Carlin Glynn, a stage actress who, after a long hiatus from raising a family, returned to the limelight, singing on stage for the first time and walking away with a Tony Award for her performance as the madam in the 1978 hit “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas,” passed away July 13 at her home in the Hudson Valley, New York State. She turned 83.
Her daughter Mary Stuart Masterson, the actress, said the cause was lung cancer.
Mrs Glynn’s breakthrough, at age 38, came about almost by accident. Her husband, the actor and director Peter Masterson, had read a 1974 Playboy article by Larry L. King about the closure of a bordello in Texas and saw the makings of a musical. He and Mr. King began working on a script and enlisted Carol Hall to do the music.
For the first readings, Mrs. Glynn, although she had been largely out of the acting world for at least a dozen years, covered the role of Mona Stanglely, the headstrong but sensitive madam at the center of the story. She still played the part in a workshop production put on by Mr. Masterson and his associates at the Actors Studio in 1977. And when the musical opened Off Broadway in April 1978. And when it moved to Broadway in June.
“I initially only worked on the piece to help out,” Mrs. Glynn told DailyExpertNews in July 1978. “Peter was hesitant to force his wife on his associates. In the end, all four organizations that wanted to bring the show to Broadway wanted me to stay in the role. So that’s when I stopped worrying about nepotism.
It was her Broadway debut and she won the Tony for best actress in a musical. She played the part on Broadway for nearly two years and another six months in a London production. Reviewing her there, Michael Billington of The Guardian wrote, “Carlin Glynn bestows on the Mrs. the refined good upbringing and slight romantic abandon of the headmaster of a very classy, fee-paying American girls’ school.”
Although “Best Little Whorehouse” was Mrs. Glynn’s only Broadway appearance, her acting career spanned decades. She has appeared in productions at Second Stage and Signature Theater Company in Manhattan, Hartford Stage in Connecticut, the Alley Theater in Houston, the Goodman Theater in Chicago, and more. She also landed roles in more than 20 television series and movies, including “Continental Divide” (1981), “Sixteen Candles” (1984), “The Trip to Bountiful” (1985, directed by Mr. Masterson), and “Judy Berlin” (1999).
The Tony Award, she told The Times in 1979, was a game changer for her.
“It means I’ve been invited to hundreds of places by people offering to send their car to pick me up,” she said. “It also means I’m not just the girl who plays the Texas madam in a musical; I am someone who is considered an actress.”
Carlin Elizabeth Glynn was born on February 19, 1940 in Cleveland to Guilford and Lois Wilkes Glynn. Her father worked at Union Carbide, but when Carlin was 9, the family moved to Texas, where he had bought a gas station in Centerville, north of Houston.
The family later moved to Houston, where Mrs. Glynn first met Tommy Tune at Lamar High School, who years later would choreograph and co-direct “Best Little Whorehouse” with Mr. Masterson.
Mrs. Glynn and Mr. Masterson met when they were both apprenticing at the Alley Theatre. They married in 1960 and settled in New York. Both joined the Actors Studio, but Mrs. Glynn spent much of her time taking care of their three children while Mr. Masterson built his career. She occasionally starred in a television commercial, co-hosted a syndicated television program called “Today’s Health” in the mid-1970s, and had a small role in the 1975 film “Three Days of the Condor.”
A film version of “Best Little Whorehouse” was in the works when Mrs. Glynn said in the 1978 Times interview that she would love to play Mona on screen, although she admitted, “I probably won’t be asked.” She was right; a bigger big name, Dolly Parton, got the part. The movie came out in 1982.
Mr. Masterson passed away in 2018. In addition to her daughter Mary Stuart, who starred in films such as “Some Kind of Wonderful” (1987) and “Fried Green Tomatoes” (1991), Mrs. Glynn is survived by another daughter, Carlin Alexandra Masterson; a son, Peter Masterson; a brother, Philip Glynn; and six grandchildren.
Mary Stuart Masterson recalled spending weekends backstage at “Best Little Whorehouse” watching her mother from the wings. One night Mrs. Glynn started a song that was an octave too high, but she smoothly acknowledged the mistake halfway through the song, not only smashing in the improvised lyric “I think I’m off key” but doing so in a place where it rhymed.
“The audience was in the palm of her hand after that,” Ms Masterson said by email. “Well, they already were. She had a kind of authority on stage that you can’t teach. She always made everyone feel like they were in good hands.”
