Zohra Lampert

Films also came her way in the early '60s and she scored well for her humble, deeply stirring performance as Ernest Borgnine's Italian wife in the minor crime story Pay or Die! (1960), and stole a touching scene from Natalie Wood and Warren Beatty as Beatty's careworn spouse in Splendor in the Grass (1961). Those two performances alone should have lifted her to the heights of a star, but strangely they didn't. Lampert was deemed a chameleon-like actress who didn't quite fit into the Hollywood structure as a personality type.

Solemn, Middle Eastern-looking Zohra Lampert had a touching, understated quality to her talent that should have gone further in the film business than it did. Somehow she never got the bigger breaks necessary for top-flight stardom. Still and all, this comely actress with soft, vulnerable features managed to contribute a number of genuinely affecting performances, particularly on TV. Born in New York City, the daughter of Russian-born hardware store owners, Lampert attended Manhattan's High School of Music and Art and later graduated from the University of Chicago. After a stint with the Lincoln Center Repertory Theatre, she made an impressive mark on Broadway with Tony-nominated performances in "Look We've Come Through" in 1961 and "Mother Courage and Her Children" in 1963.

Was twice nominated for Broadway's Tony Award as Best Supporting or Featured Actress (Dramatic) in the consecutive years of 1962, for "Look: We've Come Through," and in 1963, for "Mother Courage and Her Children."