Glenne Headly
Actress BORN MARCH 13, 1955 DIED JUNE 8, 2017, AGED 62
GLENNE HEADLY was the understated comic genius best known for her role in the 1988 comedy classic Dirty Rotten Scoundrels in which she conned the con artists, played by Michael Caine and Steve Martin.
Headly helped to rewrite the witty ending to the film when the original version proved inadequate.
That was also the year she and John Malkovich, her actor husband of six years, divorced following his affair with his Dangerous Liaisons co-star Michelle Pfeiffer.
Headly and Malkovich had met in 1979 at Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre Company where other leading lights included Gary Sinise.
Born in Connecticut and raised in New York City, Headly had wanted to be an actress from childhood. She graduated from the High School of Performing Arts but turned her back on showbusiness to study art history and literature before finding fame in such films as Mr Holland’s Opus and Dick Tracy.
With a breathy voice and ditsy mannerisms she was sometimes compared with Judy Holliday but her co-stars knew not to take her at face value. “People sometimes think she’s this quirky ingénue who has to be protected,” said actress Susan Berman. “But anybody who knows her knows she’s incredibly smart and principled and independent.”
Headly’s second husband was Byron McCulloch, a musician and metal worker whom she met on the set of Ordinary Magic in 1992.
She home-schooled their son Stirling, now aged 20, saying she was determined to be “present” for his childhood and choosing only those roles that could be filmed close to home or during school holidays.
These included episodes of ER, internet thriller The Circle and crime comedy Villa Capri, which will be released soon. Headly was working on new TV comedy Future Man at the time of her death from a pulmonary embolism.