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NEW YORK — <\/span>Mary Beth Hurt, a Tony Award-nominated actor who starred on Broadway in \u201cBenefactors\u201d with Glenn Close<\/a> and reunited with Close for the movie \u201cThe World According to Garp,\u201d<\/a> has died. She was 79.<\/p>\n Hurt died Saturday in New Jersey after she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 2015, according to her daughter, Molly Schrader. Hurt was the wife of filmmaker Paul Schrader<\/a> and appeared in his movies \u201cAffliction\u201d and \u201cLight Sleeper.\u201d He had moved into Hunt’s senior-living facility in 2023 to stay close to her.<\/p>\n \u201cShe was an actress, a wife, a sister, a mother, an aunt, a friend,\u201d her daughter wrote in an Instagram post, saying Hurt took on those roles \u201cwith grace and a kind ferocity.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cAlthough we\u2019re grieving there is some comfort in knowing she is no longer suffering and is reunited with her sisters in peace,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n The Iowa-born Hurt, who graduated from New York University’s graduate theater studies program in 1969, earned three Tony nominations during her career, for performances in \u201cTrelawny of the Wells\u201d in 1975, \u201cCrimes of the Heart\u201d in 1981 and \u201cBenefactors\u201d in 1985. She was last on Broadway playing a nun in a revival of \u201cThe House of Blue Leaves\u201d in 2011 with Ben Stiller and Edie Falco.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve never been extremely comfortable playing the lead,\u201d she told The Hollywood Reporter in 2010. \u201cI don\u2019t like the responsibility; there\u2019s a feeling that I have to be good. Besides, I found secondary parts much more interesting, especially when I was younger and the ing\u00e9nue roles were pretty bland.\u201d<\/p>\n