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Ellen BurstynAdd to My CelebsAge 79 Birthday Dec. 7th, 1932 Born in Detroit, Michigan, USA Height 5' 7" |
Ellen Burstyn's Main TV Roles
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Main Movie Roles2009 - The Velveteen Rabbit2008 - W. 2007 - The Stone Angel 2006 - The Fountain 2006 - The Elephant King 2006 - The Wicker Man 2003 - A Decade Under the Influence 2002 - Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood 2002 - Red Dragon 2000 - The Yards 2000 - Requiem for a Dream 1999 - The Hurricane 1999 - Walking Across Egypt 1998 - Playing by Heart 1997 - Deceiver 1996 - The Spitfire Grill 1995 - How To Make An American Quilt 1994 - When a Man Loves a Woman 1991 - Dying Young 1988 - Hanna's War 1984 - Terror in the Aisles 1978 - Same Time, Next Year 1974 - Harry and Tonto 1974 - Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore 1973 - The Exorcist 1971 - The Last Picture Show 1970 - Alex in Wonderland |
NOTE: Complete List of Works can be found at IMDB
Born in Detroit, Ellen Burstyn worked a number of jobs before she became an actress. At 14, she was a short-order cook at a lunch counter. After graduating from Detroit's Cass Technical High School, she went to Texas to model and then to New York as a showgirl on "The Jackie Gleason Show" (1952). From there, it was to Montreal as a nightclub dancer and then Broadway with her debut in "Fair Game (1957)". By 1963, she appeared on the TV series "The Doctors" (1963), but she gained notice for her role in Goodbye Charlie (1964). Ellen then took time off to study acting with Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio.
Her big break came when she was cast as the female lead in The Last Picture Show (1971). For this role, she received nominations for the Golden Globe and Academy Award. Next, she co-starred with Jack Nicholson in The King of Marvin Gardens (1972), giving a chilling performance. Then came The Exorcist (1973). Ellen was again nominated for the Golden Globe and Academy Award. In 1974, she starred in Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974), playing a waitress, which is a job that she well knows. For this performance, she won the Oscar as Best Actress as well as the British award for the same category. For the Golden Globe, she was nominated but lost to Marsha Mason. The same year, Ellen made history by winning a Tony Award for the Broadway play "Same Time, Next Year". She won praise and award nominations for the movie version of Same Time, Next Year (1978) and Resurrection (1980). "Resurrection" was a another great film in which she played a woman with the power to heal. Even with all these successful movies and all the awards, Ellen found that she could barely get a job in the 80s. A succession of TV movies resulting in two Emmy nominations kept Ellen going as did the series "The Ellen Burstyn Show" (1986). The TV movies continued through the 90s. Also in the 90s, Ellen was cast in the supporting role in such movies as The Cemetery Club (1993), How to Make an American Quilt (1995), The Baby-Sitters Club (1995) and The Spitfire Grill (1996). In addition to her acting, Burstyn was the first woman president of Actor's Equity, the actors' union, from 1982 to 1985.
TRIVIA:
- She wrote to the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences to protest 'Liv Ullmann' (qv)'s elimination from Oscar contention in 1974 for her performance in _Scener ur ett äktenskap (1973)_ (qv) (aka "Scenes from a Marriage"). AMPAS used a rule under which TV presentations must have appeared in movie theaters in the same year, to prevent Ullmann from being nominated. The result is that Burstyn won the Oscar for her performance in _Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974)_ (qv).
- In 2005, she was awarded with the Lifetime Achievement Award in Acting of the Savannah Film Festival.
- The runaway story of her character Alice Hyatt in _Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974)_ (qv) inspired the character of Dolors ('Montse Caminal' (qv)) in the Short film _Silenci (2007)_ (qv).
- Made a special Academy Awards appearance in 1998, at the _The 70th Annual Academy Awards (1998) (TV)_ (qv), and participated in the Oscar Winners Tribute sequence along with other Academy Award winners.
- Said in the book "On Women Turning 50" that she did not attend the 1975 Academy Awards, where she won the Best Actress award for _Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974)_ (qv), because she was certain she would win and could not handle the pressure and attention. After attending several later Oscar ceremonies at which she lost, she regretted not being there to accept her award.
- Worked as an acrobat and as a model for paperback covers.
- Received a permanent spinal injury while filming _The Exorcist (1973)_ (qv). In the sequence where she is thrown away from her possessed daughter, a harness jerked her hard away from the bed. She fell on her coccyx and screamed in pain, which was filmed for the movie.
- Member of jury at the Cannes Film Festival in 1981
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