This imposing, emotional stage actress also made an occasional inroad into film and TV since the 1950s. After studying at the Pasadena Community Playhouse and New York's Actors Studio, Stanley appeared in a number of shows before making her Broadway debut replacing Julie Harris in "Monserrat" (1949). Her first major success came as the lovesick tomboy sister in William Inge's "Picnic" (1953), which led to further theatrical successes as nightclub "chantoosie" Cherie in Inge's "Bus Stop" (1955), the rebellious daughter in Eugene O'Neill's "A Touch of the Poet" (1958), one of Freud's patients in
