<P> Colleen Rose Dewhurst ( 3 June 1924 -- 22 August 1991 ) was a Canadian - American actress . She is known most for theatre roles , and for a while as `` the Queen of Off - Broadway '' . In her autobiography , Dewhurst wrote : `` I had moved so quickly from one Off - Broadway production to the next that I was known , at one point , as the ' Queen of Off - Broadway ' . This title was not due to my brilliance , but , rather , because most of the plays I was in closed after a run of anywhere from one night to two weeks . I would then move immediately into another . '' She was a renowned interpreter of the works of Eugene O'Neill on the stage , and her career also encompassed film , early dramas on live television , and Joseph Papp 's New York Shakespeare Festival . One of her last roles was playing Marilla Cuthbert in the Kevin Sullivan television adaptations of the Anne of Green Gables series , and her reprisal of the role in the subsequent TV series Road to Avonlea ( marketed as Avonlea in the US ) . </P>
<P> Colleen Rose Dewhurst ( 3 June 1924 -- 22 August 1991 ) was a Canadian - American actress . She is known most for theatre roles , and for a while as `` the Queen of Off - Broadway '' . In her autobiography , Dewhurst wrote : `` I had moved so quickly from one Off - Broadway production to the next that I was known , at one point , as the ' Queen of Off - Broadway ' . This title was not due to my brilliance , but , rather , because most of the plays I was in closed after a run of anywhere from one night to two weeks . I would then move immediately into another . '' She was a renowned interpreter of the works of Eugene O'Neill on the stage , and her career also encompassed film , early dramas on live television , and Joseph Papp 's New York Shakespeare Festival . One of her last roles was playing Marilla Cuthbert in the Kevin Sullivan television adaptations of the Anne of Green Gables series , and her reprisal of the role in the subsequent TV series Road to Avonlea ( marketed as Avonlea in the US ) . </P>
who played marilla cuthbert in anne of green gables
who played marilla cuthbert in anne of green gables
Colleen Rose Dewhurst
Colleen Rose Dewhurst