

• The Laughing Policeman (1973)
• The War Widow (1976)
• Real Life (1979)
• Honky Tonk Freeway (1981)
• Tex (1982)
• Footloose (1984)
• Gremlins (1984)
• The Rape of Richard Beck (1985)
• Back to the Future (1985)
• Stand by Me (1986)
• Murder in Three Acts (1986)
• It Takes Two (1988)
• Scream (1996)
• Patch Adams (1998)
• True Crime (1999)
• No Return (2003)
• Stitch in Time (2012)

External links

• Frances Lee McCain at the Internet Movie Database