NEW YORK — Myra Carter, an award-winning stage actress who originated the grueling role of Edward Albee’s dying nonagenarian mother in his autobiographical play “Three Tall Women,’’ died Jan. 9 in Manhattan. She was 86.

The cause was complications of pneumonia, said Tom Miller, a spokesman for the McCarter Theater Center in Princeton, N.J., where she performed in three plays under the direction of Emily Mann.

Although she described herself modestly as “the working pro who needed a job,’’ Ms. Carter won critical acclaim in 1994 for her off-Broadway portrayal of the character known only by the letter A in “Three Tall Women,’’ which won the Pulitzer Prize for drama that year. The performance brought her a Drama Desk Award, an Obie Award, an Outer Critics Circle Award, and a Lucille Lortel Award.

“Weep. Full weep. Cry. Laughter. Face crumbles. Weep. Giggle. Weep,’’ the stage directions read, she recalled in an interview with The New York Times, adding: “I told Edward: ‘It’s just impossible to act this woman. To cry on cue and laugh on cue so quickly.’ ’’

Ms. Carter was closely associated with the Albee canon, performing in revivals of “A Delicate Balance,’’ “The Lady From Dubuque,’’ and “All Over.’’

She also appeared on Broadway in “Garden District,’’ “Maybe Tuesday,’’ and “Present Laughter,’’ and off-Broadway in Shakespeare’s “King John.’’ She had parts in several television productions and one major movie role, that of a wealthy widow in “8mm,’’ a 1999 crime thriller starring Nicolas Cage.

Albee, who had first seen Ms. Carter perform at the Hartford Stage in the early 1970s, suggested that she be cast for the Vienna premiere of “Three Tall Women’’ in 1991, staged by the English Theater and directed by him.

She had predicted that the play would win a Pulitzer after it opened in the United States.

“I told him, ‘Let them rediscover you with this hateful, stark portrait of this impossible woman, which has such emotional depth to it,’ ’’ she recalled. “And they did.’’