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Wikipedia
Ellen Burstyn (born December 7, 1932) is an American actress, who has worked in film, stageand television. Her acting career began in theatre during the late 1950s, and over the next ten years, Burstyn appeared in several films and television series before joining the Actors Studio in 1967. She achieved recognition for her roles in The Last Picture Show (1971) and The Exorcist(1973), receiving Academy Award nominations for both performances. She won the Best Actress Oscar the following year for her work in Martin Scorsese's Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore(1973). In 1975 she won a Tony Award for her work in the Broadway production of Same Time, Next Year, and received a Golden Globe Award and a fourth Academy Award nomination for her performance in the 1978 film version. Burstyn continued to work extensively since the 1980s, and was acclaimed for her performance in the film Requiem for a Dream, for which she received several critic's awards.
Early life
Burstyn was born Edna Rae Gillooly in Detroit, Michigan, the daughter of Correine Marie (néeHamel) and John Austin Gillooly, who was a building contractor.She has described her ancestry as "Irish, French, Pennsylvania Dutch, a little Canadian Indian". She was raisedCatholic but is now known to practice Sufism. Her parents divorced when she was young. She would later refer to her mother as tough, violent and controlling. She left Detroit's Cass Technical high school without graduating and also left home on December 7, 1950, the day she turned 18 years old.
Career
Burstyn debuted on Broadway in 1957 and joined Lee Strasberg's The Actors Studio in New York City, New York, in 1967. 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 would reprise in the film version in 1978). Until 1970, she was credited as Ellen McRae in nearly all her film and television appearances.[clarification needed]
Burstyn received Academy Award nominations for Best Supporting Actress in 1971 for her role in the drama film The Last Picture Show and for Best Actress in 1973 for the horror film The Exorcist. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1974 for her performance in the drama Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, directed by Martin Scorsese. She also received Best Actress nominations in 1978 for Same Time, Next Year, in 1980 for the fantasy-drama
In 1990 she won the Sarah Siddons Award for her work in Chicago theatre.
Emmy Awards and controversy
Burstyn was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Actress in a Miniseries or Movie, for her role as Jean Harris in the biographicaltelevision film The People vs. Jean Harris (1981) and again for another television drama film, Pack of Lies (1987), an adaptation of the 1983 play.
In 2006, she was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or Movie for a role credited as "Former Tarnower Steady" in HBO's biographical television film Mrs. Harris. (She had played Jean Harris in The People vs. Jean Harris).
Soon after the nominations were announced, an outcry ensued from the press and the public regarding the worthiness of the nomination due to her minor role in the film, consisting of 14 seconds of screen time and 38 words of dialogue. One explanation for the nomination was that people were honoring Burstyn for her nominated but non-winning performance from the first Harris television film. A more popular accusation was that the nominating committee was either confused in their recollection, or merely "threw in" her name from sheer recognition, assuming a worthy performance without actually seeing it.
The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, the administrator of the Primetime Emmy Awards, initially insisted that "based on the popular vote, this is a legitimate nomination". Meanwhile, HBO deflected the blame for submitting the nomination to the movie-production company. Burstyn's own reaction ranged from initial silence to comments such as, "I thought it was fabulous. My next ambition is to get nominated for seven seconds, and ultimately I want to be nominated for a picture in which I don't even appear," and "This doesn't have anything to do with me. I don't even want to know about this. You people work it out yourself."
Ultimately, Kelly Macdonald, who starred in The Girl in the Cafe, won the award. In March 2007, the Academy officially announced that eligibility for a Primetime Emmy Award in any long-form supporting-actor category required nominees to appear on-screen in at least ten percent of the project (nine minutes in a typical ninety-minute television film).
Many critics still cite this incident to criticize the Emmy Award nomination process, claiming that name recognition has played an increasingly visible role over the years.
Other activities
During the 1970s Burstyn was active in the movement to free convicted boxer Rubin "Hurricane" Carter from jail.
In 1981, Burstyn recorded "The Ballad of the Nazi Soldier's Wife" (Kurt Weill's musical setting of Bertolt Brecht's text "Und was bekam des Soldaten Weib?")[clarification needed] for Ben Bagley's album Kurt Weill Revisited, Vol. 2.
Burstyn served as president of the Actors' Equity Association from 1982 to 1985.
In 1997, Burstyn was inducted into the Michigan Women's Hall of Fame. In 2000, she was named co-president of The Actors Studio, alongside Al Pacino and Harvey Keitel.
Personal life
In 1950, she married Bill Alexander, but they were divorced in 1957. The following year, she married Paul Roberts, with whom she adopted a boy named Jefferson in 1962; the couple was divorced the same year.
In 1964, she married fellow actor Neil Burstyn, but the union was turbulent. Neil Burstyn was schizophrenic; he would have episodes of violence, and eventually left her. He attempted to come back to her, but she rejected him, ultimately divorcing him in 1972. In herautobiography, Lessons in Becoming Myself, Burstyn revealed that he stalked her over a period of six years after she divorced him. He eventually broke into her house and raped her, but no charges were filed, as spousal rape was not yet legally a crime.He committedsuicide in 1978, upon which his parents sent Burstyn a telegram stating "Congratulations, you've won another Oscar; Neil killed himself".
Burstyn affiliates herself to all religious faiths as she explains: "I am a spirit opening to the truth that lives in all of these religions”.
Filmography
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