She appeared in many films, including such famous ones as Saturday Night Fever and Moonstruck, in which she played stereotypical Italian-American matrons. However, she had an important supporting role in Sidney Lumet's "The Verdict".
However, Off-Broadway she wrote and appeared in very avant-garde material, such as Jean Genet's The Maids, for which she won the very first Best Actress Obie (Off-Broadway) Award in the mid-1950s, which was presented to her by Shelley Winters.
She also was known as a writer, with her writing credits including Gloria and Esperanza.
In her earlier acting days, she played Rose Corelli Fraser in the short-lived soap opera, From These Roots. She was subsequently fired from that show, due to a disagreement with producers and was replaced.
She died of cancer in New York City at the age of 61.
