Ellen Burstyn
Ellen Burstyn is an American actress. Known for her portrayals of complex women in dramas, she is the recipient of numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, a Tony Award, and two Primetime Emmy Awards, making her one of the few performers to achieve the "Triple Crown of Acting". She has also received a BAFTA Award and a Golden Globe Award.
Burstyn made her acting debut on Broadway in Fair Game in 1957 before winning the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for Same Time, Next Year. She earned the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role as the widow Alice Hyatt in Martin Scorsese's romantic drama Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore. Her other Oscar-nominated roles were in The Last Picture Show, The Exorcist, Same Time, Next Year, Resurrection, and Requiem for a Dream. Her other notable films include Harry and Tonto, How to Make an American Quilt, Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, W., Interstellar, The Age of Adaline, and Pieces of a Woman.
She won Primetime Emmy Awards for her guest role in the NBC crime drama Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and for her supporting role in the USA Network political miniseries Political Animals. Her other Emmy-nominated roles include Pack of Lies, Mrs. Harris, Big Love, Flowers in the Attic, and House of Cards. Since 2000, she has been co-president of the Actors Studio, a drama school in New York City. In 2013, she was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame for her work onstage.
Early life
Burstyn was born Edna Rae Gillooly on December 7, 1932, in Detroit, the daughter of Correine Marie and John Austin Gillooly. She says her ancestry is "Irish, French, Pennsylvania Dutch, a little Canadian Indian". Burstyn has an older brother, Jack, and a younger brother, Steve. Her parents divorced when she was young, and she and her brothers lived with their mother and stepfather.Burstyn attended Cass Technical High School, a university-preparatory school that allowed students to choose a specific field of study. Burstyn majored in fashion illustration. In high school she was a cheerleader, a member of the student council, and president of her drama club. She dropped out of high school during her senior year after failing her classes. Soon afterward, Burstyn worked as a dancer using the name Kerri Flynn, and then a model until the age of 23. She later moved to Dallas, where she continued modeling and worked in other fashion jobs before moving to New York City.
From 1955 to 1956, Burstyn appeared as an "away we go" dancing girl on The Jackie Gleason Show under the name Erica Dean. Burstyn then decided to become an actress and chose the name "Ellen McRae" as her professional name; she later changed her surname after her 1964 marriage to Neil Burstyn.
Career
1958–1970: Early work and Broadway debut
Burstyn debuted on Broadway in 1957 and joined Lee Strasberg's The Actors Studio in New York City in 1967. Starting in the late 1950s, and throughout the 1960s, Burstyn frequently played guest roles on a number of primetime television shows, including Dr. Kildare, 77 Sunset Strip, Ben Casey, Perry Mason, Cheyenne, Wagon Train, Gunsmoke, The Big Valley, The Virginian, Laramie and The Time Tunnel. Burstyn was credited as Ellen McRae until 1967, when she and her then-husband Neil Nephew both changed their surname to Burstyn, and she began to be credited as Ellen Burstyn. In 1970, she appeared uncredited in the Joseph Strick adaptation of Henry Miller's controversial novel Tropic of Cancer. In 1975, she won a Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play for her performance in the comedy Same Time, Next Year, a role she reprised in a film adaptation in 1978.1971–1979: Breakthrough, acclaim and awards success
After many small film roles, Burstyn gained recognition after starring in The Last Picture Show, a coming-of-age story, directed by Peter Bogdanovich and adapted from a semi-autobiographical 1966 novel by Larry McMurtry. The film received critical acclaim for its nostalgia and visual style that is reminiscent of 1951, the year in which the plot takes place. The film was nominated for eight Academy Awards, including Best Supporting Actress for Burstyn and her co-star Cloris Leachman, with the latter winning the award. In 1998, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry, being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". Next she appeared in the drama The King of Marvin Gardens in 1972, with Jack Nicholson, Bruce Dern, and Scatman Crothers. A story about a daydreamer who convinces his brother to help fund a get-rich-quick scheme, the film was well received by critics.In 1972, Burstyn sought the lead role of Chris MacNeil in the supernatural horror film The Exorcist. The film studio was initially reluctant to cast her, but when no other actors were put forward, Burstyn was chosen for the part. Her co-stars were Max von Sydow, Lee J. Cobb, Kitty Winn, Jack MacGowran, Jason Miller, and Linda Blair. The Exorcist had a production budget of $12 million, and its principal photography was held in various parts of New York City. Filming proved to be challenging for the entire cast; it took "six-day weeks, twelve-hour days for nine months" to film, and director William Friedkin used a prop gun to get genuine reactions from the cast. Burstyn also injured her coccyx, which led to permanent injury to her spine. Film critic Roger Ebert praised Burstyn for her ability to capture MacNeil's "frustration" when her daughter is possessed by an evil spirit. Against expectations, The Exorcist was a major commercial success at the box-office. Adjusted for inflation, the film is the ninth highest-grossing film of all time in the U.S. and Canada and the top-grossing R-rated film of all time. It won two Academy Awards – Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Sound Mixing, and earned Burstyn her first nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress.
Burstyn followed up with a small role in the comedy-drama Harry and Tonto. Her next major role was in Martin Scorsese's romantic drama Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore where she played a widowed woman, raising a son and yearning to start a new life for herself as a singer. She was drawn to the script because of the character's resemblance to her own life. Burstyn was also inspired by the works of Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem, who found that women were searching to "redefine their roles in society". Burstyn was offered to direct but turned it down to concentrate on her performance, but selected then-newcomer Scorsese as director and recalled the collaboration as "one of the best experiences I've ever had". Vincent Canby of The New York Times wrote, "Burstyn never misses the eccentric beat that distinguishes it—that makes Alice such a hugely appealing character who is both banal and very rare". Her performance in the film earned her the Academy Award for Best Actress. In 1975, she became a graduate of the first group of participants in the American Film Institute Directing Workshop for Women. In 1977, she served as a member of the jury at the 27th Berlin International Film Festival.
Burstyn played supporting roles in Providence and A Dream of Passion. Although the films were independent dramas and not widely seen, the latter was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Also in 1978, Burstyn starred in Same Time, Next Year opposite Alan Alda, a romantic-comedy about two people, married to others, who meet for a romantic tryst once a year for two decades. The film is based on a 1975 play of the same title by Bernard Slade. Upon its release on November 22, the film garnered mixed reviews, with Janet Maslin of The New York Times stating, "Slade's screenplay isn't often funny, and it's full of momentous events that can't be laughed away", but praises Burstyn for giving the role "warmth and grace". Same Time, Next Year received four Academy Award nominations, including a third Best actress nomination for Burstyn. At the annual Golden Globe Awards, Burstyn won Best Actress – Motion Picture Comedy or Musical, while the film received two other nominations—Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for Alda and Best Original Song.
1980–1998: Established actress
Burstyn hosted NBC's Saturday Night Live, a late-night sketch comedy and variety show, in December 1980. That year, Burstyn starred in the drama Resurrection, a story about a woman who possesses strange powers after a surviving an automobile crash. Her performance in the film earned her a fourth nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress and a third nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama. In 1981, she starred in the biographical television film The People vs. Jean Harris, based on the real life murder of Herman Tarnower, a well-known cardiologist and author of the best-selling book The Complete Scarsdale Medical Diet. Burstyn's portrayal of the murderer, Jean Harris, earned her nominations for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie and the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Miniseries or Television Film. In 1981, Burstyn recorded "The Ballad of the Nazi Soldier's Wife" for Ben Bagley's album Kurt Weill Revisited, Vol. 2.In the mid-1980s, Burstyn starred in several television films, including The Ambassador, Surviving, Into Thin Air, Act of Vengeance, Something in Common and a 1987 adaptation of the play Pack of Lies, which was nominated for three Primetime Emmy Awards, including another for Burstyn as Outstanding Actress in a Mini-Series or Movie. For the theatrical release Twice in a Lifetime, co-starring Gene Hackman and Ann-Margret, she portrayed Kate, the wife whom Hackman's character divorces when he falls in love with another woman.
In 1986, Burstyn starred in an ABC television sitcom, The Ellen Burstyn Show, with co-stars Megan Mullally as her daughter and Elaine Stritch as her mother. Created by David Frankel it ran only for one season. In 1987, she appeared in Hanna's War, and the television movies Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam and Look Away. In 1988, she then participated again as a member of the jury for the 38th Berlin International Film Festival.
In 1990, Burstyn won the Sarah Siddons Award for her work in Chicago theatre. A variety of acting performances followed suit, including in the dramas When You Remember Me, Dying Young and Grand Isle. In addition to television movies, Burstyn appeared in When a Man Loves a Woman with co-stars Andy Garcia and Meg Ryan.
In 1995, Burstyn portrayed Judith in the comedy-drama Roommates. The film received negative reviews and emerged as a commercial failure at the box-office, but received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Makeup and Hairstyling. Also that year, Burstyn appeared in How to Make an American Quilt, based on the 1991 novel of the same name by Whitney Otto, which tells the stories of several generations of women who are part of the same quilting circle. Despite a mixed critical response, the cast received a nomination for the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture.
In 1998, Burstyn appeared in Playing by Heart, with co-stars including Sean Connery and Angelina Jolie, a story of eleven ordinary people in Los Angeles who are connected in different ways. Some critics such as Roger Ebert viewed the film positively despite its lackluster performance at the box office. Burstyn next found supporting roles in The Spitfire Grill, about a woman starting a new life after being released from prison, and Deceiver, a murder crime drama. Although not box office hits, each film garnered mixed to positive responses, according to film review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. Next, she appeared in James Gray's The Yards alongside a principal cast of Mark Wahlberg, Joaquin Phoenix, Charlize Theron, Faye Dunaway and James Caan. The crime drama was unpopular and a commercial failure, earning less than $1 million worldwide from a budget of $24 million.