Tammy Lee Grimes (January 30, 1934 – October 30, 2016) was an American film and stage actress and singer.

[4] Known for a speaking voice compared to a buzz saw,[5] she made her debut on the New York stage at the Neighborhood Playhouse in May 1955 in Jonah and the Whale.

[6] She made her Broadway stage debut as an understudy for Kim Stanley in the starring role in Bus Stop in June 1955.

[10][11] She appeared in the television drama Route 66 on December 13, 1963, in an episode titled "Come Home Greta Inger Gruenschaffen".

Returning to the Broadway stage in 1969 after almost a decade of performing in what The New York Times called "dubious delights", Grimes appeared in a revival of Noël Coward's Private Lives as Amanda, winning the Tony Award for Best Actress.

She is all campy, impossible woman, a lovable phony with the hint of tigress about her, so ridiculously artificial that she just has to be for real.

She was a member of the Stratford Festival of Canada acting company in 1956, and returned again in 1982 to appear as Madame Arcati in Blithe Spirit.

[16] In addition to appearing in a number of television series and motion pictures, Grimes also entertained at various New York City night clubs and recorded several albums of songs.

Her voice can be heard in romantic duets on some of Ben Bagley's anthology albums of Broadway songs under his Painted Smiles record label.

In 1983, Grimes was dismissed from her co-starring role in the Neil Simon play Actors and Actresses, reportedly due to an inability to learn her lines.

In 2004, she joined the company of Tasting Memories, a "compilation of delicious reveries in poetry, song, and prose", with a starry rotating cast including Kitty Carlisle Hart, Rosemary Harris, Philip Bosco, Joy Franz, and Kathleen Noone.

[20] In 2005, Grimes worked with director Brandon Jameson to voice UNICEF's multiple award-winning tribute to Sesame Workshop.

According to a report, she believed the attacks were related to her association with several black entertainers and recent appearances in public with Sammy Davis Jr., who was said to be staging a nightclub act for her.

[citation needed] Grimes did the introductory narration for the American rebroadcast of the BBC's 1981 radio production of The Lord of the Rings.