Hollis Resnik, a Chicago actress who made her home on musical theater stages in a host of memorable and critically acclaimed performances, has died. She was 67.
Ms. Resnik died Sunday at Swedish Covenant Hospital, where she had been hospitalized for the past week or so, according to the Rev. Jim Heneghan, a longtime friend, who said her ex-husband, musician Thomas Mendel, was at her side.
According to Heneghan, the actress was looking ahead to a possible return to the concert stage this summer.
“She was in moving gracefully into retirement, and she talked about doing concerts,” Heneghan said. “She was also looking into opportunities and parts in New York, but she didn’t want to fly there because of COVID concerns. She was at a point in her life where she could pick and choose and weigh her options carefully and take her time.”
Her roles in musical theater covered a wide range of characters, including Fantine in “Les Miserables” (a role she made her own for nearly two years in national touring productions in the 1980s), Aldonza in “Man of La Mancha,” Edith Beale in “Grey Gardens,” the Wicked Witch of the West in “The Wizard of Oz,”Eva Peron in “Evita,” and most recently Norma Desmond in Porchlight Music Theatre’s “Sunset Boulevard” in 2019.
In an interview with the Chicago Sun-Times about the show, Ms. Resnik, a 12-time Joseph Jefferson Award winner, spoke of slowing the hectic pace of her career, hinting “Sunset Boulevard” might be her “last big musical.”
“Sure, I work less than I used to,” she said. “I’m not a movie star … That world is foreign to me. I’m pretty simple. There isn’t one role I’m dying to play. I’ve done enough.”
Resnik grew up in the Cleveland suburb of Euclid, Ohio, and received a bachelor of fine arts degree fromDenison University in Ohio.
“Hollis was truly a Chicago legend,” said BJ Jones, artistic director of Northlight Theatre. “In our production of ‘Grey Gardens,’ she created two unforgettable Edie’s, vulnerable and indomitable. Her performance prompted playwright Doug Wright to say she made the role her own.”
She was a memorable Fräulein Schneider in a 2018 production of Cabaret at the Paramount Theatre in Aurora, said artistic director Jim Corti, radiating strength and conviction.
“I’ve never see her cave, as an actor or as a human,” Corti said.
During the pandemic, Ms. Resnik phoned others in the theater community to check on how they were faring, Corti said.
She also was a skilled tennis player and loved the tango so much that she took lessons to learn the dance, Corti said
“I am gutted and devastated by the passing of one of our talents,” ,” Marriott Theatre executive producer Terry James said. “Hollis triumphed in productions of ‘Anything Goes,’ ‘Hairspray,’ ‘Spring Awakening’ and ‘Mame’ at Marriott Theatre. All of us have lost a dear friend and Chicago a legend.”
In a Facebook post Monday, the Sarah Siddons Society, which in 1992 awarded her its Leading Lady Award, said of Ms. Resnik: “She was a mainstay of Chicago stages and national tours, always delighting audiences.”
Ms. Resknik was “a star from the tip of her toes to the top of her head, but she was an actress and a craftswoman,” said singer-actor Kat Taylor, who performed with her in…
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