Hildy Parks, Actress and Longtime Writer-Producer of Tony Awards, Dead at 78 | Playbill

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Obituaries Hildy Parks, Actress and Longtime Writer-Producer of Tony Awards, Dead at 78 Hildy Parks, the producer, writer, actress and model who collaborated with husband Alexander H. Cohen to produce The Tony Awards for two decades, died Oct. 7 due to complications from a recent stroke.

Ms. Parks was 78 and died at the Actors' Fund home in Englewood, NJ, according to the Broadway press office Keith Sherman & Associates, Inc.

Ms. Parks was a partner in the multiple production activities of her husband, Alex Cohen, in New York and London. For her work writing and producing "The American Theatre Wing's Tony Awards" telecasts, she received multiple Emmy Award nominations and a 1980 Emmy Award for her writing.

Her TV credits included  writing and producing the 1982 Emmy Award-winning "Night of 100 Stars," "Night of 100 Stars II," "Parade of Stars" and "Night of 100 Stars III."

Ms. Parks was chief writer and script editor of "CBS: On The Air," the week-long series of programs celebrating the 50th anniversary of the CBS Television Network.  She also wrote the script for "William," an ABC special program garnered to introduce the works of Shakespeare to children, starring Lynn Redgrave.

  In 1985, she co-presented with Cohen Dario Fo's Accidental Death of an Anarchist on Broadway. In the 1983-84 season, she was represented by Edmund Kean, la tragedie de Carmen and Play Memory.   Born in Washington, D.C., she graduated from the University of Virginia, and shortly thereafter came to New York to make her stage debut as Curley's wife in Of Mice and Men at the New School. Her Broadway debut was in 1947's Bathsheba with James Mason.  She subsequently appeared in Tennessee Williams' Summer and Smoke and was the only woman in the London cast of Mr. Roberts. Her other Broadway performance credits include The Tunnel of Love; Be Your Age; To Dorothy, A Son; and Magnolia Alley.

According to the Internet Broadway Database, her co-producing, producing and "production associate" credits are numerous and include Baker Street, Black Comedy/White Lies, Little Murders, The Herbal Bed, Taking Sides, 84 Charing Cross Road, A Day in Hollywood / A Night in the Ukraine, I Remember Mama, Comedians, Ulysses in Nighttown, 6 Rms Riv Vu, Home, Dear World and more.

Ms. Parks made regular appearances in major television shows for 12 years, from "Philco Playhouse" and "Studio One" to "To Tell the Truth," and a long-running role in the daytime series "Love of Life."

She is survived by her two sons with Alexander H. Cohen, Gerry and Christopher Cohen, and her step-daughter Barbara Cohen Hoffman.

A private memorial for family will be held at Frank Campbell's Funeral Home Oct. 10.

 
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