Lois Maureen Stapleton (21 June 1925 – 13 March 2006) was an American Academy Award-, Emmy- and two-time Tony Award-winning actress in film, theater and television. She was also elected to the American Theatre Hall of Fame.

Stapleton was born in Troy, New York, the daughter of Irene (née Walsh) and John P. Stapleton, and grew up in a strict Irish American Catholic family. Her father was an alcoholic and her parents separated during her childhood. She had a brother, Jack. Stapleton began acting in theater after finishing high school and rapidly gained respect as both a dramatic and comedic actress.

Stapleton moved to New York City at the age of eighteen, and did modeling to pay the bills. She once said that it was her infatuation with the handsome Hollywood actor Joel McCrea which led her into acting. She made her Broadway debut in the production featuring Burgess Meredith of The Playboy of the Western World in 1946. Stepping in because Anna Magnani refused the role due to her limited English, Stapleton won a Tony Award for her role in Tennessee Williams' The Rose Tattoo in 1951. (Magnani's English improved, however, and she was able to play the role in the film version, winning an Oscar.) Stapleton played in other Williams' productions, including Twenty-Seven Wagons Full of Cotton and Orpheus Descending (and its film adaptation, The Fugitive Kind), as well as Lillian Hellman's Toys in the Attic. She won a second Tony Award for Neil Simon's The Gingerbread Lady, which was written especially for her, in 1971.