Mercedes Ruehl, 69, won a Tony for her performance in Broadway’s “Lost in Yonkers” in 1991 and an Oscar for her role in “The Fisher King” in 1992. She is appearing in the off-Broadway production of “Torch Song,” opening on Oct. 19. She spoke with Marc Myers.

Right after I was born, my parents and my brother and I lived in a studio apartment in Queens, N.Y. We lasted two weeks there before my parents moved us into a two-bedroom apartment near my grandparents in the Bronx. Two years later we moved to Indiana. By then my father...