---
name: "Hope Lange"
canonical: "https://film.one/person/hope-lange"
fi1m_id: "hope-lange"
imdb_id: "nm0486136"
tmdb_id: 3382
wikidata_id: "Q239301"
roles: ["Actor"]
born: "28 November 1933"
died: "19 December 2003"
reviewed_on_fi1m: 4
average_fi1m_score: 78
average_as: "actor"
average_over: 4
updated: "2026-10-04T23:29:29.682258+00:00"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# Hope Lange

## Identity

Hope Lange

- **Canonical:** https://film.one/person/hope-lange
- **Type:** Person
- **Fi1m ID:** hope-lange
- **IMDb ID:** nm0486136
- **TMDB ID:** 3382
- **Wikidata ID:** Q239301
- **Same entity:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hope_Lange, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q239301, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0486136/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/3382

Actor. Born 28 November 1933 in Redding, Connecticut, USA. Died 19 December 2003.

## Details

- **Work:** Actor
- **Born:** 28 November 1933, Redding, Connecticut, USA
- **Died:** 19 December 2003
- **Active:** 1957–1994
- **Also known as:** Hope Elise Ross Lange, هوپ لنگ
- **Primetime Emmy Awards:** 2 Emmys (2 won)
- **Average Fi1m score:** 78, as actor, over 4 titles
- **Fi1m score by decade:** 1950s 64 (1), 1960s 84 (1), 1980s 88 (1), 1990s 75 (1)
- **Score spread:** 2 at 80+, 2 at 60–79, 0 under 60
- **Lead roles:** 1 of 2 acting credits billed first or second
- **Genres:** Drama 3, Mystery 2, Thriller 2, Action 1, Action & Adventure 1, Crime 1
- **Screen time:** 7 hours of reviewed films
- **Box office:** $225m across 2 films with figures
- **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hope_Lange, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q239301, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0486136/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/3382

## Streaming the US now

- **Amazon Prime Video:** [*Blue Velvet*](https://film.one/film/blue-velvet.md) (88)

For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country.

## Fi1m on Hope Lange

> Hope Lange's gift was for showing the cost of keeping up appearances: the smile held a beat too long, the composure that is plainly work. Hollywood cast her as the sensitive girl until she tired of it and took the trade to television, where it lasted.

Watch Selena Cross in *Peyton Place* (1957) when she is being cheerful. Lange plays a girl who has to smile because the alternative is unbearable, and she lets us see the effort: the smile is held a second longer than it should be, and that second is where the performance lives. We found the film's second hour a long sit, and then Selena's scenes came round again and we sat up, because Lange never plays the girl's misery for us. She plays the girl hiding it, which is harder and a good deal more upsetting.

She had been working since childhood, on Broadway at nine and in live television through the 1950s, before *Bus Stop* (1956) put her on screen alongside Marilyn Monroe and got her a contract at Fox. *Peyton Place* followed a year later and fixed her, for the studio's purposes, as the sensitive, vulnerable girl of the 1950s melodrama. She played that girl in film after film, and by her own account the typecasting shortened her film career. We take her word for it. Selena is good enough that we resent, on her behalf, how little the pictures that came after asked of her.

The turn came on television. *The Ghost & Mrs. Muir* (1968) gave her a widow to play in a sitcom, and *The New Dick Van Dyke Show* (1971–74) kept her there, and the medium seems to have suited her better than the studio had. A widow keeping her spirits up in a sitcom is not far from what she did in *Peyton Place*; it is the same held smile with the dread taken out.

Film had her back later, in the mother and wife parts that thrillers and dramas keep for actresses of a certain age: Joanna Kersey in *Death Wish* (1974), Mrs. Williams in David Lynch's *Blue Velvet* (1986). Our review of *Blue Velvet* does not single her out, and that is not a slight. It is a supporting part in a film that spends its attention on Dorothy, and Lange was never an actress who elbowed her way into a scene that was not about her. She did the job and left the frame.

If you want to see what she could do, start with *Peyton Place*, over two nights if you must, and watch for the smile she holds too long. It is the best thing in the film. The studio saw it too, and asked her to do it again for a decade.

## Biography

Hope Lange was an American film, stage and television actress. Born in Redding, Connecticut, she began performing on Broadway as a child and made her film debut in *Bus Stop* (1956).

She received Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations for Best Supporting Actress for her role in *Peyton Place* (1957). Lange won two Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series for portraying Carolyn Muir in the sitcom *The Ghost & Mrs. Muir* (1968–1970).

Her later film roles included Joanna Kersey in *Death Wish* (1974), Cheryl Walsh in *A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy's Revenge* (1985), Mrs. Williams in *Blue Velvet* (1986), and Senator Mayo in *Clear and Present Danger* (1994). She also appeared in numerous television series and films until the late 1990s.

*Sources: en.wikipedia.org, imdb.com.*

## On Fi1m (4)

- *Clear and Present Danger* (1994), Fi1m 75, as Senator Mayo — [page](https://film.one/film/clear-and-present-danger.md)
- *Blue Velvet* (1986), Fi1m 88, as Mrs. Williams — [page](https://film.one/film/blue-velvet.md)
- *The Fugitive* (1963), Fi1m 84, as Annie Johnson — [page](https://film.one/tv/the-fugitive-1963.md)
- *Peyton Place* (1957), Fi1m 64, as Selena Cross — [page](https://film.one/film/peyton-place.md)

## Complete filmography (53)

Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page.

- *Blue Velvet: The Lost Footage* (2011), as Mrs. Williams
- *Before He Wakes* (1998), as Helen Rawlings
- *Just Cause* (1995), as Libby Prentiss
- *Clear and Present Danger* (1994), as Senator Mayo — Fi1m 75, [page](https://film.one/film/clear-and-present-danger.md)
- *Message from Nam* (1993), as Marjorie Wilson
- *Cooperstown* (1993), as Cassie Willette
- *Dead Before Dawn* (1993), as Virginia DeSilva
- *Tune in Tomorrow...* (1990), as Margaret Quince
- *Knight & Daye* (1989), series, as Gloria Daye
- *Ford: The Man and the Machine* (1987), as Clara Ford
- *Blue Velvet* (1986), as Mrs. Williams — Fi1m 88, [page](https://film.one/film/blue-velvet.md)
- *A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy's Revenge* (1985), as Mrs. Walsh
- *Private Sessions* (1985), as Mrs. Coles
- *Murder, She Wrote* (1984), series, as Charlotte Newcastle, Helen Lewis
- *Finder of Lost Loves* (1984), series, as Catherine Smith
- *I Am the Cheese* (1983), as Betty Farmer
- *The Prodigal* (1983), as Anne Stuart
- *Matt Houston* (1982), series, as Kate Riley
- *Hotel* (1982), series, as Dr. Hannah Fielding, Gwen Andrews
- *Natalie - A Tribute to a Very Special Lady* (1982), Actor
- *Pleasure Palace* (1980), as Madelaine Calvert
- *Beulah Land* (1980), series, as Deborah Kendrick
- *The Day Christ Died* (1980), as Claudia
- *Like Normal People* (1979), as Roz Meyers
- *The Love Boat* (1977), series, as Sandra Newberry
- *Love Boat II* (1977), as Elaine Palmer
- *The Rivalry* (1975), as Adele Cutts Douglas
- *Medical Story* (1975), series, as Diana Hopkins
- *The Secret Night Caller* (1975), as Pat Durant
- *Fer-de-Lance* (1974), as Elaine Wedell
- *Death Wish* (1974), as Joanna Kersey
- *I Love You...Good-bye* (1974), as Karen Chandler
- *Police Story* (1973), series, as Ann Wells
- *The 500 Pound Jerk* (1973), as Karen Walsh
- *That Certain Summer* (1972), as Janet Salter
- *The New Dick Van Dyke Show* (1971), series, as Jenny Preston
- *Crowhaven Farm* (1970), as Maggie Porter
- *The Ghost & Mrs. Muir* (1968), series, as Carolyn Muir
- *Jigsaw* (1968), as Helen Atterbury
- *CBS Playhouse* (1966), series, as Lois Graves
- *The Fugitive* (1963), series, as Annie Johnson — Fi1m 84, [page](https://film.one/tv/the-fugitive-1963.md)
- *Love is a Ball* (1963), as Millicent 'Millie' Mehaffey
- *Cyrano De Bergerac* (1962), as Roxanne
- *Pocketful of Miracles* (1961), as Elizabeth 'Queenie' Martin
- *Wild in the Country* (1961), as Irene Sperry
- *The Best of Everything* (1959), as Caroline Bender
- *In Love and War* (1958), as Andrea Lenaine Kantaylis
- *The Young Lions* (1958), as Hope Plowman
- *Peyton Place* (1957), as Selena Cross — Fi1m 64, [page](https://film.one/film/peyton-place.md)
- *The True Story of Jesse James* (1957), as Zee James
- *Bus Stop* (1956), as Elma Duckworth
- *Hallmark Hall of Fame* (1951), series, as Roxane, Mrs. Douglas
- *Kraft Television Theatre* (1947), series, as Randy

## Gallery

- ![Photo of Edward Mulhare and Hope Lange from the television program The Ghost and Mrs. Muir.](https://film.one/media/person/118543/gallery-3a95f1e2ed08.jpg) Photo of Edward Mulhare and Hope Lange from the television program The Ghost and Mrs. Muir. — NBC Television, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/75/Edward_Mulhare_Hope_Lange_The_Ghost_and_Mrs._Muir.JPG?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled)
- ![Photo of Edward Mulhare as Captain Daniel Gregg and Hope Lange as Carolyn Muir from the television program The Ghost and Mrs. Muir. (1968)](https://film.one/media/person/118543/gallery-5bac2ce255d0.jpg) Photo of Edward Mulhare as Captain Daniel Gregg and Hope Lange as Carolyn Muir from the television program The Ghost and Mrs. Muir. (1968) — NBC Television, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d6/Edward_Mulhare_Hope_Lange_The_Ghost_and_Mrs._Muir_1968.JPG?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled)
- ![Encina Drive-In theater advertisement for the 1957 American drama film Peyton Place. From the 13 March 1958 Santa Cruz Sentinel.](https://film.one/media/person/118543/gallery-d8ab41fa4d14.jpg) Encina Drive-In theater advertisement for the 1957 American drama film Peyton Place. From the 13 March 1958 Santa Cruz Sentinel. — 20th Century Fox, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7a/Encina_Drive-in_Ad_-_13_March_1958%2C_CA.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled)
- ![Press photo of Hope Lange, 1958](https://film.one/media/person/118543/gallery-7ce36171ea8c.jpg) Press photo of Hope Lange, 1958 — Unknown; studio photo, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/50/Hope_Lange_-_1958_press_photo.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled)
- ![Hope Lange](https://film.one/media/person/118543/gallery-7857fd02c054.jpg) Hope Lange — Image via TMDB
- ![Hope Lange](https://film.one/media/person/118543/gallery-a96108f57902.jpg) Hope Lange — Image via TMDB
- ![Hope Lange](https://film.one/media/person/118543/gallery-f097ffa58a9a.jpg) Hope Lange — Image via TMDB
- ![Hope Lange](https://film.one/media/person/118543/gallery-940d836665da.jpg) Hope Lange — 20th Century Fox, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8a/Hope_Lange_1957.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled)
- ![Hope Lange](https://film.one/media/person/118543/gallery-5f277acc8ec3.jpg) Hope Lange — Image via TMDB
- ![Hope Lange](https://film.one/media/person/118543/gallery-fa4d07bd714d.jpg) Hope Lange — Image via TMDB
- ![Hope Lange](https://film.one/media/person/118543/gallery-9bb1b170d8ef.jpg) Hope Lange — Image via TMDB

## Awards

### Academy Awards — 0 won, 1 nominated

- 1958: Best Supporting Actress (nominated), for *Peyton Place*

### Primetime Emmy Awards — 2 won

- 1970: Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series (won), for *The Ghost & Mrs. Muir*
- 1969: Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series (won), for *The Ghost & Mrs. Muir*

*From Wikidata, which records wins more completely than nominations.*

---
© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/hope-lange