Sloane Shelton

Sloane Shelton, an actress who had voluminous credits but may be best known on the East End for having portrayed the fierce mother of a Bonac fisherman in the world premiere of Joe Pintauro’s adaptation of Peter Matthiessen’s “Men’s Lives” at the Bay Street Theater, died at her Wainscott home on Sept. 17 of pulmonary fibrosis after a long illness. She was 81.

Steve Hamilton, who with his wife, Emma Walton Hamilton, was a co-founder of the theater, said that “when first introduced to the audience in ‘Men’s Lives,’ the matriarchal character describes her family’s generations-old home in the dunes by declaring, ‘This is my lair!’ ” He called it a “feral and unforgettable moment,” in which Ms. Shelton “not only claimed her place center stage that evening — the very first night of Bay Street Theater’s existence — but she instantly took up residence” in their hearts.

Following “Men’s Lives,” Ms. Shelton appeared at Bay Street in “Eudora,” a one-woman play about the writer Eudora Welty, which Sybil Burton Christopher, also a co-founder of the theater, commissioned.

Over the years, Ms. Shelton worked with Eva Le Gallienne, Sylvia Sidney, Kathleen Chalfant, and Vanessa Redgrave. She appeared with Meryl Streep in the film “One True Thing” and with Dustin Hoffman in “All the President’s Men.” She also had roles in the award-winning Vietnam dramas “The Basic Training of Pavlo Humel” and “Sticks and Bones” at the Public Theater in Manhattan, and in “Dinner at Eight” at Lincoln Center, in which her character drops the soufflé.  

She was born on March 14, 1934, in Hahira, Ga., to Clarence Shelton and the former Ruth Evangeline Davis, both of whom worked at a local mill. The family later moved to Asheville, N.C.

Enrolling in Berea College in Kentucky, which was founded for students of limited means, Ms. Shelton immersed herself in the theater; she wrote, directed, produced, and starred in a play about an Italian family in New York City, called “The Snow Is Mud.” She also built the sets. She was later to say, “I’d never been in New York, didn’t know one Italian, and hadn’t seen snow.” Her first stage appearance was in elementary school, as Cinderella.

After living in New York City for a short time, Ms. Shelton auditioned for and won a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, returning to live in Greenwich Village and pursue her career. She was in the soaps “Another World” and “As the World Turns,” went on two tours with the National Repertory Theatre, and was a guest artist for six months in Auckland, New Zealand. She was known for helping budding playwrights, and she enjoyed teaching youngsters about the craft of acting.

In 1983, she wrote and produced “Millay at Steepletop,” a documentary film about Edna St. Vincent Millay and Norma Millay, which was directed by Kevin Brownlow and shown in New York City at the Museum of Modern Art.

When Ms. Shelton spent time away from the theater, she enjoyed travel, Greece, summers in Maine, dogs, poker, drawing, and the sea. She and Jan Buckaloo, her companion for almost 50 years, were married in 2009.

In addition to Ms. Buckaloo, Ms. Shelton is survived by two nephews and their families. Donations in her memory have been suggested for any charity that helps poor children