Ellen Burstyn
Ellen Burstyn | |
|---|---|
 Burstyn at the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival premiere of Poliwood, May 1, 2009 | |
| Born | Edna Rae Gillooly |
| Occupation | Actress |
| Years active | 1958–present |
| Spouse(s) | William Alexander (1950–1957) Paul Roberts (1958–1962) Neil Burstyn (1964–1972) |
| Website | http://www.ellenburstyn.net/ |
Ellen Burstyn (born December 7, 1932) is an American stage and film actress.
Early life
Burstyn was born Edna Rae Gillooly in Detroit, Michigan, the daughter of Correine Marie (née Hamel) and John Austin Gillooly, who was a building contractor.[1] She describes herself as "Irish, French, Pennsylvania Dutch, a little Canadian Indian".[2][3] She was raised Catholic but is now known to practice Sufi Islam.[4][5] Her parents divorced when she was young. She would later refer to her mother as tough, violent and controlling. She left home at age 18.
Career
Burstyn debuted on Broadway in 1957 and joined Lee Strasberg's The Actor's Studio in 1967. In 1975, she won a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for her performance in Same Time, Next Year (a role she would reprise in the film version, three years later). In 1990 she won the Sarah Siddons Award for her work in Chicago theatre. Until 1970, she was credited as "Ellen McRae" in nearly all her film and TV appearances.
Burstyn received Oscar nominations for Best Supporting Actress in 1971 for her role in The Last Picture Show and for Best Actress in 1973 for the horror movie The Exorcist. She finally won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1974 for her performance in Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, directed by Martin Scorsese. She was nominated again in 1978 for Same Time, Next Year, in 1980 for Resurrection, and for Requiem for a Dream in 2000.
In the early to mid 1960's, Burstyn played Dr. Kate Bartok on the NBC soap opera, The Doctors. She worked on several primetime television shows of the 1960s, including guest appearances on Perry Mason, Maverick, Wagon Train, 77 Sunset Strip, The Big Valley and Gunsmoke. She hosted Saturday Night Live in 1980. In 1986, she had her own ABC sitcom, The Ellen Burstyn Show costarring Megan Mullally as her daughter and Elaine Stritch as her mother. It was canceled after one season. From 2000 to 2002, Burstyn appeared in the CBS television drama That's Life. In 2006, she starred as a bishop in the controversial NBC comedy-drama The Book of Daniel.
Recently, Burstyn appeared in The Fountain, directed by Darren Aronofsky, with whom she worked in Requiem for a Dream. She also appeared on a 2007 episode of the HBO series Big Love, playing the mother of polygamist wife Barbara Henrickson. She provides a supporting role as the mother of two sons in the The Elephant King. The movie originally premiered at the 2006 Tribeca Film Festival but did not open in U.S. theaters until October 2008. At the time, it was credited as receiving the highest per-screen opening gross as any movie in the country.
In 2008, Burstyn returned to the stage in Stephen Adly Guirgis's The Little Flower of East Orange, directed by Philip Seymour Hoffman in a co-production by LAByrinth Theater Company and The Public Theater in New York City. The off-Broadway production ran from March 18 - May 4. Burstyn played the title role of Marie Therese. In addition to her stage work, Burstyn portrayed former First Lady Barbara Bush in director Oliver Stone's film W. She earned an Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series in 2009 as the bipolar estranged mother of Detective Elliot Stabler on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. With this win, Burstyn became the 18th actor to win the Triple Crown of Acting.
Emmy Awards and controversy
Burstyn was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Actress in a Miniseries or Special, for the TV movie The People vs. Jean Harris (1981) and again for another TV movie, Pack of Lies (1987).
In 2006, she was nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or Special for HBO's Mrs. Harris as Dr. Tarnower's "Ex-Lover #3." (She had played the title character in The People vs Mrs Jean Harris). She was nominated for a performance that consisted of 14 seconds of screen time, two lines of dialogue and a total of 38 words. This is the shortest nominated performance in the history of the Emmy Awards.
Soon after the nominations were announced, an outcry ensued from the press and the public regarding the worthiness of the nomination. One explanation for the nomination was that people were honoring Burstyn for her nominated but non-winning performance from the first Harris telefilm. 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 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.[6]
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 10 percent of the project (9 minutes in a typical 90-minute telefilm).
Many critics still cite this incident to criticize the Emmy nomination process, claiming that name recognition has played an increasingly visible role over the years.[7]
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?") 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 Actor's Studio, alongside Al Pacino and Harvey Keitel.
Personal life
In 1950, she married Bill Alexander, but they divorced in 1957. The following year, she married Paul Roberts, with whom she adopted a boy named Jefferson in 1962. They divorced the same year.[8] She then 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 her autobiography Lessons in Becoming Myself, Burstyn revealed that he stalked her over a period of 6 years after she divorced him. He eventually forced sex with her somehow, but was not arrested, as forced sex in marriage was not yet considered a crime.[9] He committed suicide in 1978, upon which his parents sent Burstyn a telegram stating "Congratulations, you've won another Oscar; Neil killed himself".[10]
During the 1970s Burstyn began to question her Catholic faith. After studying the religions of Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam, she then became committed to the mystical form of Islam, and converted as a Sufi Muslim.[11] She is currently unmarried.
Filmography
References
- ^ Ellen Burstyn Biography (1932-)
- ^ Movies; Independent Minded; Academy Award winner Ellen Burstyn, a 'tough cookie,' is back with two gritty films and a TV show
- ^ Gillooly Doesn't Live Here Anymore
- ^ Ellen Burstyn: U.S. Acting 'Needs Some Help'
- ^ beliefnet: Ellen Burstyn, Sufism
- ^ "Ellen Burstyn sounds off on her Emmy nod". USA Today. 2006-11-03. Retrieved 2008-01-25.
- ^ Lisa de Moraes - Emmy Rules Change After Burstyn Nomination Flap - washingtonpost.com
- ^ http://www.ellenburstyn.net/timeline.htm
- ^ http://www.filmdime.com/screen-legends-ellen-burstyn/
- ^ Ellen Burstyn - Burstyn Feared Death As Abusive Husband Stalked Her
- ^ Ellen Burstyn NNDB. Retrieved on 2009-06-20.
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- Ellen Burstyn at AllMovie
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- Ellen Burstyn Official website
- The Stone Angel - Movie trailer
- American Muslims
- Actors Studio alumni
- American film actors
- American stage actors
- Best Actress Academy Award winners
- Best Musical or Comedy Actress Golden Globe (film) winners
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- Irish Americans
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- Tony Award winners
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- Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute alumni
- Genie Award winners for Best Actress
- 1932 births
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