She was Oscar-nominated for her work in Hondo (1953), Summer and Smoke (1961), Sweet Bird of Youth (1962), You're a Big Boy Now (1966), Pete 'n' Tillie (1972), Interiors (1978), and The Pope of Greenwich Village (1984).

She went on to received Tony Award nominations for her performances as Princess Kosmonopolis in Sweet Bird of Youth (1959), Marion in Absurd Person Singular (1974), Mother Miriam Ruth in Agnes of God (1982), and Madame Arcati in Blithe Spirit (1987).

Page had aspirations of becoming a pianist or visual artist, but at 17 she appeared in her first amateur theatre production, and from that point, she never wavered from her desire to be a professional actress.

[1][8] During this time, Page would return to Chicago in the summers to perform in repertory theatre in Lake Zurich, Illinois, where she and several fellow actors had established their own independent theater company.

[9] While attempting to establish her career, she worked various odd jobs, including as a hat-check girl, theater usher, lingerie model, and a factory laborer.

[1] On October 25, 1945, she made her New York stage debut in Seven Mirrors, a play devised by Immaculate Heart High School students from Los Angeles.

[11] In February 1952, director José Quintero cast Page in a minor role in Yerma, a theatrical interpretation of a poem by Federico García Lorca, staged at Circle in the Square Theatre in New York City's Greenwich Village.

[12] Page was subsequently cast in the role of Alma in the Quintero-directed production of Summer and Smoke, written by Tennessee Williams (also staged at the Circle Theatre in 1952).

Page's role in Summer and Smoke garnered her significant exposure, including a Drama Desk Award,[6] and a profile in Time magazine.

[13] Her official film debut and role in Hondo, opposite John Wayne, garnered her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.

[21] Geraldine Page actually won consecutive Golden Globe Awards for Best Actress in a Motion Picture - Drama in 1961 and 1962 for Summer and Smoke and Sweet Bird of Youth, respectively.

She received another nomination the following year starring in Delbert Mann's Dear Heart as a self-sufficient but lonely postmistress visiting New York City for a convention, finding love with a greeting card salesman.

[25][26][27] In 1967, Page appeared again onstage in Peter Shaffer's Black Comedy/White Lies, a production which also included Michael Crawford and Lynn Redgrave, who were making their Broadway debuts.

[1] Bosley Crowther of The New York Times was critical of the film, noting: "Geraldine Page and Gladys Cooper...square off in one musical scene of socially up-staging each other that is drenched in perfumed vulgarity.

The film is based on the novel The Forbidden Garden by Ursula Curtiss and features Page as Claire Marrable, a recently widowed socialite, who, discovers that her husband has left her virtually nothing.

[30] Writing for The New York Times, Vincent Canby deemed the film "an amusingly baroque horror story told by a master misogynist," and praised Page's "affecting" performance.

[31] Page subsequently appeared in the Don Siegel-directed thriller The Beguiled (1971) opposite Clint Eastwood, playing the headmistress of a Southern girls' boarding school who takes in a wounded Union soldier.

[36] In 1974, Page played Regina in a production in which she starred opposite her husband Rip Torn (in the role of Benjamin Hubbard) directed by Philip Minor.

It was staged for the Academy Festival Theater at Barat College in Lake Forest, Illinois and received a rave review from William Leonard of the Chicago Tribune: "Geraldine Page is giving one of the greatest performances of her glorious career in Lake Forest and she is surrounded by a cast so superb that the Academy Festival Theater's production of "The Little Foxes" becomes a powerful, searing, unforgettable show... it is a harrowing and ennobling evening in the theater-the kind that comes along all too seldom.

We have seen other stars in the role of the malevolently, ruthlessly scheming Regina Giddens—Tallulah Bankhead years ago in her greatest triumph, Eileen Herlie five seasons back at the Ivanhoe.

[22][39] She also had a supporting role as a charismatic Hollywood evangelist (modeled after Aimee Semple McPherson)[40] in The Day of the Locust (1975), an adaptation of the Nathanael West novel of the same name.

[1] In 1977, she appeared as a nun in the British comedy Nasty Habits,[41] and provided the voice role of Madame Medusa in the Walt Disney animated film The Rescuers.

[46] The New York Times's Vincent Canby lauded her performance in the film, writing: "Miss Page, looking a bit like a youthful Louise Nevelson with mink-lashed eyes, is marvelous — erratically kind, impossibly demanding, pathetic in her loneliness and desperate in her anger.

[48] Page starred as Zelda Fitzgerald in the last major Broadway production of a Williams play, Clothes for a Summer Hotel in 1980,[22] followed by a supporting role in Harry's War (1981).

[49] Page remained continually active in theater, appearing in numerous repertory, Broadway, and Off-Broadway productions throughout the 1980s; this included roles in a revivals of Inheritors by Susan Glaspell[50] and Paradise Lost by Clifford Odets in 1983,[51] Rain by John Colton (based on the short story "Miss Thompson" by W. Somerset Maugham) the following year.

[60] She received the award from F. Murray Abraham, who, after winning his Oscar for Amadeus, also joined the Mirror Repertory Company to play the rag-picker in the Madwoman of Chaillot.

"[62] After winning the Academy Award, Page returned to finish her run performing in The Circle for Mirror Theater and appeared opposite Carroll Baker, Oprah Winfrey, and Elizabeth McGovern in Native Son (1986).

"[62] On June 13, 1987, Page failed to arrive at the Neil Simon Theatre for both the afternoon and evening performances of Noël Coward's Blithe Spirit, which had begun its run in March.

[3] On June 18, "an overflow crowd of colleagues, friends and fans", including Sissy Spacek, James Earl Jones, Amanda Plummer, Jerry Stiller, Anne Meara and husband Torn attended a memorial service held at the Neil Simon Theatre.

[48] Sarah Paulson portrayed Page in the 2017 anthology television series Feud, which chronicles the rivalry between actresses Bette Davis and Joan Crawford on the set of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?