Lee Grant
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This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. (January 2008) |
| Lee Grant | |
|---|---|
 Grant at the premiere of F.I.S.T. (April 1978) |
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| Born | Lyova Haskell Rosenthal New York City, New York, U.S. |
| Occupation | Actress, director |
| Years active | 1949–2007 |
| Spouse(s) | Arnold Manoff (1951-1960; divorced; 2 children) Joseph Feury (né Fioretti; 1962-present) |
| Children | Dinah Manoff and Tom Manoff |
Lee Grantis an American stage, film and television actress, and film director. She was blacklisted for 12 years from film work beginning in the mid-1950s, but worked in the theatre, and would eventually win the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance as Felicia Karpf in Shampoo (1975).
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Early life [edit]
Grant was born Lyova Haskell Rosenthal in New York City the daughter of Eastern European Jewish immigrants Witia (née Haskell), a teacher, and Abraham W. Rosenthal, a realtor and educator. The family resided at 706 Riverside Drive.[1]
Career [edit]
Grant studied acting at the NYC Neighborhood Playhouse under the guidance of Sanford Meisner before establishing herself as a dramatic actress on and off Broadway, earning praise for her role as a shoplifter in Detective Story, which began its run on March 23, 1949. She was a regular on the CBS soap opera, Search For Tomorrow in the early 1950s. She made her film debut two years later in the film version of the same name (Detective Story), receiving her first Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress nomination, and winning the Best Actress Award at the Cannes Film Festival.[citation needed]
Called before the House Committee on Un-American Activities to testify against her husband, the playwright Arnold Manoff, father of her two children, Grant refused to testify and was blacklisted, but continued to work in theater and resumed her film career in the early 1960s, appearing in the television series Peyton Place as Stella Chernak. She won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Drama for that role. In 1968, Grant appeared in a 3rd season episode of Mission Impossible, portraying the wife of a U.S. diplomat who goes undercover to discredit a rogue diplomat.
She received subsequent Academy Award nominations for The Landlord (1970) and Voyage of the Damned (1976). She won an Oscar for Shampoo (1975). She has directed several documentary films, including Down and Out in America (1986) which won the Academy Award for Documentary Feature. In recent years she directed a series of Intimate Portrait episodes (for Lifetime Television) that celebrated a diverse range of accomplished women.
Grant appeared as a cunning killer on an episode of Columbo, for which she was nominated for an Emmy as Outstanding Lead Actress - Miniseries or a Movie. Competing against herself, she received the award for her other Emmy-nominated performance in The Neon Ceiling. She had her own sitcom, Fay, which was canceled after only eight episodes. She made a guest appearance on Empty Nest, in which her daughter Dinah Manoff starred. In 1988, she was awarded the Women in Film Crystal Award for outstanding women who, through their endurance and the excellence of their work, have helped to expand the role of women within the entertainment industry.[2]
Filmography [edit]
As actress [edit]
As director [edit]
| Year | Production | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 1975 | For the Use of the Hall | TV |
| 1976 | The Stronger | short subject |
| 1980 | Tell Me a Riddle | |
| 1981 | The Willmar 8 | documentary |
| 1984 | A Matter of Sex | TV |
| 1985 | What Sex Am I? | documentary |
| ABC Afterschool Special | Cindy Eller: A Modern Fairy Tale (TV episode) | |
| 1986 | Nobody's Child | TV - Won - DGA Award |
| Down and Out in America | documentary (also narrator) | |
| 1989 | Staying Together | |
| No Place Like Home | TV | |
| 1994 | When Women Kill | documentary |
| Seasons of the Heart | TV | |
| Following Her Heart | TV | |
| Reunion | TV | |
| 1997 | Say It, Fight It, Cure It | TV |
| 1999 | Confronting the Crisis: Childcare in America | TV |
| 2000 | American Masters | Sidney Poitier: One Bright Light |
| The Loretta Claiborne Story | TV | |
| 2001 | The Gun Deadlock | TV |
| 2004 | Biography | Melanie Griffith |
| 2000–2004 | Intimate Portrait | 43 episodes |
| 2005 | ... A Father... A Son... Once Upon a Time in Hollywood | TV |
References [edit]
External links [edit]
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Lee Grant |
- Lee Grant at the Internet Movie Database
- Lee Grant at the Internet Broadway Database
- Lee Grant at the Internet Off-Broadway Database
- Lee Grant at the University of Wisconsin's Actors Studio audio collection
| Preceded by Estelle Parsons Vacant (2003-2004) |
Artistic Director of the Actors Studio 2004-2007 With: Carlin Glynn and Stephen Lang (2004-2006) |
Succeeded by Ellen Burstyn |
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- Actresses from New York City
- Actors Studio members
- American film actresses
- American film directors
- American soap opera actresses
- American stage actresses
- American television actresses
- American television directors
- Best Supporting Actress Academy Award winners
- Emmy Award winners
- American people of Russian-Jewish descent
- Female film directors
- Female television directors
- Hollywood blacklist
- Jewish American actresses
- Living people
- 20th-century American actresses
- 21st-century American actresses
- Film directors from New York City
