Elizabeth Hoffman, the Mother Bea on ‘Sisters,’ Dies at 97

Elizabeth Hoffman, who portrayed Beatrice Reed Ventnor, the mother of the daughters played by Swoosie Kurtz, Sela Ward, Patricia Kalember and Julianne Phillips during the entire six-season run of the NBC drama Sisters, has died. She was 97.

Hoffman died Aug. 21 of natural causes at her home in Malibu, her son Chris told The Hollywood Reporter.

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Hoffman stood out as Eleanor Roosevelt in the 1983 and 1988-89 Herman Wouk miniseries The Winds of War and War and Remembrance, directed by Dan Curtis and starring Robert Mitchum.

She also portrayed Meryl Streep’s mom in Curtis Hanson’s The River Wild (1994) and the elderly Ruth, the mother-in-law of Linda Hamilton’s character who lives in a cabin at the base of the volcano, in Roger Donaldson’s Dante’s Peak (1997).

Hoffman’s depressed Bea sets Sisters in motion when her four daughters reunite to care for her after she turns to alcohol to deal with her husband’s death and sells the family home. The actress appeared on 87 of the series’ 128 episodes from 1991-96, and during the run of the show, Bea will lose another husband and a fifth daughter will emerge.

Born on Feb. 8, 1926, in Corvallis, Oregon, Hoffman did lots of theater in the San Fernando Valley before she made her onscreen debut in 1980 as Miss Mason on the first of her three appearances on Little House on the Prairie.

She recurred as Judge Mary Russell on five episodes of Matlock in 1989-90 and as Dr. Catherine Langford on two episodes of Stargate SG-1 in 1997-98.

Her résumé also included work in the films Fear No Evil (1981), Nuts (1987) and Born on the Fourth of July (1989) and on television in The Greatest American Hero, The A-Team, Hunter, L.A. Law, Star Trek: The Next Generation and Thirtysomething.

For the theater, Hoffman appeared in several Tennessee Williams plays and portrayed a woman who takes in a young Jewish girl in Diane Samuels’ Kindertransport.

In addition to Chris, survivors include another son, Paul, and her grandchildren, Erica, Alison, Lauren and Lily.

“I’ve just been so privileged,” she said in a 2006 interview. “I hope that I have infused these things with as much honesty as I could bring. I’ve always worked toward that goal.”

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