David has found his lost 2019 interview with Elizabeth Hoffman, who portrayed Stargate Program matriarch Catherine Langford in Season One of SG-1, and invites you to hear her story from her final years.

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TRANSCRIPT
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Elizabeth Hoffman [clip]:
Just a second, there’s somebody at my gate. I beg your pardon? I have a flower delivery. How nice. Somebody’s sending me flowers. I wonder what for?

David Read [clip]:
That would be me.

Elizabeth Hoffman [clip]:
Oh, darling, you sent those? How nice. What a sweet thing to do.

David Read [clip]:
I had hoped that they would have gotten to you sooner, rather than in the middle of the interview. That’s funny.

Elizabeth Hoffman [clip]:
Well, sweetheart, that’s life for you.

David Read [clip]:
Ain’t that the truth?

David Read:
Hello, everyone. Welcome to a very special episode of Dial the Gate: The Stargate Oral History Project. I’m David Read. I appreciate you being here. Elizabeth Hoffman passed away on August 21st, 2003 at the age of 97 years old, in Malibu, California. I had the privilege of interviewing her twice over that time. The interview’s over at GateWorld, I’ll be linking it in the description below. The second was when I was at MGM working on Stargate Command, which was a website that was dedicated to the brand, and it was what launched Stargate Origins. And Christopher Judge and I had our own show called Dialing Home at the time, and also, I was the host of the official Stargate podcast, which ran for about 12 episodes. To my knowledge, none of that can be located now, but I have my original files including my second interview with Elizabeth Hoffman, who played Catherine Langford. She was the third actress to play her and the first in Stargate SG-1. And this was about 10 years after I had spoken to her the first time, and her memory wasn’t as good as it was 10 years before. To be honest, if you wanted to get a little bit more information on Catherine, the GateWorld interview is the one that you’ll wanna listen to. This episode encompasses her whole career, and we just had her for about 20 minutes, but it was perfect. One of my favorite characters in the entire show is Catherine. She is the matriarch of Stargate Command. In fact, the interview over at GateWorld that I did 10 years prior names her the matriarch in the title of that interview, and she always loved that. She wasn’t a big science fiction fan herself but she understood it, and in my GateWorld interview she did admit that when she passed on the opportunity to return in “Moebius” to set up the story for season eight’s last two-parter episode, years later in thinking about it again and knowing what she knew about the character then, she wished that she had gone ahead and done it. And there’s something that’s really sweet and satisfying about that even though it didn’t turn out that way, because she was still very much a part of the story, and the scene at her grave where Daniel was remembering her is one of my favorites. To that end, I wrote Michael and I asked if he would say something in her memory, in Elizabeth’s memory, now that we’re celebrating her life, a little over two years after we lost her. “For a young actor, Elizabeth Hoffman was the embodiment of all the right things at the right time. Facing my biggest episode on the show to date, she was the greatest combination of wisdom, experience, strength, and compassion that both the story, character, and individual scene partner required. Although at a phase of her life and career that she no longer needed a job, the work, or even the business at all, she chose to join us on the strength of the character and the writing in “The Torment of Tantalus”. She came back because she had such a great time filming the show and we with her. Although I never saw her after our time on screen was done, she remained an integral part of my positive experiences filming the show in its early years.” Thank you, Michael. Before she passed — I’m gonna have to pull up the date. Technically you could argue I stalked her, although I don’t know if that’s the case, going one time, but I had her address in Malibu because I had sent her a CD of her episode and she had sent me a very nice, autographed headshot a few years before. And I was in the Hollywood Hills staying with Katharyn Powers at the time, the Stargate SG-1 writer, and we had become friends, and I fell in love with her pug, and we got to know each other. Katharyn’s still with us, but she’s not as she once was. But I took a drive and I went to go see Elizabeth. And this is in the middle of COVID, mind you. We’ve had it at this point… It was around a year at this point. So, I wasn’t gonna go anywhere near her. But I wanted… She was a huge fan of flowers, as you may have heard in the opening of this episode. And so I went and I got her this beautiful plant and I wanted to say hello, and if nothing else, drop it on her front stoop. She comes out and this gorgeous golden retriever, just the happiest thing. The neighbor advised, before I went over to hers, “Don’t let the dog out.” And she sees me holding the plant and all she does is go, “Oh, beautiful! Beautiful, just beautiful!” And I said… I told her who I was. I don’t think she remembered me, but I wanted her to know how much she meant to me as a performer. And I told her, “I’m gonna sit this here among these countless plants.” I mean, she had them everywhere! And that’s something I’ll carry with me for a long time. The interview you’re about to hear is the one that I recovered from my files, from my time at Stargate Command while working at MGM. I really recommend that you also go and listen to the one at GateWorld. We’re gonna keep that one over there. And I hope you enjoy hearing from her one more time.

David Read:
I really appreciate you taking the time to talk with us. This means a great deal to me and to the fandom. The role that you played is so significant to the series, even though you were only in two episodes of Stargate SG-1. Your character, who has been played by at least five other actresses …

Elizabeth Hoffman:
I’ll be darned.

David Read:
… is the bread and butter of this whole mythology. You were born in Oregon. Is that right?

Elizabeth Hoffman:
No. They had made a mistake on my bio. I was born in South Gate in Los Angeles. I’m a native daughter.

David Read:
I will go ahead and make that correction. But you are… Are you gonna be 92 this year?

Elizabeth Hoffman:
I am 92 already I’ll be 93 this year.

David Read:
So, what is your secret?

Elizabeth Hoffman:
I think probably doing something I loved was a big part of it. I had an incredible husband. That’s a huge part of it. And I had two great kids, and they gave me four great grandchildren. So, I’ve had a pretty lucky life. I’ve done a lot of live theater, which is my passion. I got to play Blanche in Streetcar, and Martha in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? And some good, good roles. I loved live theater.

David Read:
There’s something to be said for… I mean television and movies are fantastic for perfecting your craft and everything else. But there is something to be said for live feedback from an audience that is with you in that moment.

Elizabeth Hoffman:
Absolutely. Very well put.

David Read:
Yes, they go on that journey with you and I got to do a little bit of that in college. And I did a few… Nothing specific. I was so busy with work, I didn’t have a lot of time for the theater and it’s something that I regret now as an adult.

Elizabeth Hoffman:
‘Cause you didn’t do more.

David Read:
Because I can sing and I can sorta dance and I was always focused on… As soon as I could drive, I went out and went after a paycheck. And, you know, I only dabbled in the theater and it’s something I regret. How young were you when you started acting?

Elizabeth Hoffman:
Oh, God. I started when I was in grammar school. I remember we were doing a production of Snow White, and I walked in and put my hands on the furniture and found it was dusty and I blew it away and… Anyway, they cast me as Snow White and then I went through, grammar school and… or high school. I did a lot of work in high school and then college. All through college.

David Read:
So, you knew from pretty early on that this is what you wanted to do.

Elizabeth Hoffman:
I really didn’t have a choice. I fell into my passion and it was great.

David Read:
That’s how you supported yourself? When you look online, your television and film appearances start after you are 50. So, it sounds like the theater was taking up most of that time beforehand.

Elizabeth Hoffman:
Yeah, it was. And it was through the theater that they cast me as Eleanor Roosevelt in Winds of War. And, I mean, it was just a fluke. They saw me and thought I would be right for it and called me in and I played it.

David Read:
You didn’t audition?

Elizabeth Hoffman:
They just saw me on stage and said, “She’s right.” And they cast me.

David Read:
To anyone who’s listening: If you have not seen War and Remembrance, it is available and it is… You’re going to have to sit down and take some… It’s several hours long. And I think it’s very important, not just if you’re into history, but I think that it’s such an important period of our history.

Elizabeth Hoffman:
Absolutely. And playing her was such a privilege. I mean, what a lady she was. What an incredible lady.

David Read:
Yeah. Her philanthropy, her kindness toward the common man.

Elizabeth Hoffman:
She was just wonderful. One of the heroines of my life.

David Read:
Tell us about preparing for that role. Did you listen to tapes of her? I mean, how did you get into it?

Elizabeth Hoffman:
I did everything I could to get to know her better. And everything I did was a wonderful surprise to me. She was just amazing, amazing, and I felt privileged to play her.

David Read:
You had said when we last spoke, about a decade ago, that there was actually someone who had known the Roosevelts, and while you were playing her, someone had come up to thank you for your performance.

Elizabeth Hoffman:
Yes. I was doing some kind of a scene, a big diplomatic dinner scene.

David Read:
Like a White House scene?

Elizabeth Hoffman:
Yes, and he came up to me and said, “I knew her, and I knew him, and I thank you for reminding me of it.” He was really wonderful.

David Read:
I don’t think any higher praise can be said.

Elizabeth Hoffman:
It was lovely.

David Read:
I really recommend anyone to watch it. I think it’s important to not forget.

Elizabeth Hoffman:
It’s two long episodes. It’s very time-consuming, but it’s worth it.

David Read:
You have seen the rise of technology–

Elizabeth Hoffman:
Yes. I have avoided everything I couldn’t avoid.

David Read:
You’ve got a phone, so there’s that. What are, for someone who has had the privilege of being on this Earth and witnessing the evolution of our society and the transformations of our culture, is it a whirlwind looking back at all this time? Where do you think we are now as opposed to where we were 50 years ago?

Elizabeth Hoffman:
I’ve just been reading a book called Sapiens, which is a study of mankind over the centuries, and it’s pretty depressing. Mankind has messed up most of the time.

David Read:
We’re dark. But do you have hope?

Elizabeth Hoffman:
Oh yes. Absolutely, as many mistakes as we’ve made, we keep on going, and if we can get the environment straightened out, we will keep on going for another while.

David Read:
I first saw you in Star Trek: The Next Generation. You played an alien with pretty heavy prosthetics.

Elizabeth Hoffman:
That was Star Trek. That was a very weird experience. I was in the makeup chair for a couple of hours, and after I had all these things coming out of my ears and my eyes and God knows what, they sent down several pages of changes. An actor’s nightmare. And I couldn’t see. I had to have somebody read the lines to me, which is not the way I memorized. It was pure luck that I got through that episode.

David Read:
Wow. But you had told me once before that you were surprised at the amount of fan mail and recognition that you had gotten for that one episode from the late ’80s.

Elizabeth Hoffman:
I know. It was amazing. Very loyal crowd who follows that show.

David Read:
I have wanted to watch Sisters for a really long time, and you were in that series all the way through to the finale.

Elizabeth Hoffman:
It was five years or something. A long time. I had a ball.

David Read:
And your character, after having dealt with difficulty from her marriage, was an alcoholic from what I’ve read.

Elizabeth Hoffman:
Yes.

David Read:
Tell us about playing Bea. That was a long time…

Elizabeth Hoffman:
I loved it.

David Read:
…that you were in that character.

Elizabeth Hoffman:
I just loved it. She was a very human, grounded, with a sense of humor, good. It was fun to play her. And she was ordinary. I don’t mean ordinary in the negative sense. She had both feet on the ground, and she lived a good life.

David Read:
And someone that people could probably recognize something of them in themselves.

Elizabeth Hoffman:
Because she was not… she wasn’t perfect at all. She had a lot of imperfections, but she was very likable.

David Read:
Sisters was really your long TV role.

Elizabeth Hoffman:
Dante’s Peak was probably the biggest thing I did.

David Read:
One of my favorite action films of all time. But in a TV series that you were in for so many years, and growing with this character, what was that like in comparison to working in a theater and working on a specific story that you repeated over and over again over the course of several nights? What were the challenges in going with a longer arc and a longer journey?

Elizabeth Hoffman:
I would like there to have been some more challenges. I wasn’t challenged that much in that role. It was a pleasure, and the people I worked with in Sisters were really lovely people. All kinds of nice people. It was a romp. I had a great time. But in no way was it like live theater.

David Read:
It was smaller family drama.

Elizabeth Hoffman:
Yes, it’s a different medium almost.

David Read:
Very much so in many respects. Again, you don’t have the audience in front of you to bolster you and bring up the energy, and you’re constantly having to stop and start over again. Although the paycheck is, I’m sure, probably better.

Elizabeth Hoffman:
The paycheck is very fulfilling.

David Read:
There you go. Absolutely.

Elizabeth Hoffman:
Sent both my kids to college, that and my husband’s income.

David Read:
What did your husband do?

Elizabeth Hoffman:
He’s an engineer. He developed this, what’s it called? See now, this is what happens when you get to be my age. All of a sudden you blank out with the names. Gyroscope.

David Read:
OK. I know what you’re talking about. I wanted to go into Stargate, but before I do, you had mentioned Dante’s Peak as being one of the biggest productions that you had worked on. That was a tentpole film in 1997 with Pierce Brosnan and the lovely Linda Hamilton.

Elizabeth Hoffman:
Yes.

David Read:
You had quite a heroic couple of scenes in that film, pulling your family to refuge through an acidic lake. That had just a few hours before been one of the most serene spots in the United States in the film story. Just a great film and a great story for you, and a great little character to play.

Elizabeth Hoffman:
I remember I had a great time, and this was somewhat of a challenge. It was wonderful working with Pierce. He is a gem. I was doing a play at the same time as I was shooting that film, and he let me come back with him on his plane to do performances of the play, and then fly back to the set.

David Read:
Aw. ‘Cause you guys shot on location in Idaho.

Elizabeth Hoffman:
He was an absolute, beautiful man. And she was wonderful too.

David Read:
Linda?

Elizabeth Hoffman:
Just wonderful. It was great working with children. I love working with kids. They’re so spontaneous and lovable and curious, and it’s great.

David Read:
What did you think of the final film?

Elizabeth Hoffman:
I thought it was pretty good. I think some of the special effects were really great.

David Read:
Action movies, you never know how they’re gonna turn out. I remember holding my girlfriend’s hand so tightly and sweating in the movie theater when the cars were going into the water and trying to cross the channel. I was, “They’re gonna get swept away.”

Elizabeth Hoffman:
And we had a thing that happened during that film where we tested something, and I don’t remember what it was exactly, something to do with the boat, and then when we did the actual shot, the boat filled with water, all the kids and me were in the drink.

David Read:
Did they have rescue boats standing by, I hope?

Elizabeth Hoffman:
Yes. They picked us up very quickly.

David Read:
Well, at least you didn’t have any barbed wire in that situation.

Elizabeth Hoffman:
No.

David Read:
Goodness. You admitted to me the last time that we talked that you weren’t necessarily a big sci-fi fan. The role that you played in Stargate SG-1 was originally played by a European actress named Viveca Lindfors.

Elizabeth Hoffman:
I know her work. She’s a wonderful actress. I didn’t know that.

David Read:
She was the one in the feature film where you carried that banner into the television series.

Elizabeth Hoffman:
I’ll be damned. That’s great. I couldn’t be more pleased. That’s lovely.

David Read:
It’s a good pedigree there, absolutely.

Elizabeth Hoffman:
You bet.

David Read:
And they had taken the character from a more of a European background into an American one. You dropped the accent, and we just established this past year when I told you about Stargate Origins, the new film that featured a young version of Catherine Langford, we established her as Jewish, and it made for… Because the enemy in Stargate Origins, the enemies are Germans, so it made for a little bit more of a tense situation there knowing the history of what had happened.

Elizabeth Hoffman:
Good choice.

David Read:
You worked with Richard Dean Anderson on that television series, and you played opposite Keene Curtis.

Elizabeth Hoffman:
Yes.

David Read:
Tremendous actor. Any reflections from those two episodes that you did? I know I’m really picking your brain here, but… With Richard Dean and Michael Shanks.

Elizabeth Hoffman:
I’d love to be able to help you, but I’ve forgotten most everything from that era. That’s a long time ago.

David Read:
That’s perfectly all right.

Elizabeth Hoffman:
But all I remember is that it was a very pleasant experience, and I remember the area. We were in Vancouver, weren’t we?

David Read:
Yes.

Elizabeth Hoffman:
It was lovely there. I had not been there before, and I enjoyed my stay. Everything about my memory is positive, but I can’t give you any details because I don’t remember.

David Read:
The character, they actually killed her off off-screen in Season Eight. You were invited to come back for a cameo, from what I remember you talking about 10 years ago, and had passed on it. And so, what they did was they wrote the character off and had a funeral scene at the beginning of that last couple of episodes in…

Elizabeth Hoffman:
I’ll be darned.

David Read:
… in Season Eight. It was a lovely send-off, and they still managed to make Catherine an important part of the inciting incident for that story and where it went.

Elizabeth Hoffman:
That’s great. It’s nice to know that.

David Read:
Any insights that you would like to give young actresses or actors who are wanting to establish themselves in the craft? Any advice that you can impart to those folks?

Elizabeth Hoffman:
Work hard and follow your passion. Trying to do as fine a job, as honest a job as you can is very fulfilling.

David Read:
Any mentors that you had when you were younger?

Elizabeth Hoffman:
Vanessa Redgrave. She was all the things I wanted to be. She was my ideal.

David Read:
Did you work with her?

Elizabeth Hoffman:
No. I would’ve loved to have. It’s terribly important not to be swallowed up by that…

David Read:
The limelight?

Elizabeth Hoffman:
Yes. I didn’t enjoy that part of the business, but it’s a very tricky affair.

David Read:
You have always been someone that I have looked back on fondly. I was lucky enough to be able to talk with you 12 years ago when I was really getting started into this, just about the same time when Stargate SG-1 went off the air for… after 10 seasons.

Elizabeth Hoffman:
Oh my God.

David Read:
It’s a long time. But you are always someone that I have always looked back on and said, “You know what? I loved sitting down and talking with her.” And I really appreciate you taking the time once again to share a little bit of yourself with us.

Elizabeth Hoffman:
Darling, I thank you. I wish I could’ve been more helpful with details and things, but things… But it’s part of growing older, I think. You’re a little hampered. You couldn’t have been more wonderful as an interviewer, and I thank you.

David Read [outro]:
My tremendous thanks to Michael Shanks for providing those beautiful words at the beginning of our episode. I hope we were able to honor Elizabeth’s memory tonight by inducting her into the Stargate Oral History Project, and that was always the intent. I’ve just been waiting for the right time. If you enjoy Stargate and you wanna see more content like this, please click the Like button. It really does make a difference with the show and will continue to help us grow. Please also consider sharing this video with a Stargate friend, and if you wanna get notified about future episodes, click Subscribe. And if you click the bell icon, it will notify you the moment a new video drops, and you’ll get my notifications of any last-minute guest changes. We are winding down season five. There’s a few more exciting things in store for you this year, and then I’m gonna be taking a break and doing a board exam for the first few months of next year. So, it’ll be a much-needed rest while I don’t rest. Thanks so much to my production team, Antony Rawling, Kevin Weaver, Sommer Roy, Brice Oars, and Jakub Olejarz. My thanks to my moderating team, it’s a lot of the same people, Anthony, Jeremy, Kevin, Lockwatcher, Marcia, Raj, and Jakub. Thank you for all that you do. Matt Eagle SG Wilson for his amazing opening sequences, and Frederick Marcoux at ConceptsWeb who keeps DialtheGate.com’s lights turned on. We have a bloodbath heading your way tomorrow on Sunday. Suanne Braun is going to be hosting the 12th edition of Stargate Trivia on Nightmare Mode. We’re gonna bust ’em up, so stop on by and watch the carnage and the fur fly. I hope you know your episode titles. Miss you, Catherine. Elizabeth. My heavens. Miss you, Elizabeth. We miss Catherine too. My name is David Read for Dial the Gate. I appreciate you tuning in. See you on the other side.