Penelope Milford, the accomplished stage and screen actress who earned an Academy Award nomination for her performance in the 1978 Vietnam War drama “Coming Home,” died Tuesday, October 14, 2025, at an assisted living facility in Saugerties, New York. She was 77 years old.
Her sister, Candace Saint, along with her brother Douglas Milford, confirmed her death to The Hollywood Reporter. Saint indicated that Milford had been involved in a car accident in July and had been recovering at the facility. No official cause of death was disclosed.
Born on March 23, 1948, in St. Louis, Missouri, Milford later relocated with her family to Illinois, where she graduated from New Trier High School in Winnetka. She studied acting with Wynn Handman at the American Place Theatre in New York, launching a career that would span theater, film and television for nearly three decades.
Milford’s professional stage career began in 1971 when she co-starred opposite Richard Gere, whom she was rumored to have dated, in an off-Broadway production of “Long Time Coming and a Long Time Gone,” based on the life of musician-turned-novelist Richard Farina. The following year, she made her Broadway debut in Julian Barry’s Tony Award-winning play “Lenny,” which starred Sandy Baron as comedian Lenny Bruce.
In 1975, Milford earned a Drama Desk nomination as featured actress for her performance in the Civil War musical “Shenandoah,” where she originated the role of Jenny Anderson. Clive Barnes of The New York Times called her “fetching” and noted that she “sang with spirit.”
While Milford had appeared in Norman Mailer’s experimental indie film “Maidstone” in 1970 and portrayed a silent-film star named Lorna Sinclair in Ken Russell’s 1977 biopic “Valentino,” it was her role in “Coming Home” that established her as a Hollywood talent. Directed by Hal Ashby, the romantic war drama featured Milford as Vi Munson, whose brother Bill, played by Robert Carradine, returns home after just two weeks in Vietnam, suffering from severe emotional problems.
Vi’s friendship with Sally Hyde, portrayed by Jane Fonda, leads her conservative military wife roommate to volunteer at a Veterans Administration hospital, where Sally reconnects with former high school classmate Luke Martin, played by Jon Voight. The film tackled the physical and psychological toll of the Vietnam War on returning veterans and their families.
Milford’s performance earned her a nomination for Best Supporting Actress at the 1979 Academy Awards, one of eight nominations the film received, including Best Picture. Though Fonda and Voight won for Best Actress and Best Actor respectively, Milford lost to Maggie Smith for her role in “California Suite.” The film also won for Best Original Screenplay.
Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Milford appeared in numerous films and television productions. She played the fiancée of Don Murray’s character in Franco Zeffirelli’s “Endless Love” in 1981 and took on the memorable role of Pauline Fleming, the hippie guidance counselor at Westerburg High School, in the 1988 dark comedy “Heathers” opposite Winona Ryder, Christian Slater and Shannen Doherty.
Her television work included several acclaimed TV movies. She starred opposite Leonard Nimoy in “Seizure: The Story of Kathy Morris” in 1980, appeared with Henry Fonda and Cloris Leachman in the Emmy-winning production “The Oldest Living Graduate” that same year, and had a role in the landmark 1984 domestic abuse drama “The Burning Bed” starring Farrah Fawcett, which garnered numerous accolades including a Writers Guild of America award and a Golden Globe.
Other film credits included “Take This Job and Shove It” in 1981, “Cold Justice” in 1991, John McNaughton’s crime drama “Normal Life” in 1996, and “Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer” that same year. Her final film role came in the 1999 dark comedy “Night of the Lawyers.”
At the height of her career in 1978, Milford expressed her artistic aspirations to The New York Times, stating her dream was to portray Irene Castle, the influential ballroom dancer. She reflected on her attraction to the pre-World War I era, describing it as a time “before the mass media, before technology, before all this mind-expansion stuff.”
Later in her career, Milford reportedly grew dissatisfied with the entertainment industry and shifted her focus. During the 1990s, she taught film acting in Chicago and Minneapolis. In 2003, she moved to the Hudson Valley village of Saugerties, where she became an ardent preservationist, restoring a historic residence and working to maintain the community’s commercial district and historic homes.
She remained active in the arts, performing in local theater productions, singing in the Bard Symphonic Chorus, and participating in the Woodstock Christian Science church. She also operated an art gallery in Los Angeles from 1985 to 1987.
Milford was preceded in death by her younger brother, Richard Kim Milford, an actor and singer who played Rocky in the original American stage production of “The Rocky Horror Show” and performed with guitarist Jeff Beck. He died of heart failure at age 37 in 1988. She was briefly married to poet Michael Lally in the 1980s.
She is survived by her sister Candace Saint, brother Douglas Milford, and three nieces and nephews: Ollie, Amari and Correll.