Lee Grant
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| Lee Grant | |
|---|---|
 Grant at the premiere of F.I.S.T. (April 1978) |
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| Born | Lyova Haskell Rosenthal October 31, 1928 [1] New York City, New York, U.S. |
| Occupation | Actress, director |
| Years active | 1949–2007 |
| Spouse | Arnold Manoff (1951-1960; divorced); 2 chidlren Joseph Feury (né Fioretti; 1962-present) |
| Children | Dinah Manoff and Tom Manoff |
Lee Grant (born October 31, 1928)[2] is 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 Carp in the film Shampoo (1975).
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[edit] Early life
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.[3]
[edit] Career
Grant studied acting at NYC's prestigious Neighborhood Playhouse under the guidance of famed acting coach Sanford Meisner before establishing herself as a dramatic actress on and off Broadway, earning praise for her role as a shoplifter in the play Detective Story which began its run on March 23, 1949.
Lee Grant 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. 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 the TV series Mission Impossible, portraying the wife of a U.S. diplomat who goes undercover to discredit a rogue diplomat (Season 3, Episode 8 - "The 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.[citation needed]
Grant appeared as a cunning icy 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.[4]
[edit] Filmography
[edit] As actress
[edit] As director
| 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 |
[edit] References
[edit] External links
 |
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
| 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 |
- 1928 births
- Actors from New York City
- American film actors
- American film directors
- American soap opera actors
- American stage actors
- American television actors
- 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 actors
- Living people
